Two Years on Twitter

It's two years ago today since I joined twitter; I can't remember exactly why I joined. I think I'd kept hearing about it on TV and at the time it wasn't long after my Mum died and I was lonely. I signed up and very quickly became hooked.

It's strange looking at my previous blog post where I was complaining about twitter. It does get on my nerves at times but I'll forever be grateful to the site because it changed my life.

If I hadn't have joined twitter I wouldn't have met my amazing boyfriend. We first chatted about six weeks after I joined twitter; we met up in real life four weeks after that and we've not really been apart ever since.

Twitter has brought many other people into my life too. Some of the first people I chatted with are still on my timeline, which is brilliant. I've met up with quite a few people in real life now and all, apart from one, have been lovely. I have one good friend in particular who I haven't managed to meet up with for a little while but we keep in touch regularly and I hope to see her soon.

My life in the weeks and months before twitter was the darkest of times. I cared for my Mum alone and lost all of my friends in the process. And after my Mum died I was quite simply lost. I didn't know how I was ever going to start my life again.

So for all I have my moans about twitter, it saved my life. It's brought an amazing man into my life who makes me happier than I thought it possible to be. It's brought a new city and new friends and new beginnings. I am so grateful for twitter.

Thank you to all my fab followers. Here's to the next two years!! :)

Mum

It'll be two years on Saturday since my Mum died and the weight of sadness is pressing down on me. I miss her so so much. I can't believe it's almost two years since I last saw her, last talked to her, last hugged her. Two years since she last said she loved me. It's breaking my heart all over again.

I had put all the memories of her being ill away but they're back this week. I'm sure it's normal to feel like this but it's hard to have them flood my mind again from nowhere.

The good memories are there too but right now they just make me sob. I look at photos of her and can't believe that she is gone. I love seeing the photos where she is laughing or being silly or having fun but then they make me cry because how can a person just go from that to being gone in the space of seven months. It's cruel and it's not fair.

This is my Mum with me when I was little. I have this photo as my desktop and it makes me smile:

My Mum was the best Mum in the world. I miss her so much but I am so very glad that I had her as my Mum.

Church rule change :'(

Yesterday I rang the florist in the town where I'm from to organise a wreath to be put for my Mum for Christmas. They told me that the church remembrance garden where Mum's ashes are buried has now forbidden large wreaths and you're not even allowed to leave a small bunch of flowers. I'm so upset about this, I think it's terrible.

My Grandma (my father's mum) is a church goer so I rang her to ask if she knew what I can have put there. Apparently for this year the church will allow a few small wreaths but not too many. If too many are left they will throw them in the bin. I think this is outrageous. My Mum isn't here anymore but I still think of her all the time and cannot bear the thought of there not being something on her plot at Christmas-time. My Grandma is going to get a small wreath for me and she kindly said she will take it tomorrow. I hope the church has the respect to leave it there for the Christmas period.

It beings comfort to me to know my Mum has flowers at certain times of the year and I'm sure it must bring comfort to others regarding their relatives. I think it's completely out of order for the local church to change their rules to such a degree like this; I'd go so far as to call it callous.

It makes me so mad because every single time I've visited my Mum I have tidied up, got rid of dead flowers and made it all look presentable again. Other people do the same. All of us who have relatives there maintain it and all the church do is mow the lawn once in a blue moon. So they can't claim that having lots of flowers left makes more work for them because once Christmas is over, it will be relatives who tidy it all up again.

I'm so sad at the lack of Christian spirit on this and hope the local church retracts this new rule.

Remembrance

It's Remembrance Sunday today. For as long as I can remember I watched the Remembrance Service on TV with my Mum. I remember her always shedding tears when I was too young to know why it was sad. As I got a bit older and we learnt about the wars at school I understood why it was upsetting to watch and why we had this day. My Grandma told me about people in our family who have served in the two World Wars, which made it more real to me.

