28 Days...

That's all it is. Until I am at that psychological tipping point between birth and death. 40 is way too grown up. I had a hard enough time coming to terms with being married to a man in his forties, let alone allowing myself to consider being in the same boat. But its just a day older than I was when I was 39. The same as I was just a day older when I became 39.

A girl I went to school with bowed out of existence when she was 27, when she came off her motorbike at a busy crossroads. To my knowledge,  she is the only one of my school year that is no longer with us. I found that too, quite difficult to comprehend. She was never the sort of person at school you would have expected to be a biker. We were reasonably good friends,  having spent our entire school lives in the same schools and year. She was a sweet and kind girl, prone to be quiet,  but still fun. I was shocked when I heard about her demise, having lost touch after school, I had only recently found her on a jaunt into Friends Reunited and sent her a message. I received a compassionate and gentle email from her work colleague who had been tasked with dealing with her email, letting me know what had happened.  It was no more than a week after her funeral.  It taught me a lesson in mortality that I was not prepared for. Of course I had already experienced death and the grief that can only be felt when someone you dearly love departs, but they were old, they had lived most of their lives, nowadays they would most likely have been able to extend their lives by 15 - 20 years simply because of the greater medical understanding that exists but they were not of an age where death would be unexpected at the time. 68/70 was not far short of the average life expectancy.  27 however... well that, for me, was a real eye-opener. For about five minutes until life went on as it does and all my best "seize-the-day" thoughts went out of the window while my husband and I battled with my secondary infertility as best we could.

I had another seize-the-day point when I was in my mid 30's and found a lump the size of a tennis ball in my left breast. How did I not notice it sooner? Because it pretty much still felt like breast until it got hot and inflamed. It wasn't obviously not supposed to be there. When it did become apparent and I went to the GP he was horrified,  referred me to the breast clinic and had sleepless nights over the lump being the size that it was. He pretty much had me convinced I was screwed. The barrage of testing that followed the surreal wait for an appointment revealed that it was in fact a massive abscess caused most likely by the end of my career in breastfeeding causing a blockage.  That week before I knew though,  I was planning my funeral, thinking up ways to craft things for the kids to remember me by, crying irrationally and generally being stuck in a permanent panic attack.

The relief after that appointment was somewhat tinged with a sense of loss. When I thought I was done for, I felt there was a finite end in sight and whilst it was terrifying I could at least do something positive with the remaining time I had. I think I experienced my clearest sense of focus during that time,  than I ever have prior or since.

When that was lifted from me, the focus went too. I had a plan for the worst case scenario. I hadn't even considered there would be an alternative outcome. I was elated but also confused. How could I handle this complete turn of events?

Several failed courses of antibiotics later and I found myself as an inpatient having surgery to remove the unpleasantness and have half a hosepipe wedged in the hole to allow even drainage as it healed. On the ward, I was the only one there for that sort of treatment.  The other three ladies were there having cancer treatment.  One of them, a young university student, was very very sick. But she kept a positive attitude.  They all did. Every single one of those women put me to shame. The young woman, she had split with her boyfriend as he couldn't handle the situation,  and was almost certainly facing her final days.  But she faced them with dignity. She put on her make up every morning, kept going, got by.  I came home from there filled with a new resolve to never ever indulge in self-pity again. I had so much to be grateful  for.

But yet again, human nature takes over and these bursts of carpe diem cannot last forever.  Part of me wants to throw myself into the whole life begins at 40 concept and do all that stuff where chasing after your youth and proving you are still alive is the priority. Albeit the unspoken one.

But that enthusiasm never lasts.  So I don't think I will do that. I will instead,  just enjoy the moment,  not dwell too much on the significance,  and move swiftly on.  Sometimes a whole day is too much to try and keep a grip on. The moments will do.

Absence Makes The Heart Go Fondant

It's been a while since I began the post I just finished up,  it's been sat in draft form for a couple of weeks while I went away with my family for a week's caravan and seaside fun.

It was an excellent week, the first time we have taken the girls away for a holiday properly, we have had the occasional three day minibreak, usually to see my dad's side of the family in Scotland - but a proper holiday has been beyond our means. My mum decided that it was important for the children to have a proper seaside holiday and so paid for the caravan and we all went. All except my son, who she asked to stay at her house and look after her dogs, and keep an eye on her lodger, who has somewhat of a drink problem and a propensity to a spot of drunken cookery.

