Wait… What?

Doodle the Poodle; at this very second has his bum hole hovering precariously close to my face.

(Hovering, not hoovering. Just to be clear, if Doodle’s pink and puckered bum hole was hoovering close to my face, that would be an entirely different situation all together. I would almost definitely move away at a faster pace in the hope of avoiding being sucked up. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Anyway shall we move on? I am very tired.)

I am not exaggerating either.

Right now, as I type this, I actually have a dog’s (pink and puckered bum hole – have I already mentioned it was pink and puckered? I am so very tired I cannot think straight) moving closer and closer towards my left eye ball.

Right eyeball.

Wait, what? Did I say Left?

Anyway.

I once had a friend who, when pregnant, avoided cats Faces like the plague.

On her first Dr’s visit while pregnant you see, he told her that Cats Faeces were terrible for unborn babies and could kill them, and she misheard him.

I am telling you this, just so that you know, that no matter how tired and utterly stupid you get as a side effect of said exhaustion, (because of that child of yours, working, washing, ironing, putting petrol in the car, school dinners, having to sex up your other half while meal planning for the next fortnight, (wait… what?) and all the other life stuff, you always know, you are not alone.

And hey! At least you never ran screaming from a cat’s face.

There is an army of us.

United in our exhaustion based stupidity.

All knackered, all wondering where it all went wrong, all leaving the house with our shirts on inside out, all trying to avoid fast food, and all, at the back of our minds, contemplating suing Durex for millions of pounds (because seriously how would they EVER know? And the money could be really well spent on a NIGHT NANNY.)

I can only assume, as he gyrates, spins, whimpers and shakes in front of me and on top of me (Doodle, not the Irish one), that he too has spotted the dock off great big and hairy, 8 legged house guest currently known as; OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT SPIDER which is currently tap-tap-a- tapping its way slowly across the laminate floor towards the kitchen (probably to make itself a sandwich and grab a beer because lets face it, it has no kids and it won’t matter if it is a hung-over spider in the morning.)

Wait… what?

The fact that instead of pushing him off me (Doodle I mean, not the Irish one, because no matter HOW tired I am, I ALWAYS have the energy to NOT have sex) and I am instead just leaning around him, is pretty standard behaviour for me these days.

I self preserve where I can.

I can’t blame Doodle for his behaviour either; the spider is huge, but mostly? I have nothing left to give.

I literally have no energy left.

And I blame Addison. (And the inventors of Candy crush) because My three year old (and my Ipad mini) have sucked the life out of me. (Can anyone get past level 50? That Jelly is impossible!)

This isn’t what I was going to write about today either to be honest, but as I am right now having to peer around my dogs monkey bum hole to see the screen, I really feel like the post I was going to write, (a deep and meaningful about how making a mistake makes you human) seems a bit moot, so instead I have decided to give in to the delirium and write a competency based interview on the joys of motherhood.

Because, well, why not?

1) Can you give me an example of a time you have sneezed and either thought you were about to follow through or actually did? (But you saw this as more of an inconvenience than an embarrassment?)

2) Can you give me an example of when somebody you may have known (or in fact not known at all) inappropriately grabbed your stomach and uterus during pregnancy and behaved as if caressing you in public was something completely normal and appropriate?

3) Can you give me an example of a time you have sat through half an hour of Cbeebies even when the child was asleep because you couldn’t be arsed reaching for the remote?

4) Can you give me an example of a time you have had to spellcheck Cbebbeeies because it has the most ridiculous spelling ever?

5) Have you ever experienced complete memory loss? Like when, you are half way through telling a really brilliant story involving your other half or even your best friend and all of a sudden you can’t remember their name? (But incidentally can in fact name the entire cast of 300 trains from Thomas the tank engine.) And then have to laugh off the fact your work colleague had to remind you what your husband was called?

6) Have you ever wanted to punch someone just because you are tired and they are not?

7) Have you ever cried in to your pillow because you love your child so much, But if they get up One!

More!

Time!

You will be forced to trap your own head in between the door and the doorframe and SLAM over and over again in a bid to stay sane?

8) Can you give me an example of a time you tried to have a conversation with a friend, but kept getting distracted and then forgetting the end of what you were supposed to be….

Oh bloody hell, hang on, the child just woke up, I’ll be back in a minute…

Wait… What?

What was I doing again?

We. Are. Not. Alone.

…. Right?

Jake.

My sister is sitting in the middle of her double bed.

She is on her own, rocking back and forth, cross-legged, with her head in her hands.

She is drunk.

A sad, drunken and rather pathetic little island, sat on a crinkled and filthy bedspread surrounded by years gone by.

