LIFE

NEW HOUSE
I am exhausted. My new house continues to go backwards. It now has a smart new cupboard, built to house a washing machine and tumble dryer, but it seems that my kitchen fitter is the only person in the world who is unaware that these appliances come in a standard size. He has built a cupboard for teeny weeny non-existent appliances. They simply will not fit. Which means that the cupboard will have to be dismantled, presumably at my expense. When I was checking out sizes, I was given a couple of brochures for washing machines, one of which stated:

“The old adage ‘you are what you wear’ applies more today than ever before and reflects the significance of clothing in modern society. What a person wears is an expression of their style and personality and is a key contributing factor to a personal sense of well-being and self-esteem. Considered from this angle, the days when laundry care was simply a matter of rendering clothes ‘clean, dry and ironed’ are long gone. Nowadays, discerning customers expect perfect washing and drying performance, combined with maximum fabric care for their expensive garments”.

WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT???? IT’S JUST A F*CKING WASHING MACHINE. GET A LIFE.

There is an on-going drama with who will have to pay for the replacement hob and now I have even more bits of erected Ikea furniture that don’t fit in the room that they were built in and planned for, but now can’t get out of the bloody door into another room. Yesterday, the kitchen fitter asked me if I was a Buddhist…”no. Why? Should I be?” I asked him. He was impressed that I was managing to remain so calm. Maybe the classes I am teaching are helping, or maybe I am going completely mad and haven’t yet noticed.

Going slightly mad being a nomad.

STRESS
Stress is an interesting thing. It can cause any number of problems and can even trigger cancer. I have certainly had my share of weird, stress induced physical problems brought on by the demise of my marriage. The main one being a serious loss of weight which triggered the onset of an almost constant period.

Now it seems that the greater the problem, the less stressed I become. It appears that I have acquired a sort of “bring it on” attitude to life. I’m sure that when one has a trauma, it does inevitably change your view of life. I used to be terrified of lots of things and was very danger conscious, particularly where the children were concerned. Now, having gone through a long and arduous journey, I seem to think that I cope with many more things – walking in the dark, wandering into a pub on my own, talking to strangers, foreign travel, moving house, being homeless….all that happened as a result of my marriage breakdown and over time I think I have evolved into somebody with different life views. A sort of “life’s too short, what the hell, oh bollocks, f*ck it, live for the day, carpe diem, whatever” sort of attitude, which is both good and bad. Good because you certainly know that you are alive and life is not at all boring or secure and bad because my hair will probably start falling out soon.

FACEBOOK
I have decided to remove myself from Facebook. I don’t think it’s cool to be on the same social networking medium as my son. Especially when he’s got about a thousand friends and I’ve got 3 – who don’t really count because they are all related to me in some way. My younger brother has lots of friends, my other brother is a bit like me, he said the other day “I’m bored of sitting on my Facebook, trying to find people to play with” and I laughed, because it sounded particularly rude – almost as rude as having to poke my son.

FRIDAY MORNING CLASS
My regular Friday group of women were interested in my progress and clearly feeling sorry for me (not good. I do not respond well to sympathy). I thanked them for their concern, but pointed out that in my opinion, things could be worse. “It’s not that bad to be homeless, to have the children living with my ex and to have no husband”…they all looked at me with complete horror and pity. Presumably, when you have a home and a husband, it’s difficult to imagine life without them.

The class went well anyway. During the relaxation section, I likened the spine to a bicycle chain, trying to get them to lift up the spine, vertebrae by vertebrae off the mat and then to replace each one back down, one at a time. At the end, one of my clients told me another of the teachers had done the same movement but had compared the spine to a string of pearls….clearly I need to work on my visualisation techniques.

ATHLETE
I went to see Athlete last night at The Shepherds Bush Empire. They were fab. The lead singer was amazing. I love his voice. They didn’t play enough songs from the Tourist album, but that was because I really really loved that album and listened to it endlessly. At the time, I was taking song lyrics terribly seriously and the whole album had clearly been written just for me (with the exception, thankfully, of “you’ve got wires going in, you’ve got wires going out). I personally felt that their first album was a lot stronger. However, they are a very impressive live band, with a very loyal and captivated audience. “Take All Your Chances while you can, you never know when they’ll pass you by” completely summed up where I was at the time (and I think it’s possible that I’m still there).

I’m actually staying in my ex’s house with the children this weekend. He’s gone with his girlfriend to Paris to watch the rugby and it’s great that he doesn’t mind that I’m here.