From day to day

This started out as a particularly fine example of my very best Misery Blogging. But I hadn't quite got it finished to my liking yesterday, when I shut the computer down. And today, it doesn't seem to reflect my life very well, despite being a very heartfelt and honest evocation of my feelings for most of the week. And that in itself seemed like a worthwhile thing to notice. So, herewith, two days, separated only by a reasonable night's sleep, treacle sponge with custard and a lovely husband.

Yesterday
Every drive to work this week, and every drive home again, I've wept.

Every drive to work this week, I've dried my tears as I crossed the car park, smiled at my colleagues and got on with the day.

Every drive home from work, I've dried my tears as I've walked to the school gates, smiled at the other mothers and got on with the afternoon.

I'm tired.

I'm sad.

I'm overwhelmed.

It's everything and nothing.

Things that really don't matter at all, and things that matter more than anything.

Things that are figments of my own imagination, products of my woeful self-esteem, and things that are painfully real, and present, and scary.

I'm scared of losing a man I love, who has been my father figure since my own father died. He's sick, though not as sick as he was. He's a long way away, though not as far as he used to be. And his current symptoms are too painfully similar to the ones that took my own father in the end that in the darker moments of the night my mind finds it hard to see a different outcome, no matter how different reality looks during the day.
 
It's slowly but surely dawning on me that the work project I've been driving forward since its inception is coming to a head, and all the things I've missed, mistakes I've made, details I've forgotten and poor decisions are coming home to roost. I am not ready to deliver the first prototype, let alone the set of five instruments required. And other than occasionally sticking his head out of his office to tell me I haven't done what he wanted, by boss has taken a totally hands-off approach. So I'm in it on my own. And despite the fact that today, one of my favourite customers (a very senior government scientist) decided he also wants to buy one of these new machines I'm making, my boss still informed us that he didn't think the machine was ever going to be a success. Which was a really morale-boosting vote of confidence.

I'm stuck in my little world of self-pity again, convinced again that I am tolerated but not liked. Certain that everyone else exists in a whirl of friendship and camaraderie of which I am not a part. Feeling isolated and alone in a crowd. Watching people swirl around, laughing and talking while I gaze forlornly around, managing a half-smile of recognition or perhaps a nod and a "hello". Or perhaps I do speak, and I wear the outgoing, jolly mask to prevent anyone seeing the fear of rejection in my eyes. And I am fulfilling my own prophecy as usual, by not reaching out to people, not speaking up to those who I'm sure would listen. Instead I'm trapped in my tongue-tied world, only being brave enough to commit my fears and anxieties to the computer screen, and not to a living, breathing human being. Is it any wonder I feel like an outsider when I position myself outside normal, human, emotional, interactions?

Today
LittleBear and I cycled into the village this morning, to go to the Co-op, the pharmacy, the library, the greengrocer and the butcher. Because we live in the awesome kind of village where all those things still exist. And we kicked our way through the autumn leaves, because our village is full of big, beautiful, majestic trees.

And we met some friends in the library and had a chat. Because we've spent enough time living here and tootling around that most occasions that we go out we bump into someone we know.

And we popped in to the cafe and shared a giant slab of chocolate cake and read a library book (about dinosaurs) together. Because we could.

And because I was feeling a bit weary and a bit run down after lunch, I had a lie down on our bed with a cup of tea and my book while my bears played and read books together downstairs, and neither of them thought this was unreasonable.

And we had a lovely big roast dinner in the early evening before going to a friend's house so LittleBear and LittleFriend (and us!) could watch some fireworks in their garden, because neither of them really want to go to a big, noisy, cold, long display in the middle of the village. And those same friends, plus others, are coming here tomorrow evening so that we can do the same thing again, but in our garden. Which probably means I actually have friends, who actually like me, and actually don't mind spending time with me.

And tomorrow we're going to spend the day with Piglet and her family, going to the local aeroplane museum, which will mesmerise BoyPiglet and LittleBear. Though apparently I am to expect BoyPiglet to lecture me at length about the aeroplanes as his affinity to military aircraft is akin to LittleBear's feelings about dinosaurs.

Today I have a good and happy life, with a lovely family, living in an idyllic village populated by friendly, welcoming people. I just couldn't see that yesterday.