Photographs, birthday cards, certificates, letters and trinkets are piled everywhere, they enclose her in her misery, weaving in and out of her psyche causing tidal waves of pain, one after the other.

Why is she doing this to herself?

I hate watching this.

She needs to get a grip, she is better than this, this isn’t what I wanted.

Her world is caving in around her, and she is letting it.

There is nothing I can do to change it either.

My sister, as well as being quirky in a way I don’t quite understand, likes to live in the past, but who can blame her?

I want to scream and shake her but what would be the point?

The Damn Goo Goo Dolls.

‘They painted up your secret with the lies they told to you, and the least they ever gave you was the most you ever knew…’

I don’t know why I am even a tiny bit surprised.

Her all time favourite band, the songs and lyrics I was forced to listen to booming through my wall many, many, many times over the years.

‘…And I wonder where these dreams go when the world gets in your way, what’s the point in all this screaming, no one is listening anyway…’

I wonder if she remembers the time I kind of lost the plot after hearing Acoustic number 3 for the fiftieth time in a row.

I laugh out loud, I can’t help it.

What I wouldn’t give to remind her of that now over a pint.

‘Your voice is small and fading and your hiding here unknown…’

It was late and mum was away.

I knew arguing with her to turn it off, or down even, would be pointless, and I was in a foul mood as my car has been broken in to.

I mean wouldn’t you be?

She was miserable about another boy who had let her down and god that song was driving me insane!!

So I did what any big brother would do.

I burst through her door with a hand gun and fired a round off in to the ceiling.

‘And your mother loves your father cos she’s got nowhere to go…’

Well, that certainly got her attention.

In fairness though, I didn’t realise she wouldn’t have heard or seen me come in.

My intention was to be a bit James Bond like and make her laugh.

I assumed she would have seen me first.

‘And she wonders where these dreams go, cos the world got in her way, what’s the point in ever trying, nothing is changing anyway…’

But she was lying on her bed writing in her diary, with her back to the damn door.

She shit herself.

I mean she actually shit herself.

Thought someone was shooting at her.

It should have been funny.

How was I to know she was going to pass out and actually shit herself?

‘And they tried so hard to reach you but your falling anyway…’

We both laughed about it in the weeks following.

Not so much at the time though.

But that was us.

Mental.

I bought her a pink Ipod for her birthday last year as a kind of an apology, got her some pretty decent headphones too, not that she ever used them, oh no, she went out and got herself a bloody big docking station.

Way louder than that shitty CD player with the cock eyed ariel that would crackle out the top 40, and scratch every CD you put in it. It actually used to be mine that, before she wrecked it with all those Smash hits stickers.

My bloody little sister.

‘And you know I see right through you cos the world gets in your way, what the point in all this screaming you’re not listening anyway…’

That wasn’t the last present I bought her though, the last present I ever bought her was a Scorpion pickled in Vodka.

She would have found it funny I know she would have, she would have just got it.

Someone else ended up passing it on to her in the end though.

‘This was the Christmas present he bought for you.’

I didn’t get to see her reaction.

I miss us.

She used to be so girly, I wonder when she stopped caring and did this to her space, to herself.

Painted everything black.

I lean against her desk and watch as she swigs from a bottle of white wine, flicking through letter after letter, photo after photo.

I just watch.

What else can I do?

And then I remember.

I reach up and touch the light bulb with the tip of my finger, just as I was told it would, the light flickers.

Her head shoots up.

She stares right at me, like a rabbit in headlights, her face red and wet, her eyes swollen and clouded by black make up and booze.

I smile.

‘And I don’t want the world to see me cos I don’t think they’d understand, when everything is made to be broken I just want you to know who I am… ‘

I struggle to stay calm.

Our eyes meet.

I want to talk about it, I want to laugh, joke, shout, drink, explain, be…

‘I know you are here’ she slurs in to the half-light of the empty room.

I listen for more.

She shakes her head.

I sit on the floor with my back resting against the edge of her bed, my back to her and I know that is all I am getting tonight.

I will stay as long as I am needed.

I will just be here.

Downstairs the streetlights just beyond the tiny back garden have come on.

Brian is walking his dog down the alley, lost in thought.  The train platform was hot and crushed tonight and it freaked him out. He is tired of this now, he needs to quit this awful job.

Kevin is still sitting at his desk, counting down the minutes until his shift ends and he can get home to his Xbox. He has a new game and tonight he intends to reach the last level and beyond. He knows he should go out, but he can’t be bothered, no one likes him anyway.

Susan is in the kitchen; her two year old playing in the living room, she is wondering as she takes the fish out of the oven, whether tonight will be the night she gets pregnant again. She is hopeful.

Life goes on around us as we sit there together, alone, consumed by our pain.

At some point, I notice she has quietened down and is drifting off to sleep.