I have known her lodger for a very long time. For the purposes of his anonymity I shall call him Jim.

Jim and I met when I worked at the local and recently opened fast food establishment that I have previously referred to. He was employed about 6 months after I was,  but he was full time and I just did weekends and the occasional after school. In every way, we were polar opposites, except for our joint ability to get mindnumbingly drunk and do things we probably shouldn't and wouldn't have with the benefit of hindsight. It was this which our friendship arose from.

Jim had recently come out as gay, having tried and failed to pass as a heterosexual man for a while. I would learn over the years that his father had been somewhat of a bully, whereas his mother compensated for that by being somewhat of a soft touch, especially where Jim was concerned. He had other siblings that he got on with in varying degrees from "really well" to "not at all" - but very much felt that he was the outsider of the family. His anger at his father was repressed a great deal for his mothers sake, but it was clear that his father's inability to accept him for himself had hurt him deeply.

He dealt with these repressed feelings by drinking a lot. Because of the nature of the place where we worked, social drinking was a common occurence and we would often be found in the local hostelries causing mischief. Many of my underage drunken antics feature him in some capacity. We would often meet up on payday and have a wander round the shops, have a coffee, and just laugh.

People would stare at us, me super tall and already "chunky" - him about 8 inches shorter than me and as thin as a rake. We would link arms and gaze adoringly at each other, just to give them something to talk about. We once had what I refuse to call a drunken snog, it was something more akin to be leapt on by a giant leech and stirred precisely nothing in either of us other than a sense of disgust and a mutual agreement never for that to ever happen again. 

Over the years, our friendship has gone through highs and lulls. I lost some of my charm when I found myself a single parent at 19, as my social capabilities were limited, but he loved my son and during one spell where he was unemployed helped me out by babysitting for me when I was working.  We shared a flat for a few months,  until such time as his OCD cleanliness and desire to have his space to himself got the better of him. My son and I had most of our possessions crammed into one bedroom and that did not make for a tidy and spotless environment even if I had a remote chance of being crowned Housewife of The Year - which, I am happy to admit, is more unlikely than me having a big lottery win.
To be honest I think it was more likely that he wanted to be able to do bad things with the scally upstairs and a tub of Stork SB and a young mum with a toddler living there is somewhat of a style cramper.

But over the years we have had other periods of sharing a roof for various lengths of time,  and paths that have invariably crossed. If he had a problem, I was there for him, if I had a problem, he was nowhere to be seen, unless it was a "Ladies Problem" in which he could be seen quite clearly rushing to the bathroom while trying to stop his lunch from doing an encore.

Heterophobia is alive and well in the gay community.  Well, that particular branch of it, anyway.

At least it's an informed opinion based on experience though.

He was less thrilled when I met my husband,  a little jealous, a little put out, and a lot distant. He was hard work for the first few years of my marriage,  and has got progressively harder to handle in the subsequent years. The drink, it seems, is catching up with him. Nowadays 95% of our conversations happen when he is drunk, 100% always contain a slagging off of a family member to whom I am related (he saves the rants about me for other ears) and 85% I have no clue what caused the rant and am left oblivious still months and years after the event. 

It's a shame, but people change and move on in life. He was one of the few that I thought would be a lifelong friend, although it was taken for granted that lifelong in his case was dependant on how long his liver could hold up under the strain.

Now it seems that is not to be. He pulled a very nasty little stunt while we were away to try and get my son into trouble.  Who would think that a man in his fifties could act like a preschool infant? All because he was annoyed at being "babysat" - so to ensure it never happened again, he went round the house after my son left and deliberately made it look as though my son had been throwing raging parties there.

I know my son,  and I know when he is lying. He can't keep a straight face and lie. It's beyond him. He has Aspergers which does assist in this sort of circumstances - being socially short on guidelines for polite society means that brutal truth is often first to depart without really understanding the impact the words will have on your peers.

My son is so angry with him now he's refusing to have anything more to do wuth him. It's a shame, he has been there all his life and had a great bond with him. I don't feel like having much to do with him either. I have had my fill of alcoholics over the course of my life and can't deal with another one. Polite in passing is about all I can manage nowadays.  I'm tired of dramaz. I guess I'm getting older. No energy left to waste on wastes of time.