NaNoWriMo

I took part in this year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month - a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days). It was a big challenge for me. I've done some creative writing before but never anything on this scale. It's also been a long time since I did any creative writing. I signed up to NaNoWriMo on a whim and I'm glad I did.

It's been hard work, harder than I thought especially the final 5000 words. I never thought of giving up though, it was a challenge that I was determined to complete. And today I hit 50,388 words and am now a 'winner'! I'm exhausted, the final push to finish it today was tough. I had to write a difficult section and it's taken me much of the day but it was worth it. It feels so good to have achieved something. I don't think I'll ever let anyone read it, I don't imagine it's any good but the point is I set myself a challenge and I completed it to the best of my abilities. I now proudly display my winner's badge on this blog. :o)

Tomorrow I am going to reward myself with a lazy day reading a book. I've barely read anything this month as I've devoted all of my time to writing so I can't wait to just relax and read.

Shared memories

My brother came to stay on Saturday night and we had a brilliant time. It was so easy to be with him, there was no stress or bad feeling. He was genuinely wanting to know how I am and he was really pleased to finally see our house. It was lovely.

He's not coping well without our Mum and I'm concerned about him. It's stopped being a battle of who feels worse and who's struggling the most and actually we had a very open chat about how much we miss her. It's the first time we've ever spoken about when Mum died and her funeral without there being a row and it was really good for us to have done that.

Most of all I hadn't realised until I saw him just how important shared memories are. Me and my brothers are the only people who knew what it was like to have our mum and to lose her. It was so lovely to reminisce about silly things that had happened when we were growing up and things we used to watch on TV as a family. We listened to a few songs from when we were younger and both of us were straight away taken back to the same memory. I didn't know how much I'd missed sharing those memories with someone who was there until then. I talk about my Mum often with Paul but it's a bit different because sadly he never knew her; we met after she died. I now feel more strongly than ever before that the bond between me and my brothers is really important.

I now feel like I'm properly back in the role of big sister to two younger brothers. I want to make sure they're ok and I want to make sure we properly keep in touch. I hope Philip will come and stay with us again soon. And in the meantime I can't wait to see my youngest brother Gareth and his girlfriend next weekend.

How things change (in a good way)

My middle brother has just phoned to say that he'd like to come and stay for the weekend. He is the brother who I have had the most difficult relationship with. We've always argued over the years but I found it very hard to forgive him for not being there when our Mum was so ill. He was also very nasty in the early days of my relationship with Paul.

But time really is a great healer. When Paul and I spent time with my family earlier this year all the old wounds had just disappeared. Somehow it had become more important to all of us to maintain our relationship than to continue with ill feeling.

So I am looking forward to him coming to stay with Paul and I tomorrow night. It'll be the first time anyone has visited us since I moved away over a year ago. It'll be good to see him, to catch up. And it'll be so lovely to have a member of my family come and stay in our home.

My younger brother and his girlfriend are coming to stay at the beginning of December and I can't wait to see them either.

I know how happy our Mum would be to know that we're all getting on so well and that we all want to spend time together.

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.

Our living room!

This is how our living room looked the day we got the keys to the house...

This is how it looked after a short while...

And this is how it looks now...

It's taken from the end of July to yesterday to get to this point. At times it's felt like we were never going to get there. Sitting in this room now though, it was worth it. It looks better than I could ever have imagined.

I wish my Mum could see it but I know she'd have loved it. She'd have been so proud of me for not having clutter everywhere. I'd love to tell her that when I cleaned and tidied in here yesterday it only took 15 minutes because I didn't have loads of ornaments etc to move first.

I'm so proud of what we've achieved with this room, we've exceeded our own expectations with it.

I can't wait to get the rest of the house looking like this now.

The house is getting there at last!

Yesterday our new joiner fitted our internal doors and our home is now looking so much more like a house again rather than a renovation project. It's lovely to sit in the living room or in our bedroom with the door closed; it makes everywhere feel more cosy and more private.

Next Saturday the joiner is coming back to fit our window sills and to build a cabinet we need in the  living room. Then a week on Monday our new suite is being delivered. At that point all the work we were planning to do on the house for now will be done! We can just relax and enjoy our lovely home. We still need some more furniture and we have other rooms we want to work on but that will all come in time.

It feels like the stripping back, the central heating, the plastering, the joinery work has taken forever. It feels like it has dragged on and on and on. And for a while it felt like there was just no end in sight. Yet it's actually only 2 months tomorrow that the purchase of the house completed. From this side of it all, it seems amazing to me that we've achieved so much in such a short space of time.

It's amazing to see the end point in sight at last. And to see our home getting lovelier by the day. :)

Radio

I've been asked to condense five of my favourite blog posts for a segment on local radio. I happily agreed and was then persuaded to arrange to go to the studio to record it. I'm due to go today for the recording. Eek!