No more Goo Goo Dolls tonight.

It is time for me to go.

I get up and press shuffle on the Ipod.

Walking in Memphis.

Real music.

‘Put on my blue suede shoes and I boarded the plane…’

‘Thanks Jake,’ she mumbles incoherently, and as I turn to leave she laughs and shakes her head. ‘Dickhead.’

And I smile.

Because that’s us.

Moaning Bitch Club. Welcome back.

For the first time in a long time I do not feel like writing.

I have been waking up in the mornings, crawling out of bed, glimpsing in the mirror, admiring my tash, making a mental note to shave it in between all the other pointless mind numbing tasks I have to do, and then ultimately forgetting all about it before turning the kettle on and listening to the Wheels on the Bus Megamix on Channel Addy.

I do not often use pictures in blog posts but as I am unable to pull anything interesting or creative from my dead heart on this occasion, it will be a lot easier and less time consuming for me to just show you what I look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is me.

Is the Tash very obvious?

I worry that the mustache is beginning to take over my face.

I went to Asda like this yesterday, thinking I looked half decent before I realised I only had mascara on one eye, I had four boob syndrome and a roll of muffin top that would make a muffin blush with jealousy.

How do these other ‘bouncy’ mothers do it?

Prancing around Asda in their skinny jeans and their spaghetti stained free tops, Range rover Evoque’s parked outside ready to herd the kids away and pert breasts not only producing 17 pints of milk per child, but also standing mighty fine and all ready for their husbands to caress.

What am I missing?

Other than sleep?

My jeans are only ‘skinny’ because my thighs still rub together in the middle and actually all jeans look ‘skinny’ on me right now and what excuse do I have for my body to have all but given up? I only have one child, age 3.

HE still hasn’t slept through either.

AT WHAT POINT DO THEY START TO DO THAT?

(And is Piriton ok as a long term solution?)

And as for my car, it could double as a skip and if the Irish one even thinks of approaching in a caressing mood I will quite happily take a baseball bat to his testicles.

Yesterday, while Addison was busy screaming in the next room because I cruelly refused to consider dragging the next door neighbours six foot trampoline in to his bedroom, I sat down to take a deep breath and 2 minutes of normality, and noticed a friend of mine posted a status on facebook which made me want to go round her house and smash her windows in.

‘Anybody who describes themselves as a full time mummy needs shooting. Being a mummy is not a job!’

After the steam had stopped shooting from my ears, after I had stomped on a few pieces of lego while muttering all kinds of madness, phoned another friend and screamed ‘smug bitch!!’ a few hundred times, stopped Addison from kicking and screaming at me mid tantrum, by kicking and screaming myself, I removed her from my friend list and decided to wash my hands of her ‘perfect motherness’ crap.

Because once I start to compare myself, it is a downward spiral to the freezer.

And we all know where that ends.

(On that subject, have you tried Ben and Jerry’s caramel core yet??)

I have a job, I have a kid, I have an Irish one with a mild case of the annoying horn and I have a poodle with a loose bowel.

Then I have voices in my head, the self doubt, the medication I keep forgetting to take, a wedding  I am failing at organising, a husband to be I am failing at ‘servicing’ and a DOG THAT WON’T STOP CRAPPING ON THE RUG!

Oh and I still have a mustache.

How do these women do it?

TELL ME HOW THEY DO IT!!

I do enjoy it occasionally though.

Especially the Addy classics.

‘Mammy you are so beautiful, just like a mermaid’ he strokes my hair tenderly, ‘but a lot fatter.’

‘Mammy I am gutted that it’s pissing rain.’  (Blame the Irish one.)

In the middle of starbucks, to the man in front of us in the queue;

‘Do you want to see my testicles?’

*facepalm.

*And before I get anybody telling me I should be grateful I am a mother and they are bored of hearing mothers moan I will say this. I realise my problems may seem shallow and not like problems at all to some people and actually there are occasions I love being a mother (like when he is asleep) but just because i am a mother does not mean i am NOT ALLOWED TO MOAN ABOUT IT SOMETIMES!!!

Anyone fancy a night out?

Or better still, a week away?

Would somebody please come and shave my Tash?

Same Song and Dance.

‘Oh yeah?? And what do you ever do for me you miserable cow?’

My rage alert monitor just tripped over in to red.

There are bells and sirens and whistles piercing the air.

Doodle runs for cover and takes the 70 thousand ants that recently moved in, with him.

Addison is at nursery so there is no stopping us now.

We can finally let rip and tear strips out of one another.

If I were to give in to my rage right now, I would gain such a large amount of satisfaction from punching him hard over and over again in the chest, perhaps delivering a swift kick to the groinal area, maybe pulling his hair and biting him before slapping him and then stepping over him, in killer heels, (obviously I  would change out of my slippers first) with nothing more than a hair toss and a haughty laugh.

