The Cerebral Mum

After my “Meh” post about my birthday, the evening turned out to be a lot of fun. Big Sis and her B made dinner for me and bought a cake. It was just a nice quiet “family” thing but I think you should always have a family thing even if you’re going to party hard. That’s always what we did with birthdays and Christmas when I was growing up but Big Sis and I have been having trouble working up much enthusiasm for these events after years of it being just the 2 of us, and now that we’re living together they are even less of an event because, well, we’re sisters.

However, adding that new, unofficial family member made a big difference because he has all the infectious enthusiasm while we alone are just too “familiar”. So it was a great night, with just some simple food, a birthday cake (which you’ve already seen all over Caspar’s face), good company and a bottle of wine. And at the end of our meal, and my snap-happiness (because I’d actually charged the batteries for my camera), I even conned Big Sis and B into putting Caspar to bed.

They said, Yes, before realising that they’d need to hose him off, change his nappy, put him in his jammies, brush his teeth and read him 3 books, but they did it anyway.

Now, before anyone thinks I’m a bad mother because bedtimes are sacred: I know! But I do it every single day. We have dinner and then I do my mummy work: bath, clothes, teeth, books, cuddles, bottle. I’m not complaining, because it is the best kind of work in the world, but I can’t remember the last time I was able to sit and actually digest my food. I hate doing things right after dinner. The dishes get done in the morning.

So on my birthday after dinner I sat in B’s garage (we’re on a dual occupancy block) with my glass of red and digested. And it was great.

Except, of course, it wasn’t. Or, at least, not entirely.

Because bedtimes are sacred.

I spent the rest of the evening at home wanting to wake him up so we could have our cuddles, so I could say goodnight “properly”. It’s all very well to have a little help now and then, but my instincts tell me that everything is my job all of the time. Of course, sometimes being a good mum means not letting those instincts take over, and leaving room for other people in your child’s life, but just because it’s okay doesn’t mean it’s comfortable.

Besides, sitting and digesting food is now… weird.

But now I’ve digressed and am a long way from what I was intending to write about. Why am I talking about my birthday? Because today I went with Big Sis to organise my present.

I am getting new glasses!

I got my new prescription and picked out the frames and ordered the lenses. And I’m sooooo excited. My poor old broken and lost ones were ancient and ugly. And my new ones are stylish and slick and flattering. I can’t wait to pick them up!

We had B’s card and he told me I could spend $300 but I really didn’t want to do that because I knew that money was coming out of the savings he Big Sis has been putting away for a new car. (B, obviously, is generous to a fault, so he lets Big Sis manage his budget, which he then breaks.)

Anyway, we went to the local shopping centre. The first shop didn’t have any appointments for a week. Er, uni is starting! Then we went to OPSM and they had an appointment that day but I would be lucky to get even the simplest glasses for less than $300 there. So no way. Then we found the next one. They’d had a cancellation and could fit me in at midday. And not only that, but all their frames under $200 were 80% off. 80%!

So I got the coolest (yes, I know that isn’t a cool word) $170 frames for $34. I not sure when they’ll be ready to pick up, but they put a rush on them for me and soon…

I WILL HAVE VISION!

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I’m stressed at the moment and it is getting in the way of me getting things done. I haven’t been meeting my own deadlines for getting the WinterWarm site finished, even though I’m so close. I’ve hardly written a thing on my other blog, and what I have published has been uptight and, well, basically pretty crappy.

And another thing is stressing me out. Feel free to stop reading now because there is nothing tackier than whining about money and that is what I’m going to do.

Basically, my income doesn’t actually cover the bills I need to pay. I put in an application a while ago to draw down some of my home equity to clear some debts and help me fix a few things at the house so I could sell it but nobody ever got back to me. Needless to say, my credit card company has had enough and I now have a month to come up with $8,500. That’s pretty hard when, after paying a home loan, a personal loan and some of your minimum cc payment, all you have left for the rest of life’s expenses (you know, like food and electricity, or replacing glasses) is less than $200 a month.

So I get on my bank’s case and ask what is going on with the loan. I get a message back simply saying, Sorry but it was not approved. Er, thanks for letting me know.

But I understand. My credit rating is screwy. It all went pear-shaped after the indecent assault by an employer, when I left my job (obviously) and went spiraling into depression.

However, the things that shits me is that I have, at a minimum, $60,000 equity in that house. There is no danger to the bank. Especially because drawing down on my home loan will actually reduce all my expenses each month making it easier for me to pay the damn home loan. Especially because drawing down on the loan would make it easier for me to sell the thing and give them all their damn money back.