I'm really pleased with my blog, it's my own personal therapy but I do get lovely comments on twitter about it, which I very much appreciate. I'm happy to share my posts with a different audience via the radio.

I've printed out my piece and have been reading through it this morning. I've just realised that the last time I read publicly was at my Mum's funeral last year and the first segment of my radio piece has a slight echo of what I wrote for her funeral. Rather than this being upsetting though, it's made me feel more confident. My Mum was so touched when I told her I wanted to read at her funeral and I was so proud that I managed to do that last thing for her. I remember how she spurred me on when I had to give my first major presentation at Uni, she always believed I could do it despite my lack of confidence.

I wore a purple dress and a bright red mac at Mum's funeral because she hated black. I'd promised her I'd wear red. I wear that mac often now and it never makes me feel sad, even though I had thought at the time I'd never wear it again. So I'm going to wear it today and think of my Mum. She'd be so excited about me reading something I'd written on the radio. I'm going to try and garner some of the excitement she would have had for me and carry it with me this afternoon.

Wish me luck!

When I Loved Myself Enough...

I'm working through lots of my issues at the moment and it's really hard. I'm supposed to be learning to take better care of myself and I find that difficult.

In the process of moving house I had to pack up all my belongings, which included all my books. During the packing of them I kept spotting books that I had forgotten I owned, including a little book called 'When I Loved Myself Enough' by Kim McMillen. I love little quote books and my Mum often used to buy them to cheer me up. This is one that she had given me and it had got buried on my shelves.

I kept it to hand when we moved and today I spotted it on my bedside table and thought I'd read through it. It's made me cry. It's a little overly sentimental but so much of this little book spoke to me. I don't love myself enough, I'm very hard on myself, I'm overly critical and I think I deserve the bad things that happen in my life. Reading this book has made me understand a little more what people mean when they talk about taking better care. I need to go easier on myself, I'm not a bad person.

I'm going to treasure this gift from my Mum, more than I ever did before, because I think it contains a lot of the answers.

We've moved!!

Well, we've finally moved! We had most of our belongings at the house by Wednesday so we spent our first night here then. We moved the rest of our things in stages over the last couple of days. It's been hectic and exhausting but we're finally in! We handed over the keys to the apartment yesterday so now it's officially official... we have moved!

It was emotional leaving the apartment for the last time. Paul had lived there for five years. I've been there over a year and it's been such a happy place. I'll miss it because it was an amazing apartment but our new home is completely ours. No more inspections and no more rent to pay. No mortgage either. The house is entirely ours.

I keep walking around the house amazed that it belongs to us. Every single item, every single brick, every single everything about this house belongs to us.

It feels fantastic!

House

Finally, the house is getting there. The plasterer finished yesterday and the relief is enormous. It's felt like he was never going to get finished and has been quite stressful as we have to move into the house next week as our notice period will be up on our apartment.

The joiner is hanging the doors in our living room today so we'll be painting them over the weekend. Then our living room carpet is being fitted on Monday morning. It means the living room will be close to finished. It will be the only room that is near finished so will have to double up as our bedroom for a little while.

As soon as the plaster in the bedroom is dry we'll be getting that painted and getting the joiner back in to fix the skirting boards and architraves.

I can't wait to see it properly starting to take shape.

We'll be hiring a van for the middle of next week to move our stuff. The apartment is crammed full of boxes at the moment and neither of us are looking forward to moving them. At least once it's done, it's done. We don't plan on moving again for at least a couple of years now!

This time next week we should about have everything moved in and be busy organising and painting and cleaning. I'll be so glad to get to that bit now.

It will be lovely to spend our first night together in our own home though. It will definitely warrant champagne!

Today I'm packing more things for the move, which is coming ever nearer. We're due to move early next week so I'm really focussed on getting our apartment packed up and ready to go now.

This afternoon I packed up my Mum's jewellery and some of her personal souvenirs that I want to keep. It made me cry to look at them. It's still hard to look at things she wore and loved and know that she's never going to wear them again. But I am going to wear them. Today I'm wearing one of her favourite rings, it's one I'd bought her and it makes me smile to be wearing it.

It's amazing the happiness and sadness to be found in a drawer full of stuff.

I found the funeral service sheet from Mum's funeral, which made me sad:

Then I found the very last Christmas card I gave her and the words in that made me sob. I remember writing it knowing it would be her last Christmas. Things like that are harder than you can even imagine. And I still find it hard to remember that I'll never again have cause to buy a card with Mum on it.

Then I found the tickets from when we went to see We Will Rock You. It was a Christmas present to her from all us three kids and our partners. We took her in March 2008, just a few weeks before she started being ill. I'm so glad we all managed to have that amazing weekend in London together. Mum had always wanted to see this show and she loved it.