But I don’t give in to the rage, there would be no going back, and even though it illuminates me, I remain, although barely, in control.

‘Miserable bitch?’ I spit out at him.

How could he?

In my mind I am circled in smoke, red lights flash behind me, I am a warrior, Zena if you will, but with better thighs and the potential moves of Jackie Chan.

He declines to answer as if he knows it would be the final knife in the coffin.

He turns towards the door, ignoring me and I picture myself spinning like an elegant and long legged Charlie’s angel and high kicking him in the back of the head, so he head butts the fridge.

That would teach him a lesson.

But, alas, I don’t.

Instead I stand there staring at his back, motionless, in my grotty pajama bottoms and my stained top, my hair tied back with yesterdays pants, my stomach heavy and bloated from a much regretted meat diet, and a bowl of Weetabix moments away from going in the microwave, shaking in my hands

I wish in moments like this I was less grotty mother, it was less me and him, and more…. Like things used to be.

I wish I was still a mystery to him, you know?

I wish everything was still new, and he had never witnessed me crapping out an elephant poop on a birthing table pre Addison, OR heard me screaming blue murder the first time I had to have a poo post bum stitching, post Addison, OR ‘enjoyed’ me in the later stages of psychosis talking to someone who wasn’t there, tears and snot covering my cheekbones.

Cheekbones that he used to trace with his finger, oh so tenderly, right before I took an overdose and he had to save my life, while I puked in his lap.

I wish he still fancied me, that I was still interesting to him, that although we had a shared history, that we could erase some of it and enjoy some discovery.

He thinks I am a miserable bitch.

I think he is an ungrateful control freak who uses all of the above against me.

And you know what?

Sometimes we are both right.

‘LOVE, LOVE, LOVE…  love, love love… There is nothing you can do that can’t be done, nothing you can sing that can’t be sung…. All you need is love, all you need is love…’

The radio sitting next to the butter stained toaster is providing the saddest of background soundtracks to what could potentially be the demise of our relationship.

I love him.

Maybe I should just let it go…

But hang on!

I bought him pork yesterday!

Screw him!

I am a ninja!

He is lucky to have me!

I am so right right now, and this has nothing to do with me being miserable or crapping on a birthing table and has everything to do with him being ungrateful!!

I slam down the Weetabix and chase him in to the hallway where he is picking up his work coat, getting ready to leave for the day.

All couples have fights, all couples go through rocky patches but do all couples momentarily lose control the way we do and lay in to one another?

He’s standing by the door about to leave, and in this moment, I hate him.

I actually hate him.

Is this my illness or is this standard?

That my emotions can flip so easily from love to hate, from hate to love?

I don’t even know how this all started, but I will be damned if I am letting him have the last word.

I am too far gone.

‘I do plenty for you!’ I scream at him, yanking up my jammy bottoms and shaking with barely suppressed rage. ‘I bought you pork from the supermarket yesterday!’

He looks at me like he doesn’t understand.

He steps forward, shoving his arms in to his coat.

‘You bought me PORK?’

‘Yes I bloody did! I bought you pork and POTATOES! I do plenty for you! I spent ages choosing that bloody pork! It was meant to be romantic! But you are just so UNGRATEFUL AND SELFISH AND HORRIBLE that you didn’t even think to say thank you!’

‘FOR BUYING ME PORK?’ he is shouting but his eyebrows are knotted in angry confusion. ‘You didn’t cook it for me you know! YOU JUST BOUGHT IT!’

‘YES I did! And I spent ages choosing it! It was meant to be romantic!’

He takes a deep breath. ‘Romantic PORK?’ he screams, losing emphasis and trying not to smile.

Ah, now when he puts it like that…

I take a deep breath.

I am confused.

What was the point I was trying to make?

‘If I had cooked it,’ I continue, finding my point ‘you and I both know you would have undoubtedly been struck down by food poisoning and besides I respect pigs too much to cook them, you know this about me! I was trying to do something nice, I thought is would have been nice to have a romantic night in! But oh no you just go ahead and eat it and then…’

I stop.

He is just staring at me.

‘What?’

‘How was I supposed to know that it was romantic pork?’ he is sniggering.

He just bloody was.

I am not being unreasonable here.

Romance isn’t all flowers and nights in Paris when you have a child is it?

He saw me dribbling charcoal, I have seen him with the noro-virus, there are no secrets anymore, no mystery… how could it be any other way?

I just want it to be a little bit the other way though,… oomphy, every now and again.. you know?

‘You proposed to me while I was cleaning up dog poo Irish One! IT WAS ROMANTIC PORK! DON’T MOCK THE PORK!’