After my Mum's Mum died twelve years ago, when I was 19, we found an old biscuit tin with all sorts of documents and photographs in. My Mum and her sister were already crying as they looked through it but both of them had to leave the room after reading one slip of paper. Mum showed it to me afterwards and it was the telegram that my Nan had received about her first husband, who had served in World War 2. It said 'Missing Presumed Dead' on it. I sobbed when I saw it and I get choked up now when I think of it. My Nan had a young daughter when she received that news and I cannot even imagine how devastated she must have been.

Every year since then when I've watched the Remembrance Service with my Mum I've cried because I think of my Nan and her husband. He was never found but it is believed he had been in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. I also know of people who have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq in more recent years.

My Mum died last year and so now I watch the Remembrance Service on my own. And I cry. I cry for all the soldiers who have died; for the soldiers, and their families, I have known who have died; and mostly for my Nan.

And I cry for my Mum because I just really, really miss her.

Ordinary time

Life can change in an instant. Two years ago tomorrow my Mum had the massive seizures that led to the discovery of a brain tumour. We were still getting used to the idea she had cancer; the news of a brain tumour meant her life expectancy would most likely be even shorter than we had previously been told. It was impossible to comprehend how this could have happened.

It was an ordinary day filled with ordinary things. And in one moment it all changed. I never left my Mum for a second for the rest of her life. I cared for her in every way while watching the Mum I knew and loved slowly disappear. It was heart-breaking.

I'm not traumatised by what happened that night like I was for a time. But I do feel incredibly sad. My Mum did not deserve to go through what she did. We lost a lot of what made my Mum who she was that night. And it just makes my heart break all over again to think of it.

I just miss her so very much. I would give anything to be able to pop round and have a natter with her. To just have one more day; even one more hour of ordinary time with her.

Music

A friend on Twitter, @littlemunchkin, posed the question today: What song is your guilty pleasure? I have two songs that I always think of when asked this question. The first is Alcazaar's Crying at the Discoteque. I first heard it on my now all-time favourtite TV show, Queer as Folk and I adore it. Every single time I hear it I have to turn it up and sing along. I often have a little dance too. It never fails to cheer me up. The other song is Aztec Camera's Somewhere in my Heart. This is on my Fantastic 80s CD. My Mum often had this on in the car when we were going on days out. My brother often had it on in his bedroom. When I hear it I remember happy summer days with my family. It never fails to make me smile. I treasure how this song makes me feel.

The power of music always amazes me. How hearing a particular song takes you right back to a particular time in your life. It can make you so happy or so sad and sometimes it makes you both at the same time.

Music has always been hugely important in my life. My Mum had a very eclectic taste and I grew up hearing her play her records. I was surrounded by music.

I hear In My Life by The Beatles and it reminds me of my Mum. It was one of her all-time favourite songs. We had it played at her funeral and it was perfect. The lyrics are so meaningful.

I hear Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and it reminds me of hearing it in the car with Mum after  she was diagnosed with cancer. She laughed and said she wanted it played at her funeral. Then she heard the line "Life's a piece of shit when you look at it' and said she couldn't have that because older members of our family would freak out if they heard bad language in church. This was when I told her I would wear red and joked that they would be so outraged by that they wouldn't notice the swear word in the song. Mum laughed so hard, it was the last time I saw her properly laugh. She made me promise I'd wear red. I kept my promise.

I hear The Steve Miller Band's The Joker and remember my first proper kiss. 

I hear The Searchers' Needles and Pins and I remember going on fairground rides with my brother at Butlins when we were kids. 

I hear Sisqo's The Thong Song and Aaliyah's Try Again and I remember the amazing times I had with my best friend just before she died. 

I hear The Nolans' I'm in the Mood for Dancing and I remember my wonderful Nan dancing with us at my cousin's 18th birthday party. My Nan died the following year and I miss her even now, twelve years on. I always remember that party as such a happy time though.

I hear Crocodile Rock and I remember singing with my Mum at the top of our voices at an Elton John concert; we both lost our voices for a whole day after that gig! 

