Blog Posts

On Christmas- Dec 22

I had my elderly Dad and Aunt staying with me over Christmas. I spent the whole time in various states of irritation and repressed anger and I am trying to work out why. Is it because I don’t love them? No that isn’t the reason. Why is it then that practically everything they do or say winds me up, when it is only kindly meant? My Dad tries to be helpful around the house, and it isn’t really his intention to put things in the wrong drawers and cupboards. He can’t hear very well either, despite the hearing aids that I made him buy a couple of years ago. My Aunty is constantly picking things up and looking in cupboards, at envelopes, reading cards. Is it because she is nosey? Nope, it is because she is interested in my life. She has memory problems which are exacerbated when she drinks like a fish in the evenings. She also has an annoying habit of finishing every sentence with a mock laugh, and she can really only hold a conversation if it’s about M&S ready meals.

So what is it that angers me so? I think it is age. I am angry and irritated at the aging process. I resent that age has taken them away from me, diminished their bodies and their minds. I am not angry with them, I am angry that they are becoming old. I wish wish wish it wasn’t so, and I wish they weren’t going to leave me soon, and that makes me angry, and that anger manifests as irritation directed at them. The alternative is to cry and never stop.

Sorry Dad and Aunty, but when I snap at you, it’s because I am distraught that you will be leaving me before I am ready to let you go.

How selfish.

On Charity- January 23

I was wandering towards Waterloo station when a smartly dressed man with a clipboard approached me and asked me if I wanted to help abused women in Iraq. Of course the answer is yes but not if it involves handing over credit card information or missing a train, so I said sorry and hot footed it away feeling terribly terribly guilty. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I give monthly to cancer research and reflected on how much I hate it when the real world infringes upon the metropolitan middle class bubble in which I choose to live my life.

On Prince Harry- January 23

Poor me, poor me, pour me another.

I really don’t care.