He heaves a big sigh, smiles at me a little to test the water, I don’t smile back, even though I want to, I don’t know why I don’t,  and eventually he leaves for work, the door closing firmly behind him.

And then it hits me.

Did we just argue about pork?

Did he really propose to me while I was cleaning up dog poo?

Is this really my life?

I don’t know whether to cry because this is what it has come to, or laugh because I love someone enough to argue with him about Pork, and often happily imagine roundhousing him in the back of the head.

‘I love you.’ I text him immediately, because, as much as I sometimes absolutely hate and am bored shitless by my life, the monotony of it all, sometimes when I think about it properly, if I look at it from an abstract, I do love it. Right?

I love him.

‘I love you too’ the reply is almost instantaneous, ‘I am sorry about the PORK.’

I do not reply.

This is getting ridiculous,

He is sorry about the pork.

Maybe pork wasn’t the answer.

My phone beeps again.

‘Shall we have a Chinese tonight? Wink wink nudge nudge?’

I can’t help but laugh.

I do love a good argument.

But…

But…

Should it be like this?

Can you get the oomph back?

A Million more minutes.

‘Tomorrow is my birthday.’

I can feel the sweat starting to form on the back of my neck as I wait for the lady in front of me to pay for her shopping.

We, my son and I, are appropriately dressed for the North Pole (or April in Manchester).

Hats, boots, scarves, body warmers and thick jeans hang off our every appendage, outside we were smugly toasty, laughing the baltic weather in the face, but it has to be said, now we are inside, I am starting to regret dressing us both in thermal undies.

Addison is heavy at the best of times, but having him hanging around my neck, his nearly three year old chunky limbs, which used to be so tiny, covered in thick wool and toggles, his lead snow boots kicking me in the thighs, well, I feel as if I may pass out.

And now, while he relaxes in my arms and I lose half my body weight in sweat and fluster, he has kindly struck up a conversation with the old bid behind us.

I turn to shoot a smile and roll my eyes at the old lady queueing behind us, the old lady, I notice immediately, that is only buying a loan loaf, a lonely bottle of milk and a single and sad looking bag of skittles, and instead I instantly admonish myself for calling her a bid, and thinking she wouldn’t be interested in him.

The smile on her face is wide.

She is beholding him as if he were a long lost relative.

I can tell he has managed it again.

Now i will roll my eyes and smile.

She is around his little finger, just like that.

This boy is such a player.

I am going to have to beat it out of him. (He will be still living with me when he is 40. He is never allowed to leave me. EVER.)

I smile, but even though his face is RIGHT next to mine, she barely notices me.

‘Is it really?’ she says bringing her gnarly, bent finger up to his soft, silk cheek and resting it lightly on the side of his face, absolute uncensored love and memories of her own, pouring from her smile.

Honestly, her memories are so vivid in her eyes, I feel as I stand in front of her, I can almost feel how her life has played out.

I can almost watch, touch and feel her experiences, as if she is playing a black and white movie to me in a heartbeat.

I see how maybe she used to be like me, she used to have a three year old adoring her, maybe more children, hanging off her neck, kissing her, driving her barmy, how she adored every minute and now; well now…

She has one bag of skittles.

Where is her three year old?

‘And how old will you be little one?’

She pulls her hand away and her eyes meet mine for a split second.

In that moment I confirm as only a mother can that she is ok to continue and I don’t mind in the slightest.

There is a part of me that wants to reach out and hug her, invite her to babysit maybe… (kidding.)

Usually I hate when people just randomly touch my son without asking.

It is one of my pet hates.

He is not a dog.

Stop petting him.

I think it stems from a family holiday we took to Morocco when I was eight.

Basically wherever we walked as a family, locals would wander up to me and begin touching and rubbing my hair.

I was like a magic lamp.

Honestly.

This actually happened!

I have since heard it is quite typical in Morocco, as I suppose they don’t, or they didn’t in the 80’s anyway, tend to see too many blonde, blue eyed, children.

I have to say at first I loved it.

It spoke to the eight-year-old diva in me, who even at that young and impressionable age was desperate for fame, fortune and a pop star status. (With possibly a few diamonds, a massive My Little Pony house and definitely a trampoline, thrown in for good measure…. And an eye patch. I always wanted an eye patch.)

My parents also seemed to be enjoying the hilarity and attention connected to market stall holders, waitresses, passing business people, randoms, men, women, and other mothers and fathers stopping in their tracks at the sight of their daughter.

I think if my mum could have, she would have happily yanked my hair off my head with her bare hands and worn it as a blonde wig herself. That is how much attention I seemed to be getting.

It was wonderful, for a while.