I hear Stay by Shakespear's sister and I remember being 13 years old and in hospital for the first time waiting to have my appendix out. Top of the Pops was on and that song was number one; the doctor said the video was about a girl dying. Not what I needed to be thinking about!

I hear Amarillo by Tony Christie (and Peter Kay... sort of) and although I'm not a fan of the song, my whole family is so it reminds me of great times with them. At my brother's wedding reception it got requested and played three times. I grudgingly joined the end of the chain of people dancing in a follow my leader style around the room. It was all caught on video. It makes me emotional now because my brother's wedding was only five years ago and in that time we've lost our Mum, our Grandad and a friend. They're all on that video dancing to Amarillo. Bittersweet memories but I'm glad I have them and I'm glad the video exists.

I hear Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance with Somebody and I remember the embarrassment of winning the disco dancing competition at club at Butlins when I was about 8 years old. I had to walk on stage in front of everyone to get my prize!

I hear The Prodigy's Spitfire and I remember my poor heartbroken brother and his friends, all just 18, carrying their friend Ash's coffin into his funeral. It was haunting and heartbreaking.

I hear The Way We Were by Barbra Streisand and I remember it being on the radio when I came running home from school with my GCSE results. I remember my mum hugging me and then sobbing with happiness at what I'd achieved.

I hear Bye Bye Baby by The Bay City Rollers and I remember crying in the back of the car on the way home from a holiday and my holiday romance when I was 15. This song came on the radio and my brother, then aged 12, thought it was hilariously appropriate. He sang that song at me over and over again for days and days and days. Whenever we're at a party together now though one of us always requests it because it makes us both laugh now.

I hear Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega and remember it being on the radio all the time when I was learning to drive. I also remember my Mum laughing hysterically when this song was on The Royle Family while Jim was decorating.

I heard Groovejet by Spiller on the radio that other day when we were driving to the house to do more renovating. It made me smile. I had somehow known I would hear that song while we were working on the house. Last time my Mum decorated the kitchen she had the radio on and I remember her phoning me that night saying that she had heard Groovejet about a million times while decorating. She could never hear the song after that without commenting on how it drove her mad while doing the kitchen up. It's funny that I heard it while being driven mad by decorating too. 

Music has a huge part to play in how Paul and I got together too. After our initial conversation about books a lot of our tweeting was about music. Paul is a real music lover, it's his passion in life. It's a huge part of who he is. I love song lyrics and always had books where, as a teenager and beyond, I wrote down lyrics that I loved; that inspired me; that spoke to me. I had recently seen the lyrics to a Madness song called One Better Day and was inspired to copy down these lyrics... 

'Walking round you sometimes hear the sunshine 

Beating down in time with the rhythm of your shoes 

The feeling of arriving when you've nothing left to lose' 

because they jumped out at me. They caught exactly how I was feeling at the time. You can imagine how strange/amazing it was when Paul randomly tweeted this lyric; it wasn't even to me, it was a public tweet. I immediately tweeted back the song title and he was stunned that I knew it. From then on he often tweeted song lyrics and I nearly always knew what they were. One night just before he said goodnight to me he told me to download What If I by Ben's Brother. I'd never even heard of this band but I trusted his judgement. I listened to that song on a loop for ages and couldn't work out if he was trying to tell me something about how he felt about me through that song. About a week and a half later we met up in real life and the rest, as they say, is history! We try to regularly have music nights at home, we're planning one this weekend and I can't wait.

The strange thing is that the songs I've talked about aren't necessarily my favourites songs; some of the songs I don't even like but they remind me of a really happy time. If I was asked for a list of my favourite songs, it would be a completely different list. I don't think events have quite the same impact for me without music. Just about everything in my life has a song attached to it, I can't think of many things where music didn't play a part. The power of music is a wondeful thing.

Packing

Today I am packing up my books ready for the move. It’s not even a year since I last packed and then unpacked them when I moved in with Paul.

