Life got crazy and the unessential parts of me got neglected. Not that I stopped writing blog posts in my head at 2am, I just stopped getting out of bed to type them out. Which I’m certain is sensible, but it’s also pretty slack.

I managed to get married, without any hiccups, except the rain and an impatient celebrant.

And then I miscarried.

There is a certain miserablness to watching a pregnancy slide down your legs. Even more so when you wonder, if you’d rested more, would this be happening? (probably) The week leading up to the wedding was crazy, with hospitalisations (Isaac) and bleeding (me) and vomiting (me) and arguments (also, me) and shouting (Amy) and stress (Nathan). But we did it.

And then I took a mental holiday, as December tried to suck out my soul and my brain simutaneously. It wasn’t pleasant, as I finished miscarrying at a school pageant in which religion was mentioned more times than I felt comfortable wish.

But we all survived (except the fetus, which didn’t have a chance) and my body decided to magically work and get pregnant again. Not that the actual conception was magical (fun is a better word). There will be no religions based around an immaculate conception here. The fact I ovulated at all is magical, let alone twice in 8 weeks.

My body is kind of a fuckwit, given to practical jokes and refusals to do anything normally.

Now I sit here, nine weeks pregnant, hot, pukey and still pretty sure I’m missing both my soul and my brain.

Never mind. They can go and join my sanity in the cupboard, if December decides to release them.

Manflu has stricken the household and we’ve all fallen down into a great heap of aching joints and miserableness.

On top of that, my cat is staging her very own #occupy protest.

Be assured that #occupyworkspace is actually nicer than #occupyveronicasneck and #occupythelap, because there is less licking.

There. I said it. My cat likes to lick my nose. I don’t share her joy.

I am a perfectionist, so I bought myself this.

Sometimes, it is easier to do nothing perfectly, than it is to do something.

Especially when you’re a perfectionist and the possibility of failure is weighing on your heart with every step you take.

So I’m wrecking my journal and seeing what happens. NaBlo is also giving my inner perfectionist a run for her money, forcing me to write every day, regardless of quality.

It’s probably good for me.

PS, it’s also my birthday today.

My rehearsal is booked and in under a fortnight, we shall traipse off to a park, to practise getting married, before coming home, freaking the fuck out about details and shouting at each other. I can accept this, just as I can accept the fact that we will still get married, because love is shouting at each other and still wanting to see their face.

Eventually.

The hardest part here is now I have to write a wedding ceremony, because everything I had read, all of the samples, all of the words, they all feel plasticky and cardboard, not real and made with parts of soul. Is that weird, that I think words can have souls?

I suspect that writing my wedding ceremony will be harder than anything else I’ve done, but then, this is what I do. I write things down and make people read them.

But.

This isn’t a blog post, or words that I hide in the back of my computer in the hidden files – no, this is something to be read in front of EVERYBODY and help?

I had a baby at seventeen, which contrary to popular belief did not ruin my life, or destroy my future. You’d be surprised at how many people will console you on a pregnancy if they feel that you are younger than the “perfect” age to be a mother. You would also be surprised at the treatment that young mothers receive from people in positions of authority, but I digress.

I could list all of my reasons for falling pregnant, but I’ve written them down so many times before that they sound trite. Needless to say, it was the right decision for me and my family and here we are, six years later.

When I was pregnant, and then a new mother, no one asked me what I “did”. Which suited me, because I didn’t know at that point. I was a mother, but my daughter was too screamy for me to think about what else I could do. My entire life was wrapped up in keeping the baby happy, feeding the baby, stopping the baby biting my nipple. While my friends were heading off to Uni, I was changing nappies and discovering just how in love you can fall with something you’ve created.

Two years after my daughter was born, I was pregnant again, with my son. When you’re pregnant, no one asks you what you “do”. You’re just a gestating vessel, the means to an end, a giant egg waiting to crack. Men avoid your eye (is pregnancy catching?) and women ask strange questions about your internal organs. Pregnancy is the only time it is deemed socially acceptable to ask a woman about her cervix.

As is the usual course of events when everything goes well, my son was born, cried some, grew some and eventually got to the age where I could leave him with his Daddy to go and DO things – which is when the inevitable questions start.

I was at an exhibition opening and someone asked me “what do you do?” and instead of saying “I’m a mother” I found myself saying the (only slightly practised in front of a mirror) line: “I am a writer.”

Which then leads to the inevitable questions about what do you write and where and so on. It took a few more months in front of the mirror to get those coming out smoothly.

You see, no one really cares what you DO, it’s just a way to start conversation.

I write things and I publish them on the Internet and 90% of society thinks that I’m a bit weird because of it – but I can ignore them. Anyone can be a writer, that is the beauty of it. Just like anyone can be an artist, or a musician, or a sculptor.

No one cares what you do to earn money – they care about what you DO because you love it. People aren’t interested in how you pay the bills (unless you might be helpful to them), they are interested in passion.

This is what I do. I am a writer and when people ask what I write, I tell them: I write a blog. It’s quite popular now and I really enjoy it.

Try it. The next time someone asks what you do, tell them what you love to do, rather than where you work. They might surprise you.