Basically they’re saying, We don’t trust you to pay less than you do right now. Does that makes sense? Well, no. But banks have their little ways.

So I wrote back asking what I could do. Could I go higher up and appeal the decision? Could I reduce the figure being applied for? And so on and so on. They have said they might approve it if I can get a family member to be a guarantor. Um, yeah.

My mother lives in Sudan: I don’t think they’ll want her signature. My sister is living on income insurance because of her spinal injury and has her own home loan to pay. And she’s already stretched from paying the bills for a household of 3 because I can’t afford my fair share of the utilities.

Does trying to find a solution to this feel too hard? Yes, it does. Is sitting here whining about it going to help? No, it’s not. Right at this moment, can I think of anything better to do? In a word… No.

But c’est la guerre, right? C’est la guerre…

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I forgot. Big Sis reminded me mid-morning. I said…

“Huh?”

Yup. My birthday is huge event.

I’ll probably get a couple of emails or IMs to remind me again later. With a small family spread out all over the the country and the world, celebrations are all a little flat and I can’t really get excited about it. That’s not a complaint in any way. I’m just not enthused. Is that normal? Is there an age when you’ve just had enough birthdays for them to be something of a farce? Or do some people still get a buzz from all the fuss and personal attention?

Is there an age when there is no longer any fuss and personal attention, and it just becomes a polite exercise?

Wow, this sounds dreary. I don’t mean it to. Woo-hoo! I’m 35! Nope, can’t do it. It’s just another number. I’m really looking forward to Caspar’s birthdays when he is old enough to enjoy them. (And when I don’t freak out about the whole thing like last year.) I’m looking forward to making the whole day an event, to making them memorable and special and filled with fun and love. So perhaps birthdays are for children and there is a time “to put away childish things”.

My birthday? Meh.

Having said that, though, I do love other people’s birthdays. I like buying presents and going to parties and making a fuss, so maybe when I am living back in town and can see whatever friends I have left who are still hanging on to threads of relationships stretched by inaccessibility, I’ll find the fun again.

Until then… Happy Birthday To Me. On a day just like any other day.

Seriously, is this normal or sad?

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Last night, when I was chatting with my mother on Skype, I wrote…

“I really should go because I want to visit the people who have taken part in the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse because I’ve been neglecting them lately and they are important.”

She wrote back, “Indeed.”

It isn’t something that gets talked about any more in my family so it was just a tiny confirmation that, although we’ve moved on with our lives, nothing has been brushed back under the carpet. It made me happy.

Anyway, the Carnival is up over at Survivor’s Can Thrive, and this month it is beautifully titled After Child Abuse-Love Remains. I haven’t yet had a chance to read everything yet, but as usual there are many inspiring, and wise, posts. Some of them are even a bit like Music and Lyrics, just as life should be, but I’ll let you dig around and find them on your own.

If you don’t have time to read through the Carnival though, just take a quick look at Austin’s post on her blog, The People Behind My Eyes: Inside A Psych Ward. I found it very enlightening.

If you haven’t visited Austin’s site before you will also find galleries of her artwork there and her artwork is beautiful. Prints and postcards are available from RedBubble

But I have work to do, so for tonight, you’ll get no more of me…

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I have a confession to make: In spite of the fact that I’m a hard-ass (Yes, I am a hard-ass!), I’m a sucker for romantic comedies.

Today we went to the video store, something I haven’t done in a long time, and while Caspar played on the slide with Big Sis (Yes, my video store has play equipment!), I wandered around and selected a couple of $2.95 overnighters. I like watching brainless movies on lazy days and this afternoon, while Cas slept for 2 hours (That’s right, 2 hours!), I curled up on my living room bed and watched Music and Lyrics.

I know. It’s fluff.

It’s entirely ridiculous and the storyline is thin to say the least. And I loathe pop music. And I loathe pop culture. In fact, I loathe everything formulaic so it could easily be described as 84 minutes of my life that I will never get back. But I enjoyed every one of those minutes and they left me gooey and smiling, blissfully immune to the realities of the world.

Of course, it helps that Drew Barrymore is, well… Drew Barrymore and that Hugh Grant, although sometimes a twat, occasionally displays the self-deprecating charm the English do so well.

(Which, incidentally, is another thing I’m a sucker for. Witness Exhibit A.)

I’m not sure why I like Rom Coms so much. It’s out of character. I’m not a sappy type and I don’t understand fussing over Valentine’s Day or anniversaries. I don’t understand candlelight dinners or flowers or chocolate. In fact, I don’t even like chocolate, especially when it’s heart-shaped. Basically, all the behaviours stereotypically associated with “romance” make me want to heave.