Packing my books today really made me think of what a different place I’m in now and how much happier I am. My move here was mired in all kinds of complicated emotions. I was very happy to be moving in with Paul but my brothers and I were barely talking to each other. I wasn’t coping at all with the loss of my Mum and I wasn’t having any kind of treatment for my breakdown. My family were very distant and lots of things were such a mess.

Now I’m packing to move with Paul to our new home. My brothers and I have our old relationship back and I’m in regular contact with my family again.

It amazes me that life can totally fall apart, that you can hit the bottom with such a thud but then without you even really noticing things start getting better. And before you know it you’re thinking things over and realizing that things really are ok now.

I still miss my Mum and wish she was here. I always will. But I find I’m not so angry now about what we went through with her illness. I talk about it now and the pain is getting easier all the time.

I wish I could have known a year ago that this is where I’d be right now. That I’d be in such a good place. That everything would be getting better. That I’d find a new normal. That I’d be happy again.

Time to move on

Yesterday Paul and I incinerated all of my Mum’s paperwork. All the bills, all the bank statements, all the receipts and all the hospital letters. It’s all gone.

And I don’t feel guilty. I actually feel a huge sense of relief.

I think even when you think that it doesn’t bother you hanging on to that stuff, it actually festers away in your subconscious. It eats away at you without you realising and it’s only when it’s gone that you see just how much it was eating away at you.

My Mum was not her paperwork.

Today it feels like there’s so much more space in my head to deal with other things.

So right now, this very second, I am listening to (I’ve Had) The Time of my Life and I feel sick and on edge and nervous and I’m crying. But I’m not running away, I’m not freaking out. I’m working through it.

I never thought I would get here.

I can honestly say that I am getting better.

Finally, I am getting better.

I will not let this steal any more of my life and my happiness. Life is too short.

It stops here. It’s time to move on.

Really letting it go

Tomorrow Paul and I are going to his Mum’s house to use her incinerator. We are going to burn all of my Mum’s paperwork. I no longer have a legal requirement to keep it so I’m getting rid of it all. It’s hard to do but my Mum is not in these bank statements & bills etc.

The biggest and hardest thing I had to do before tomorrow was decide if I could finally let go of my Mum’s hospital letters, copies of sick notes and the notebook I wrote her terminal diagnosis and treatment plan in. 

I’ve blogged about this before. I’ve agonised over the idea of getting rid of them.

I suddenly felt this morning that I have to let this go. My Mum was not her illness. She was not cancer. She was the best Mum in the world. She was kind and funny and generous and the best friend you could ever have.

I want that Mum in my head. I don’t want the cancer, the pain, the sadness, the guilt, the anger. I want my wonderful Mum. I want my amazing memories.

I have to really start putting this behind me.

So just a few minutes ago I tipped out the bag of hospital stuff and I let myself read it. I let myself sob my heart out at what my Mum went through.

And then I tore the whole lot to shreds. Every last bit of it.

Now I’m still crying but I don’t feel guilty. My Mum was not her illness and it’s time to really begin to let the illness part of her life go.

I had 29.5 years with my Mum before she was diagnosed with cancer. Those are the times that I want to mark, that I want to remember, that I want to share with people.

I feel so sad right now remembering what she went through. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy.

But I feel good that I’ve finally managed to shred the papers. And for good measure I’m going to incinerate all the shredded paper tomorrow.

I think if my Mum could see me now she’d be saying to herself that it’s about time I got my life back.

I think it is too.

Baggage

Paul and I are hoping the house purchase will complete this week. It’s looking like it will. So as and when I can be bothered I’m trying to sort through a few things. The other day it was paperwork. Today it’s my clothes.

When I moved in with Paul I got rid of lots of my clothes, it was a chance for a new start. A new me. So I got rid of all those clothes I was going to slim into (but never quite managed to) and all my fat clothes (in case I ever gained weight again but actually never wore again regardless). I got rid of all my bridesmaid dresses.