‘How many camels for your daughter? How many camels for your daughter??’

Yeah.

And then it wasn’t.

‘I give you three and a half camels!’

And while my dad pretended to barter for me, and people continued to yank at me, and my brother pissed himself laughing and my dad pretended to agree to two camels, and I didn’t realise he was joking, (and to be fair I don’t think the Moroccon man did at first either) everything kind of changed.

I have never been able to look at a camel since without questioning my worth.

But anyway, back to the old woman.

‘Three!’ he cracks her a wide smile.

I turn back to the queue, moving forward as the woman in front leaves, and as I always do, heaving Addison over on to the till and sitting him in the end, the silver tray bit with the bags, so I can bag, and he can help me – this always raises a smile out of the cash person, as if they cant quite believe I am doing it.

I am already miles away as I bag.

I am absentmindedly throwing cans of beans in on top of the bread, apple juice in with fresh chicken and tucking the Tena lady in behind the Pampers while I think of what we have to do next to be sure we are ready for tomorrow, when the old lady leans over the till and most unexpectedly presses a pound in to Addison’s hand.

Now even without suffering from a side effect of depression, aptly named ‘You will scrawk anytime something nice happens’ I am touched by this lovely and most random act of kindness.

Addy’s mouth is hanging open as he looks down at the coin resting in his sweaty palm.

‘Addy!’ I say, after thanking the lady profusely, feeling a little embarrassed, not quite knowing the social etiquette for something like this, so insisting quite brusquely she really didn’t need to, but thanking her anyway.

‘Addy! What do you say to the nice lady? She gave you a pound! Isn’t she a nice lady! What do you say?’

He looks at the coin in his hand, and I see it going through his mind before I hear it.

He thinks she is playing shop, like he does with mummy at home.

It is too late though.

I cannot stop what is about to happen.

‘Thank you lady.’ He says very nicely. ‘But have you got a fiver?’

I almost died.

***

*Dear Addison,

Today you turned 3 years old.

Happy birthday my incredible boy.

The love I feel for you is more powerful than any emotion I have ever felt in my entire life.

You astound me and surprise me everyday and the moments I share with you right now during these weeks; singing ‘we stick together like glue,’ from the back of the car, you touching my face as I read you bedtime stories and we lie together cuddled in your tiny bed. Our mammy and Addy day’s spent whittling away the hours just being us, the times you mortify me in public places by grabbing my boob, asking for money or shouting ‘Mummy that man is a Muppet!’ well, they are without a doubt, the very best days of my life, days I will cherish and never ever forget.

You cry when I cry, my sensitive little boy, you have taught me what love is, which is why, once again, I thank you for saving me, when no one else could.

I will always want a Million more minutes with you.

(Which, incidentally, is why you aren’t moving out until you are 40.)

X

Mammy.

Dory.

The Irish one has decided to start growing potatoes, on our kitchen windowsill.

I paused there so that the full horror of what I am telling you can sink in.

The man has ultimately thought about it long and hard, and has evidently come to the conclusion that growing potatoes, in an already crammed two bedroom flat in the middle of industrial Hell Manchester, is a sensible and normal thing to do.

And it’s not only potatoes.

It’s tomatoes too.

I, once again, am idealizing suicide.

Although the two events seemed to kick-start around the same time, I am almost sure they are not related.

Almost.

‘What in the hell is this on the windowsill?’

The windowsill, by the way, was the only surface in this godforsaken flat of Doom* that hadn’t already been taken up by some form of clutter.

(*If you are a potential buyer then I don’t mean any of this stuff I am saying by the way, it really is an upcoming area with great potential, filled with lovely people who only carry bricks because it looks cool,  and only look menacing because they are tired. Also this Apartment is genuinely in an ideal location for a single and semi blind person about town, who doesn’t mind the odd bit of Cancer, from the tiny industrial estate which really is further away than it smells, and also a small family who don’t tend to use their windowsills to START A FARM!)

My windowsill was glorious.

Half a meter of shiny white, varnished wood that on the one sunny day of the year would shine and glint, occasionally reminding me of sunsets in the Caribbean when I worked on the ships, of a life spent growing up in Spain free of the doldrums of this existence and occasionally in my darker moments, it would remind me of wood worm.

And then I would want to smash it to smithereens.

Because, seriously how can the very thought of a worm that eats wood just not freak you out?

It cannot be natural.

Does the worm go hard?

And if not?

HOW COME?

It is EATING WOOD!

“It’s Potatoes! Addy and I are starting a mini allotment! Isn’t it a great idea!’

I had been at work 4 hours.

This is how long it took  for an indoor allotment to be created in my kitchen.

Can you imagine what would happen if I left them to their own devices for longer than this?

Doodle would be sharing his bed with chickens, that is what would happen.

