Bank Holiday musings

It’s Bank Holiday Monday.  It looks like it’s going to be another fabulous day.  I write this, propped up on

my cosy king-sized bed, with a steaming cuppa and the Breakfast in bed that I have brought myself,

looking out at the beautiful garden, that is bursting with

colour and wild-life.  I’ve had my hair done, mozzied around the shops and got a few wee bargains,

pottered in the garden, walked, washed manky windows, sorted laundry, recycled, listened to great tunes,

wrote letters, listened to Desert Island Discs, went for drinks with friends, dinner with family and tea with

more friends.

And quite frankly, I’m miserable as hell.

I was so busy buzzing around with work and family in the last few weeks that the Bank Holiday Weekend

and the children’s week-long mid-term break washed over me.  There was last minute negotiations about

co-parenting holiday arrangements and I packed them off for 5 days. My twinnies don’t usually offer a big

‘goodbye’ as I drop them off, but last Friday, they both ran back to the car and gave me big warm hugs

that have kept me going all weekend.  

I’ve gotten used to my pair not being here now.  Accepted that they will miss lots of family gatherings

because they fall when it’s ‘not my weekend’.  I look forward to the ‘break’. But it’s rarely that - it’s running

and fetching. So, this weekend, I thought best to just ‘be’, make no plans, turn down the kind invitations to

go visiting and just 'be'.  

Head space. Time.  Rest.

My lawn mower won’t start and I take it as a sign to take it easy.  I decide to embrace the dandelions.

Waves of unwanted emotion run through me.  

Loneliness.  I’m missing my children terribly.  So bad, I have a pain in my heart. I thought this stuff was

supposed to get easier?

Guilt.  For not visiting my Mam.  The self-afflicted ‘only-daughter’ sense of duty, responsibility and love,

heightened since my father’s death.  But that 4-hour round trip just seemed too much this weekend.

I phoned her last night to apologise for not being there.  Her cheery voice talking about her busy weekend

leaves me feeling reassured and a little less shit about myself.

Dread.  One of the other things I did this weekend was to sort out paperwork for my upcoming divorce.  

The thing that I’ve wanted so much for so long if finally here, and I’m half terrified. I want it all to go away.

I’ve had so many days in court already, taking a day’s leave off work, paying a solicitor, to sit there on a

hard wooden bench, hoping that my case would be heard, leaving feeling drained.  Taken aback by the

court systems. How the experience can make me feel, so little opportunity to speak, not have my voice

heard, as the judge tells me to ‘hurry up’ while I choke back the tears.   ‘You’d think you’d know better with

your big Council job’, he said one day, when I didn’t have a document that I didn’t know was required. He

didn’t hear me when I replied ‘I’m here as a citizen and mother.  Not as an employee’.

I think about how it all has knocked my confidence.

Stopped my writing.

I just want it all to stop.

My phone rings as I type.  It’s my daughter. I can hear my son in the background.  She’s wondering if I

remembered to pay for her school tour, if I got that email from teacher.  I joke with her that she might not

enjoy the tour, that it might be better if she stays home that day.  She’s laughing. I don’t tell her that I miss

her.

So, what to do?  I don’t want to feel like this.  

I’ll post this online.  I’ll say it out loud, in amongst all of the cheery Bank Holiday posts, because just naming

it helps.

I can’t run away from these feelings, but I will pull on the sports gear and go for a run.  It will be a poor

attempt, but it will be good for the head, as well as the body. I’ll come back and potter again in the garden.  

It’s so vast - all the jobs will never get done.

It’s a work in progress.

A bit like myself.