Now I’m about to move again and thought I’d have another clear out. I started with my jumper/cardigan cupboard. As soon as I pulled them all out onto the bed I realised something.

During the very cold winter we had I’d barely worn any of these jumpers. I’d simply rotated the same few.

The ones I didn’t wear are the ones I no longer like but they were, at one time, things that my Mum liked me in. Things that at one stage I liked me in. But I don’t like them anymore. My taste has changed.

But I feel bad because my Mum liked me in these jumpers. She’d bought me some of these jumpers. I’d worn these jumpers during the winter in the last stage of her life. They were some of the last things I’d worn when she was alive.

Mum and I spent a lot of time mooching around the shops, having lovely girlie days out. And I really, really miss that. More than I can even say. Now I mainly shop on my own and buy what I need. It’s not so enjoyable when you don’t have someone to giggle in the fitting room with.

Holding onto these clothes won’t change my wonderful memories of when I bought them, when I wore them. It doesn’t change how much I love my Mum.

It just means I will have more space in my wardrobe. It means I can replace them with new things, in time, that I’ll enjoy wearing.

I think that’s what my Mum would want for me. It’s what I want for me.

So tomorrow, when Paul and I go to the bank to transfer the money for the house to our solicitor. We’ll also be going to the charity shop where I can leave some more of my baggage.

It’s time to start moving on. 

Clear thinking

As some of you know from my twitter account, I’m currently trying to wean myself off the very strong pain medication that I’ve been taking for about a decade now.

I decided to try and reduce the medication in my system because it was starting to cause more and more symptoms. I also wanted to be able to assess how my health is doing. It’s hard to tell when you’re taking medication.

An unexpected thing has happened as a result of reducing the dose. I can think more clearly, incredibly clearly. I’m dealing with my emotions better. I’m starting to feel that more of the old me is appearing. The me that I lost when Mum was ill.

I knew that pain medication would numb all kinds of things but I never appreciated that it could be to this degree.

The timing has been perfect because I’ve been feeling recently that I really need to deal with all my issues and get them behind me. This last week I really do think I’ve made such progress.

I’ve started this blog, which has got me writing again. I haven’t been able to write like this in two years. And it’s my space where I can say what I want. I can be honest. And it really, really helps.

I’m talking more about things. I’m terrible for holding all my emotions in. I clam up. I cannot talk about how I feel. It’s so bad for me but it’s not something I could help.

Last night I found myself talking to Paul about my traumas and not clamming up. It just spilled out of me quite freely.

And suddenly, just like that, I can see that there will be an end to all this. It’s not going to happen over night. It’s going to take time. It won’t always be easy. But it’s the first time since Mum got ill that I can really feel inside me that this pain and trauma will not be with me forever.

I can’t tell you how great that feels. 

Letting go of Mum's paperwork

I still have all of my Mum's hospital letters from when she was ill and the notebook I wrote the details of her chemo etc in the day we were told her diagnosis was terminal.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to let it go. I’m really struggling with the idea of throwing it out. I think it feels like I’m just dismissing what was such a terrible time. I still haven’t come to terms with what my Mum went through but maybe holding onto this paperwork isn’t helping. I have to learn to let go. I want the new house to be a new start and it’s a good chance to let this stuff go.

When it comes down to it I don’t want to let my Mum go. I want her here. Yet I know that keeping hospital letters won’t change anything. It won’t bring her back.

Maybe I want proof of what we went through during her illness. I was on my own caring for her and it was bloody hard. But I live with it every single day. Who’s the proof for? I think there comes a time when you come to realise you’re torturing yourself. I have to let this go. My Mum wouldn’t want this for me. I don’t want this for me.

My Mum died of cancer. It was indescribably awful. But nothing will change how much I loved her. Or how much she loved me. And that is the bit that’s important.

I’m going to put these letters in a separate bin bag and I’m going to try to allow myself to throw the bag in the wheelie bin.

Guilt

I’m someone who easily ends up feeling guilty over things even when I logically know I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m working on this because it’s not good for me.

