Last Posting Date

Here's something else I struggle with: thinking things through in advance.

This usually manifests in a boringly normal way; I am late for most things. Routine things are okay now, like work. I got fed up of arriving sweaty and panicked or worrying I was going to lose my job constantly and decided to try and fix that and it works okay for the most part. It's routine, it makes sense. I may occasionally run for the train and suspect it may all fall apart if I ever learn to drive, but hey.

The event that inspired me to write this post was realising, at almost 2 am, that it is now four days before Christmas and hence too late to post any parcels back home. I had sort of vaguely mentioned this to my husband this morning in a sort of "Oh, weren't we going to do that?" manner. He said no.

So how does this happen? Presumably I had some kind of idea that I wanted to send a box of stuff home. So how does it get to this point where I'm suddenly realising it's too late? This is what I've deduced happens. I'm milling around quite happily, living my life, vaguely thinking about sending a box of stuff for Christmas, but Christmas is months away. Don't need to think about that yet! And then suddenly the day draws close. I think about sending a box for more than a few seconds and realise that I needed to:
1. Get an idea of what kind of thing I wanted to buy, either by going and looking around shops or by speaking to the intended recipient.
2. Actually buy the stuff. Could possibly be combined with 1.
3. Buy or find an envelope and/or box of the appropriate size.
4. Pack the items rather than letting them sit in the house for weeks.
5. Post them in time for the appropriate date.

This all seems a little overwhelming when I realise it hopelessly too late. I should have thought about thus earlier, then I'd have time. The steps I'm missing are these two.
1. Work out what all of those steps in the first list actually are.
2. Working backwards from the last posting date, work out how much time (realistically) each step needs and hence when it needs to be started/finished by.

Fine, you think. Now it's all sorted. Except no, because it doesn't matter how long or short this list of tasks and allocated time is, the fact is that I needed to do that second list (the thinking in advance part) in advance. To even conceive the first list I need to do the second and to conceive the second list, I need to do... the second. Great. Thanks, brain! I assume that other people do these things semi-automatically, but somehow when they made my neural circuits that part got short-circuited, leaving me standing there on 20th December feeling crappy that I haven't sent a Christmas parcel to my folks. Well, thank god for internet shopping!

It never rains in southern california

I was talking about emotional abuse and I wrote this, and wanted to share it. 

I feel like my ex robbed me of my chance to be a good mother. I'm sure some would say that is excuses, I left when DS was one so I should have been able to be a good mother after then (and I believe I was a good mother before I left, too.) But I feel like he stole it because if it had been up to my judgement, I wouldn't have got pregnant in that situation or relationship, at that time of my life. He pushed and pushed and pushed until my heart won out over my head and I fell into that dream, of course as soon as it happened, I knew I'd be raising my child alone.

I am angry that he pushed me to make a decision I was doing quite well at saying no to, despite wanting it, and then dropped the ball. I can count on one hand the number of nappies he changed, I remember every one because it was such a drama trying to get him to do anything. He hasn't seen our son for four years. And yet occasionally when my six year old has a tantrum, something in that expression, my ex's face flashes through his, and I have to remind myself "You are not him".

I'm not a great mum. I'm okay but I'm not great. I'm still recovering from that relationship and I haven't had any space to do so, so I make my own space by pushing anyone and everyone away sometimes. You're not supposed to push your child away, but I have to to survive, and I am only just surviving. I am thankful every day that I happened across someone who is caring, who fills both gaps - my gap and my ex's gap. Really, they are both his gaps. His doing. Honestly if I think about my marriage too hard I know that I don't deserve it. I am not a good or easy wife. But I am in some ways forced to be a wife, to share my life and my home with this child, who I love, and this man, who I also love, but feel neither of them get anywhere close to the best of me.

I sleepwalk through most of these years. I have a poor grasp of time. Months and days feel the same, sometimes crawlingly slow but mostly vanishingly fast. My memory doesn't work like it used to, but mostly this sense of time going too fast. It never used to be this bad, before.

It's hard even to focus for a full post. I want to say more, but it's gone. The title is an autocorrect that I accidentally typed in, but it sort of fits. I'm tired - that's another thing, I'm exhausted all of the time. I feel like I could sleep for weeks.

I need to see a doctor, I know, but time... slips away. There is always something in the way and meanwhile months and years go past.

Maybe another five years and I'll be better?