Been off the radar for a bit. No blogs…no nothing. Its been a stressful few weeks. I am sure it has been for many people. Sometimes when things get on top, I just shrug it off and keep going. Other times I can’t. Simple as that.
Every year there is some kind of drama that unfolds. Ever since I was a kid. I always say to myself, when the Christmas season starts, I always say “Please make there be no drama”. I’m not sure who I am speaking who exactly I am speaking to when I say this, bit I tell you something…. they never listen.
This Christmas may be up there with the top 5 of most stressful Christmas ever. I won’t bore you with the details, but the highlights are…. Fall out with family, making sure I could get everything, balance all daughters Christmas stuff with work commitments, Not letting the fact my mum is not around get me down and my cat nearly died.
Like …a small snippet of my Christmas is this…Christmas eve at 12:15 pm I am sitting with my cat on my lap (No…its not just a cat…don’t even want to hear it) and I am feeding him water through a syringe. He is not moving at all. And I am bargaining with…who ever it is that does not listen to me…I am barging all that I can to not make my cat die on charismas day. Imagine how my daughter would ever get over that!! That’s not the worst thing that happened, like I said just a snippet.
So, there I am, begging with …someone …. not to let the cat die….in exchange for me doing this and doing that. It was freezing because I had turned the heating off (bad move on my part). The presents were all under the tree ready for the morning and there is me…. willing this cat to live. I suddenly became very emotional. Not just because of the cat. Suddenly everything felt too much. I felt like I couldn’t do this all on my own. That I needed a break.
Being a single parent at Christmas is hard core, don’t care what anyone says. Being a single parent with no family is even harder. Its not just providing the gifts. It’s trying to create that warm family feeling that happens at Christmas. When everyone pops in over the holidays and you go to see others.
My children don’t have that. Not in my house. I have no parents. No uncles or aunts that will pop round. No siblings. I have cousins that are scattered all over the globe. I am the youngest of my cousins and got left behind years ago when everyone went off to find their fortune. Apart from one cousin in Australia.
Christmas day consists of me and my 3 children. And that nearly didn’t happen this year. No one extra is coming. We don’t have a Nan to fuss over. Its us. And in that moment, sitting up on Christmas Eve, I suddenly felt very alone. I had been feeling like this for a while, slowly creeping up as we got closer to Christmas. I knew that I should be feeling happy and content. But I didn’t. And I felt very guilty about how I was feeling.
Christmas day was Ok. My oldest son, he put in a lot of effort throughout the day and I was thankful for that. After everything was done, I felt flat. And did so the next day and by the night of Boxing day I can honestly say that my anxiety was at its peak and nothing was good. I just wanted to stay in bed. And I did until mid-day the next day. Something I never do.
Anyway, you get the drift. The main issue this year, emotionally, is that I miss my mum. Like big time.
Last night I had a dream about my mum. I often dream about her, they are always sad dreams. Angry dreams. In most of the dreams I always know that she has died. I know it’s a dream and that she is not really here.
Anyway, last night I had a dream about my mum. I can’t really explain the whole thing, but I was told to sit on this bed and that my mum would be coming to speak to me. I said to the person that I knew this was a dream and that my mum was not alive. Usually when I say this in my dreams the characters just sort of ignore that comment and it all carries on. This time the person speaking to me just smiled and said they knew. They said she was coming anyway. I got scared (I mean, I am gang and all that, but ghost/zombie mum….na….your OK). And I hid under the covers of this bed I was sitting on, like a little kid hiding from the bogey man. I felt her come into the room. I can’t explain how I knew, I could just tell her walk. And she sat on the bed, not saying a word. I slowly put my hand out to feel what it was (Swear down, I thought it was one of my scary dreams), but I could feel it was just her. I slowly pulled my cover back and sat up. There was my mum, sitting on the edge of this bed. Her head was turned away from me. I said “Mum” (I was fully ready for her to turn and have the face from the girl out of “The Ring” …that happened before). She turned, and it was just my mum. She looked confused like she didn’t know where she was for a second. I said mum again and she looked me straight in the eye and said something like “Bloody hell”. And I grabbed her, and I hugged her, and I started crying. And she held me and soothed me. I started babbling at a hundred miles an hour. Asking if this was a dream, did she know who my daughter was …. A million different things. All the things I have wanted to say to her the past 11 years. Usually in my dreams I don’t get to do that. It is either very scary (Zombie mum). Or its me knowing she has died, and I am trying to explain to her.
This time, she was just there. I don’t know if she answered my questions, she was just smiling. She looked tired like I had woken her up. She said something about my eyes looking tired. I said don’t worry about my eyes, I want to talk about loads of other stuff. She shakes her head. And I started crying, because I knew that she was going. She held my face under my chin like she had a million times and said, “Stop being so hard on yourself”. Then she swore (she always swore). And then it was like she was leaving, or I was, or I was waking up. I don’t know. But I woke up and cried my little heart out. Because for a second when I woke up, I honestly didn’t know if it was a dream or not. It was. And I cried. I have not cried like that in a while. That cry, you know the one, where it is all snot and tears, like your 5 years old. And you feel all weak and pathetic.
I had decided yesterday to lock myself away until the end of the year. That I can’t keep doing this. On my own.
But I got up, got dressed and did what I needed to do. Because actually, my children had the best Christmas I could provide. They were all together and we had heating and food and love. The cat didn’t die (Thank God or whoever it was that actually listened to me this time). And anything that the kids did have for Christmas I provided. On my own. We ate a big old dinner and I used my mums’ wooden spoon to mix the cheese sauce just like she did when I was growing up.
The moral to my story is this.
You are never to big for a hug from your mum (Real or not).
Your best is good enough. If others don’t see that, that’s on them.
Its Ok not to be OK.
Anyone who has struggled this Christmas, for whatever reason. ICU and I am proud of you making it through to the other side. Your only human after all….
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