I dreamt I was running, fast, across a paddock. I was exhilarated and my body was strong and did what it was meant to do. Legs pumping, I remember thinking “YES! I can do this, if I just try. Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

There was no worry about dislocated joints, or torn ligaments. No fear that my body would break down half way through, or that I would do irreparable damage to myself.

It felt amazing.

And then I woke up and reality slapped me in the face.

I was cold and stiff, with a dislocated ankle, something wrong with my shoulder and a stabbing muscle spasm low in my back.

I don’t run, not anymore. Not for a long time and it’s been even longer since running felt good.

Now I walk carefully, with a crunch click in my hip and a mind to making sure I don’t dislocate anything that will leave me screaming in public.

Usually, I don’t remember what I’m missing. Not until my dream self goes and does something amazing.

Like running.

Someone shoot me now, I’ve decided that I’m going to attempt NaBloPoMo on this blog right here. Either it will extend me and make me write more, or I’ll jump off a (small) bridge (into a fishpond) half way through. Oh and have I mentioned, I’m getting MARRIED in November?

I’m an idiot. We agree. Let’s move on.

***

The timer is our God. Let us all worship at the altar of small magnetic electronic devices that count down seconds and beep obligingly at the correct time. Most screaming can be cured by a declaration of ‘I’m setting the timer RIGHT NOW’ and ‘When it beeps you can and NOT BEFORE.’

Join me in my worship of the two dollar device. It will make your life easier too, with the beeping and the pressing of buttons.

***

‘I DON’T LIKE YOU!’

‘I DON’T LIKE YOU EITHER!’

The shouting starts and I suspect that the trigger was a tale told about a biscuit stolen before the appropriate beeping from our God was heard. They shout it at each other and suddenly, my son is laying flat on his back wailing that SHE HIT ME and SHE NOT LIKE ME.

Time outs were administered as my son sobbed his tale into my shoulder. The hit didn’t hurt as much as the chance that his big sister (his idol, his partner in crime, his mess making helper) didn’t like him.

It feels like the morning is lasting forever.

***

I declared myself to be happy that it was Not Winter anymore and the universe decided that it was going to teach me a lesson. Cursing at the clouds doesn’t seem to be helping.

This is why I’ve changed my worshipping habits and you can find me making offerings to The Timer. Drips of blood and pieces of chocolate, maybe I’ve gummed up the works, but bugger me if it doesn’t look happier.

The time slipped away from me and when I stopped to take stock, I realised that it was September already and months had passed. My daughter turned five (FIVE – where do the years go?) and grew an attitude and my son spends his days clinging to my ankles.

This is life, the time passes and the world turns, until it feels like everything has changed (but nothing has changed) and you’ve been stuck spinning in circles like a spinning top.

How did I get to this point?

I sat down to write, a few days ago and got stuck on all of the things that had happened. A sum total of All Of The Things That Have Gone Wrong and I stopped, stepped away from the computer, and had a panic attack. Surely that wasn’t me? (It was you.)

I didn’t want to think about all of the reasons that I am Not Coping right now, until they slammed me in the face with the Not Copingness of themselves and I had to stop thinking.

Everything will be okay, if I can just stop thinking about all of the reasons why things will never be okay.

Then, everything will be okay.

It’s a slow slide down into the dark places in my mind. Moments stretch into infinity as I imagine the worst case scenarios and how I would deal with them. I’m not sure how I got here, all I know is that I’m sitting at the bottom, looking at the light a very long way up.

It’s always unpleasant down here and the road back up is long and cold, usually.

The screaming outside of my head is never as bad as the screaming inside of it. The way the sound reverberates around, shaking all coherant thought with it, until I just want to curl up in the corner and drown it out with someone elses words.

It will be okay. It will be fine, I will be FINE, this is all fine. One foot and then another. It will be okay.

I’m regretful and despite regret being useless here, it insists on hanging around and I’m raw enough without adding regret to the mix.

Some nights, I dream ghosts and then I have days like today. Dreaming the past, I’d like to stay there. Nothing was broken there (only… everything was. We just didn’t know it yet.)

That’s the problem with dreaming the past, rather than the future. You can’t get there anyway, so there is no use trying.

Better to dream the future.

At least then you’re left with possibility.

Writing is cathartic for me and sometimes, I need to write things out before my head explodes from the words and the hurt going around and around and around.

Sometimes though, once I’ve written them and gotten some feedback, it’s better. The words stop and the insanity stops and I can shake off the hurt and move forward again.

This time, I don’t need to leave the post up. I’ve got no real need to sit and wait for the vitriolic emails to appear in my inbox. And don’t doubt me here, I know they’d appear. This is the Internet and I’ve always known my writing could be found by everybody.

My family is difficult and nuanced and complicated. They are annoying and forgetful and biased. Even when I don’t like them very much, I still love them. I suspect they’re very much like every other family out there.

The people who need to know how I feel already do and the people who made me feel that way in the first place, well, I’m doubting that a shitfest will make me feel better.

I suspect my twitter stream has more spies than Russia and I am fine with that. My twitter stream is not private, in any way shape or form. If my highschool principal was so inclined, he could read what I was up to. In real life, I am intensely introverted. My blog and writing help to combat that and keep me balanced.

So really, this is just me saying that while I don’t feel better as such, I’m not letting it hurt anymore and I’m walking away.