Even when I’m in love.

Of course, this one suckered me with a little nostalgia, having stayed up nights writing lyrics with more than one boyfriend myself, spent time standing in the sidelines while friends or lovers played, even having once dated a has-been. (I’ll stress again here, before you follow that link: That post is fictional. It might contain some biographical elements, but you’ll never know which parts.)

But in the film when Sophie (Drew Barrymore) asks her sister how you know when someone is passionate, her sister says, “When they do something extraordinary.” Perhaps that is the appeal these movies have for me.

Life is large. Life should be large. I feel largely.

And expect the extraordinary.

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This isn’t a rant, because it doesn’t piss me off. It’s just something about human beings which boggles my mind.

I had a great day out today. It was my friend’s birthday and we met for lunch, in the suburb I most consider “home” which I don’t see enough of these days. It was sunny. Caspar didn’t sleep all day but behaved like the angel he is because he was out and everything was interesting. I’m proud that he only says one word, and that he said it to the waiter who brought him his babycino.

“Taa.”

So we walk to the train station to go back to the suburb we actually live in. It’s sardine peak hour and I have a pram. I check one door then the next and think there’s no way I’ll be squeezing in, even though I know the next train will be just the same. Then I see a young man waving at me from the next carriage. He very politely rearranges the people inside and squeezes me in, and then goes to another carriage to find space for himself. Phenomenal. I love him.

And, obviously, he’s not the man I have a problem with.

So there’s this man in a suit standing next to me. I’m jammed up against the door, the handle pressing into my spine, only able to reach Cas by stretching over the top of the stroller. And that’s fine. Because despite his exhaustion and slight crankiness, Caspar is a beautifully behaved child and he doesn’t cry and screech about being strapped in with no one to talk to.

So the people thin out and the man goes and takes a seat. Now that I have room, I squat beside the pram, silently playing peek-a-boo because I am considerate of the passengers and there is only so much you can expect, even from an angel, when the train journey is an hour long.

And this tosser sits there in his navy blue uniform like the stuffed shirt he is, giving me dirty looks and sneering, and whispering to the person sitting across from him.

WTF? So I’m running through my head what on earth he thinks he can disrespect me for. What? I made sure Cas didn’t bother anyone. I was a smiling and happy, attentive mother. Caspar didn’t have a pooey nappy. Does he think that parents and children don’t have a right to go where they want whenever they want? Be on public transport when “working people” are? Did he not like the fact that I was wearing a low cut top? What?

Like I said, not a rant. I’ll never have any idea what his issue is. But what makes the human mind think however he was thinking? What judgements did he make, based on standing next to me, silently, as commuters do, for half an hour? What the fuck does he think he knows?

I just don’t get people.

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What a difference a (night) makes!  I honestly can’t believe it.  This morning I woke at my usual time (I’ve been well trained by my human alarm) to silence.  Cas was awake when I went in to pick him up, standing and waiting, but perfectly happy.  And I was happy. 

Because I wasn’t woken up by god-awful screeching.

You guys were such a great help and I can’t believe this idea had never occurred to me.  I was completely trapped in this "impossible" mindset.  But I did something even more radical than putting a camping mattress in the lounge.  I broke down the bed altogether and cleared the room.  This doesn’t just solve my sleep problem: It solves the major problem of mess.

The house has been full of half packed boxes, lining the hallway and cluttering up the living space.  Trying to clear it up with Cas running around a pulling everything out of boxes has been a Sisyphean task, always depressingly one step forward and two steps back.  Cas is a fantastic, easy boy but I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in the experience of cleaning everything up only to have the place looking like a disaster area again not an hour later.

Now the boxes and things to be sorted out are stacked neatly against the wall in the bedroom, where I can close the door.  It’s not entirely sorted out yet but I feel like I’m getting somewhere.  Who knows, I might escape the suburbs after all.

Today, I even had the opportunity to take an afternoon nap.  Big Sis was out with the boyfriend, and the mattress was lying there waiting for me.  I didn’t use it: I got caught up in some of the usual Internet things.  But I could have and that was a really nice feeling.

I still have a sleep deficit and I won’t be out of the red any time soon.  By about 5pm I was tired and cranky, and then of course wide awake and passed the point of sleep by the time Caspar went to bed.

But I don’t feel hopeless anymore and I don’t feel trapped by the situation.  Such an easy fix. So here’s to another good night’s sleep!

(Whenever I decide to go to bed.)

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