And with that was the ticket from when I took Mum to an Elton John concert. She was a huge fan of his and so I couldn't resist getting tickets when I found out he was playing locally. We had seats in the front block and had the best time. He was on stage for over three hours. I'll never forget it as long as I live.

Then there was this poem that Mum had clipped out of a magazine. It made me well up but I love the words and will keep this. Mum found this after her Mum died and she kept it all that time. The words gave her comfort and now they'll do the same for me.

I'm left feeling very reflective. I'm learning to concentrate on remembering all the very many good times though.

Comforting smells

Today I did some washing and hung the clothes on the airer to dry. And all afternoon I've been aware of this sense of my Mum around me. I've just realised why.

I used a new detergent today and it turns out it has the same fragrance as the one my Mum always used. So now the apartment smells like my Mum's house used to. It's very comforting and it's made me smile.

It's funny how you can have all these triggers to bad things and forget that sometimes there are triggers that make you smile. That remind you of something comforting. That make you feel better.

Who'd have thought that the smell of washing detergent could feel like a hug?! :oD

Barbeque

Yesterday Paul and I had a barbeque at the new house. We haven't moved in yet but we wanted to talk advantage of the warm, sunny bank holiday and get out in the garden. It was lovely. We've bought the guinea pigs an outdoor run so they got to be outside too.

The house is finally starting to come together. The living room is plastered and we've decorated it. Today the joiner is meant to be fitting the new skirting boards and architraves, then later this week hanging the new doors, the curtain rail, building a cupboard and putting up shelves. The plasterer is going to be at the house from Thursday to plaster our bedroom and build the wall for our walk-in wardrobe.

It feels like it's taken forever to get to this point but it's actually only five weeks ago today that we got the keys. To think how much we've got done in such a short space of time is quite amazing really.

We'll be moving into the house within the next 2.5 weeks. It'll be strange to leave our apartment and to actually be living in the house but I'm so looking forward to it.

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.

Getting better

I’ve been working really hard on getting over my PTSD in recent weeks and have been pushing myself more and more. I just don’t want to live with it anymore. It’s taken too long out of my life and enough is enough.

I’ve been playing music from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack at times when I’m busy so that my head can get used to it without me overly making associations to the trauma. It’s hard but it’s really starting to work. A couple of times now I’ve heard a song from the film on the radio and instead of having a full-blown panic attack I’ve been able to cope. It’s not easy but the point is that I am coping. A few weeks ago I’d have really not coped at all.

Today I was having an early lunch and I turned the TV on. This Morning was on and they were interviewing someone about his role in the Dirty Dancing stage play. I felt a bit uncomfortable and on edge but I decided to just leave it on and see how I how I coped. Normally I feel panicked and turn anything off that I think might even have a tenuous link to that soundtrack and my traumas.

Not only did I watch the whole interview but I survived the final segment of the show where the dancers performed to ‘(I’ve had) The Time of My Life’ and I was ok. I could feel the adrenaline but it was ok.

I never, ever thought I would get to this point. I was so traumatized by what happened while that film was on and I just didn’t think I’d ever be able to deal with it and get past it.

But I’m learning that while music has the power to bring back memories, to make you remember things so vividly, it can’t actually take you back in time. The terrible things that happened are not going to happen again because I hear particular songs or watch a particular film. My head is beginning to get that now.

I’m psyching myself up to watch Dirty Dancing some time soon. It used to be my all-time favourite comfort movie and now it holds such traumatic associations. But right now I feel like I’m on the verge of claiming it back.

I am absolutely determined to get past this trauma. 

18 Years

It’s 18 years ago today that all my health problems started. It’s quite shocking to realise that it’s been that long. I remember how I felt after one year of it and a couple of years. The year when I realised I’d been ill for as long as I’d been well was particularly hard.

I started being ill when I was 13 years old and now I’m 31. And still ill. I have good spells and bad ones and I make the best of it. To be honest I can’t remember what it is like to not be like this. 

You only get one life and this is my life. I’m determined to keep on making the absolute best of it. Life’s too short for anything less.

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.

A child's perspective

A friend of mine has just let me know that her sister has lost a baby recently, her second in two years, which is heartbreaking and my heart goes out to her.

My friend’s daughter, who’s almost 5, said that it’ll all be ok because Joyce (that’s my Mum) will be looking after them so they’re safe.

It had me sobbing; it’s such an innocent and beautiful thing to say. And she’s right, if there was a heaven, my Mum would be looking after them.

It’s always lovely to hear that people still remember my Mum, still talk of her from time to time. It means a lot to know that she’s not been forgotten.

But to hear that a 4 year old remembers Mum; really remembers the essence of who she was, is just lovely beyond words.

I’ll treasure that.