WELCOME

It is with the greatest of pleasure that I am moving my blog to the present site. Why is it? It's because my poor laptop is bursting at the seams with photos, web files and all kinds of things, so I've decided to move things around and free up some space. This is the first step to that end. My former blog will remain in the same place, password-protected as before. Perhaps I'll do better at updating this one!

All posts prior to this one were imported from a previous blog which were written under a pseudonym.

Love and Hate

If Love and Hate are opposites, is it possible to feel and experience one without the other? I like to think I have loved but not to have hated. On things I intensely dislike, I prefer not to sink into out and out hatred, but with love, one would wish occasionally to feel it so intensely that it hurts and thrills all at once.

I can't bring myself to feel real hatred but neither have I experienced intense love, except for odd moments when nursing my baby. Neither emotion can be sustained at its most intense level, it would be too much to bear. Perhaps I'm not alone in feeling fairly neutral most of the time and having waves of intense emotion from time to time.

That' probably the way it's meant to be.

Depression?

It seems to me that whatever I do, I am led to a place where I can only weep. I finished my job a week ago and have had a fairly satisfactory week of catching up with chores around the house. But I am lost when it comes to using my leisure time. What I need is something absorbing to occupy my mind and keep me away from my emotions.

Today I decided to finally finish a scrapbook which I started in 2001 but abandoned a year or so later. I found scrapbooking too time-consuming although at the time I enjoyed doing it. So I decided that I could finally finish it and put it away for good but instead I found myself looking for photos which were missing which I thought would be easy since they are only a few years old and the kids are still here but I realised that I have become so fat and old and unattractive that I can't bear to look at myself as I was seven years ago. It's SO frustrating to be so stupidly affected by everything.

What the heck?

OK so here's the dealio. As of two weeks from tomorrow I shall be jobless. However, I also feel useless and without purpose or function. Despite the time it took up and the toll it took on my emotions, I really miss doing my family history research.

I am completely conforming to the stereotype of the depressed post-menopausal woman. Here is a checklist:

• unpredictable moods
• emotions close to the surface
• feelings of worthlessness
• an inability to envisage a future
• a loss of interest in things
  

I am sure I have more but I can't be bothered.

What I need is a new interest. In the past few years have found things to inspire and fascinate me to become absorbed in, but none of them are in the running now, so what is it to be?

We have just booked up a Florida vacation for a week in the depths of winter but I cannot raise any enthusiasm for it. I am very fat and very tired. I want to have fun but I am not sure I can do that any more.

What a crabby old bitch I have become.

Back to School

Unbelievably it's been four months since my last entry and apart from the usual ups and downs my mental state is just about the same.

Life has changed a little - I visited my home country for two of the most amazing weeks ever. A lot of people would have found it very dull - all I did was visit friends and relatives, take a few photos in London and troll around the welsh countryside with my sister, photographing gravestones, but for me it was a dream come true.

Finally after that trip, sometime during August, I put away all my family history research and photographs and am ready for a new project to occupy my mind for a while. I have phases of about two years at a time in which the hobby of the moment occupies every free moment I have. I haven't yet found my replacement hobby - perhaps I will go back to painting or writing, or maybe I'll do something more practical.

Emotionally I am still a wreck. I love my family without question but I am such a bad parent that sometimes I feel I do more harm than good. It certainly isn't the fault of the children that the mother can't cope or doesn't know how to deal with problems. I am just not mentally or emotionally capable of being the mother I would like to be.

Two months later...

... believe it or not I am STILL trying to wind up my family history stuff so I can put it away but stuff keeps coming up. It's one mystery after another and like a good detective I simply cannot let a lead go.

A lot has happened to lighten my mood although I have not been without a few minor panic attacks. Firstly, in anticipation of my forthcoming 50th birthday in a couple of weeks, I am going on a solo trip to the UK to visit friends and family. I am dreading the travel but looking forward very much to meeting up with some old friends on my birthday and travelling around and about meeting a few people.

Why is it that what was once so simple is now a big production? Why do I worry about things so much instead of relaxing and enjoying it - and pretending to go with the flow but inwardly furiously trying to go the other way? I drive myself nuts, that's for sure.

Anyway, the trip is planned, arrangements are made - and if I didn't make arrangements I'd end up being frustrated not to be able to see some people. As it is, there are a few that can't make it, but that's too bad for them and for me. It has certainly eased my stress knowing that I can escape the mundane and the bickering for a couple of weeks, although I know it's only put a patch over the problems and they'll burst through again at some later date.

I am thinking about giving up my job - in fact I've been thinking about it for some time, but I hate to let people down. I feel that I am not a good enough parent or housekeeper. I am tired at the end of the day when I am supposed to get cleaning and cooking done and I certainly am not inspired to try anything new. I'd like to keep the place cleaner and most of all I'd like to feel I have the time to take care of things at home so that I have the energy to do right by my family.

The weather is gorgeous this mother's day; I wish it would be like this for the whole summer.

A new resolution

I have come to a realisation this morning. I have been feeling sad and depressed on and off for many months now and being me, I self-analyse all the time. I think that's a habit I got from m mother. The root causes of my sadness are:

• that I don't always feel happy at home
  
• that I have been living in the past for two years, tracing my family history and making it my life's work to record everything I have learned and everything I remember - and being frustrated at the time it takes.
• that I will never get over the deaths of my parents (and it's been 36 and 21 years since they died).

I therefore resolve to put aside all my family history work. I'll give myself a month to file and sort everything so that I or someone else can pick it up at a later date and continue. Then I'll start spending my time in the present, and enjoy my children while they're still with me and I am with them.

I shall take up painting again and enjoy my family more.

I shall spend less time wandering aimlessly around the world on Google maps, re-tracing the steps of my youth, and more time outside walking the dog.