We are only one step away from chickens!

And I have a phobia of EGGS!

Anyway.

Are you bored with listening to me go on about my illness yet?

Blah blah blah, I want to hang myself, or suffocate myself, or maybe tie bricks to my feet and go for a swim in the Quays, blah blah blah… change the record.

I am bored of talking about it, but even more tired of feeling this way, of shuffling my dusty feet around and around in circles seemingly making absolutely no progress further than the occasional bout of euphoria, usually only caused by accidentally taking too much medication or perhaps spotting that Selfridges stock a new Marc Jacobs handbag.

I am sinking here, again.

I am so bored of sinking.

Of being.

So What the hell is he thinking?

Potatoes?

Is he trying to push me over the edge?

Our flat is tiny and already has four heartbeats crammed in to it.

8 if you count the Guppy fish we inherited from the neighbor who randomly moved to china in the middle of the night.

(*Seriously, LOVELY area.)

Do fish even have heartbeats?

Wouldn’t a heartbeat in something so tiny put them off their stroke?

Annoy them?

I am not going to be as predictable as to regale you with how I feel I can relate to those fish if I stare at them long enough, endlessly swimming around their prison, stuck, being able to see what life is like on the other side of the glass but never being able to reach it, with no hope, completely reliant on a small pair of bum smelling, 2 year old hands to provide their happiness, their sustenance.

But I will be honest.

Sometimes I think they may be communicating with me.

Boc Boc Boc Bo BOC BOC, basically means; ‘Kill us now you miserable bitch, or at the very least shave your damn legs and get off the Sofa.

(Boc Boc Boc is how fish talk. I am also aware chickens talk like this. DO you see a pattern emerging  here? BECAUSE I DO!)

But I can’t.

I have no energy left.

And the energy I do have I am certainly not going to waste on getting up off the sofa and shaving.

And now?

The Irish one is growing potatoes on the windowsill.

And most of my time is spent trying not to take an overdose.

Although the two may not be related, they definitely kicked off around the same time.

Oh.

And also, rather significantly, he recently told me he would never even consider moving to Spain.

And that,

May just be a Game changer.

Because if I don’t even have a hope of ever going home?

Never getting out of this fish tank?

Then really,

What is the point?

All I wanted was a tiny particle of hope.

The thought of one day going home, of heading back to everything i know? Well, as unrealistic as it may have been, it kept me going when things got very dark.

It was hope.

But now he is happily growing potatoes on the Windowsill,

And I don’t feel so lucky that I have something so precious to me, that he makes saying goodbye feel so much harder, than being forced to stay.

Even if his hands do smell of Bum.

So for now,

I will Just Keep Swimming and pray I don’t come home to poultry.

Boc Boc.

Black Eyed Fleas. (Journey.)

A lot of things have happened today.

I had my tattoo touched up.

I got tricked in to taking part in some sort of unorganized and ghastly impromptu nature trail by the kid.

But most horrifically, during the moments I wasn’t fully focused on the decorative agony emanating from my bruised, poked and horrifically damaged (but soon to be very pretty) wrist, or peering closely at, and pretending to be enthralled by a Worm split disgustingly in two, or a leaf that looked like a bit of mud, or gasping ‘Ooo look Addy, it’s a big dog poo! This is nature at it’s very best’ my mind was effortlessly wandering, as if it had a mind of it’s own (see what I did there?) on to thoughts, of the big D.

Death.

Yesterday I found a lump.

An actual real life, wobbly mass of tenderness, of indefinite size and shape, commonly painful, sometimes painless; Also commonly referred to in the medical profession as an abnormal mass or swelling that usually will cause irritation.

Mostly referred to in this household as ‘The Irish one.’

Joking.

I do not refer to that lump.

I am referring to an actual medical lump.

After the first fleeting and heart crippling thoughts of;

‘OH MY GOD I HAVE A LUMP, I AM PANICKING LIKE A MOFO, SOMEONE GET ME A DOCTOR AND SOME GAS AND AIR, STAT!’

had petered off and moved on to thoughts of;

‘WELL IF THERE IS A POSSIBILITY I AM GOING TO DIE, I MAY AS WELL EAT THESE SEVEN EASTER EGGS FIRST’

And I had poked and prodded and marched randomly up and down the hallway, in a blind panic, stress eating chocolate without really focusing on what I was doing, I found another one.

‘Irish one!’

‘What?’

‘They say I’m really sexy.’

‘What?’

‘The boys they wanna sex me.

They always standing next to me,

Always dancing next to me,

Tryin’ a feel my Lump, Lump.

Lookin’ at my lump, lump.