I carry guilt from being my Mum’s sole carer. I know I looked after her the absolute best I could and better than anyone else could have but I feel guilty because I couldn’t make her better.

I feel guilty because two days before she had a series of massive seizures, which led to us finding out that the cancer had spread to her brain, I thought something was wrong and I couldn’t do anything about it.

It was Friday afternoon and I planned to call Mum’s consultant first thing Monday morning. But Sunday night it all happened. On the Friday afternoon I had realised she could no longer either write or remember how to write her own name. I realised that occasionally she was saying the opposite of what she meant.

I’ve wondered ever since if I could have made events different than they were. I’ve wondered if I could have noticed things sooner. I’ve felt such guilt.

Today I’ve been sorting through a few bits of paperwork I found of Mum’s that were mixed in with my stuff. I found a form she’d signed on the Friday morning and, although her handwriting was a bit shaky, everything was filled in perfectly.

It’s funny how you can carry guilt that you know you don’t need to carry but you carry it anyway. If Mum could write ok on the Friday morning it means the symptoms were either not there before then or they were so intermittent it would have been near impossible to notice them.

I knew deep down I wouldn’t have missed it but I doubted myself. I questioned myself. It all comes down to the fact that when you put everything you have, and then some, into nursing someone but then they die because sometimes all the care and all the love in the world just can’t make people better, it's heartbreaking. There is no answer, it's no one's fault, it's life and it's hard and it isn't fair.

I couldn’t make any of it any different than what it was. I think I need to learn to go easier on myself. I think I need to start letting go of this guilt. 

How I came to be here...

I’ve been thinking of starting a blog for ages but every time I come close to signing up to Blogger I chicken out. I’m now learning that sharing an experience is helpful and have decided that blogging will be a good thing for me at this point in my life.

I’ve had a very up and down couple of years and it has had a huge effect on me. I’m beginning to realise that to have difficulty coping after what I’ve been through is normal and not something to be ashamed about.

Two years ago I was in my second year of Uni as a mature student and life was on the up. Then the bottom fell out of my world when my wonderful Mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I immediately moved back home and I cared for her on my own 24 hours a day until she died seven months later. I literally did everything for her on my own. I never got a second to process what was happening, it all got held inside me.

I have issues relating to my Mum’s illness that I am still working through but I know I will get through them. I’m sure things about it will crop up on here from time to time. I’m trying to share more and not hold things inside because I’m learning the hard way that it simply doesn’t do you any good.

My life began to unravel after Mum died. My long-term relationship broke down. I had no support from anywhere; all my friends disappeared when Mum got ill and they never came back. It was a lonely and distressing time for me and I didn’t know how I would ever get me back again.

Despite my then belief that social networking was for weirdos I succumbed and joined twitter. It quite literally changed my life.  My world had become so tiny and I didn’t know how to begin again but gradually I felt less lonely as there was always someone to chat to on there day or night.

And then there was Paul.

We got talking over books and got to know each other through song lyrics. He stayed up all night chatting to me on twitter when my insomnia was at its worst and I will always be grateful to him for that. It was the first kindness anyone had shown me since before my Mum was ill.

We met up in real life. I was going through what I now know to be a breakdown but it didn’t put him off me. He helped pick me up and put me back together. Even on my worst days, he can make me laugh.

I moved in with him in October and we’re now in the process of buying our first house together. I am so happy with him and it’s just amazing to be making all these plans for the future. I’m beginning to look forward again rather than back.

I miss my Mum every day and wish she could have met Paul, I wish she could see where I am now. I grieve for her still and I will for as long as it takes. I know she would’ve have loved Paul though and she would have been eternally grateful for how much he has helped me.

Paul has shown me that there are good people in this world, people that will love you and help you even in your darkest moments. I am so grateful to have him in my life.

I’m coming to realise that there is a light at the end of every tunnel but it takes as long as it takes to stand in the light and leave the darkness behind you. But that is ok.