You can look but you can’t touch it,

If you touch it I’m a start some drama,

You don’t want no drama,

No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama

So don’t pull on my hand boy,

You ain’t my man, boy,

I’m just tryn’a dance boy,

And move my Lump.

My Lump, my Lump, my Lump, my Lump,

My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.

My lovely lady lumps…

My lovely lady lumps’

‘She’d got me spinning, you got me spinning, what you gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside that trunk, fillin out them jeans….’

None of that actually happened.

But it was a lot more interesting to write than what actually happened.

Which was him ignoring me in favour of the football, then absentmind-ingly telling me not to worry as they were probably flea bites, off, and I quote ‘the Mangy Dog.’  (He is NOT MANGY HE IS A PART OF THIS FAMILY! WARTS AND ALL! Pay me some attention!!!)

Infuriating.

Anyway.

After a sleepless night tossing and turning, continually prodding different parts of my body, running through scenario after scenario in my mind and repeatedly reminding the Irish one that me checking my groin for lumps was not in any way intended to be any sort of come on, morning finally arrived.

‘Hi Dr Phillips, us again!’

Addison bowled in to her office, shouted ‘I am a Nincompoop!’ at top volume and made straight for the drawer where she keeps her stickers.

She fended him off like a medical Kung Fu Panda, and with a sense of ease I will forever envy, got him sitting messing with her thermometer, in no time.

(It was only after the event I was like – hang on, don’t thermometers have some sort of dangerous mineral in them? Liquid dynamite, or something?)

‘What can I do for you Lexy?’ She swivels away from my two-year-old time bomb and faces me expectantly.

I showed her my lumps. (My lovely lady lumps.)

‘Are you worried?’ she asks as I inadvertently envelop her in a smell similar, but not identical to cowpat and she professionally struggles, not to wretch.

‘Yes. I am worried.’

‘What about?’

I imagine I look at her in the same way Doodle looks at me when I say something he doesn’t understand.

I tilt my head to the side and open my eyes really wide, (stick my tongue out, start panting and manically scratch my ear… Not really. Ok…. A little bit.)

‘Is it not obvious? Doesn’t everyone immediately jump to concerns about Cancer the moment a lump is mentioned?’

She nods, and urges me to go on.

‘I am not scared of dying though. How could I be?’

I pause and look away for a split second to calm the noise in my mind and check Captain Bonkers is not swallowing a needle or something.

He is.

He actually has his head in her yellow ‘contaminated waste’ metal medical bin.

‘ADDISON!’ we both screech in unison.

He jumps out and smiles guiltily, chucking a pump of somesort behind him in a jerk reaction, before asking for the ipad and smiling sweetly at the Dr, who seems to be shaking somewat.

As I rustle in my handbag looking for my iPhone to occupy him, I continue, without really focusing on what I am saying.

‘I have spent the last three years swinging violently between wanting to die and being euphorically happy about finding cake in the cupboard. It is not death that scares me, it is the thought of having to say goodbye to Addy Woo. No! You cannot have a donut, mummy hasn’t got any with her!! Hang on I am looking for it…’

I turn my bag upside down on the floor and manically spread out it’s contents, vaguely aware as I ramble on, that my iphone doesn’t seem to be there.

‘But the thought of Death?’ I continue ‘Well that is the dream that keeps me warm at night. Yes baby, mummy is looking for it… Sometimes, I can actually feel the relief you see, of what it would be like, ceasing to exist. Quite something to behold. Doesn’t it just sound wonderful? To have the world disappear? I imagine it to be like lying on a sandy beach when you are nineteen, the heat of sun on your face, your toes digging in to the sand, your emotions deep and even, blissful. Where the hell is my phone?’

The doctor hands me my phone.

I don’t acknowledge how she has it. (I didn’t even realise she did have it until I was just writing this, how the hell did she have my iphone?? See? NINJA DOCTOR.)

‘Some days, it is all I can think about. Dying.’

Slowly the truth is loading. I am on a roll, getting faster and faster…

‘No longer feeling weighted down by love, no longer strung out by the white noise in my mind, the pain. And seeing my brother, feeling his protection again, but even if he isn’t there and it is just blackness, just … nothing. Not romantic at all, I still think it must be lush, better than this ignorance, this pain, this world where dogs kill children, and precious mummy’s have their babies stolen from them, where people hate just for hating sake. Imagine it! Just… nothing.’ I sigh, blowing it all out.

I then hand Addison my phone and begin putting my bag back together.

‘Give me half a chance to experience ‘the end’ without the blame I would most definitely get if I did it to myself, and I would take it. Cancer is acceptable, suicide, although it should be, is not seen as acceptable. When I talk about suicide, about how it has affected my life, my family, I see people recoil in discomfort. I don’t want to cause that for anyone.’

I glance up at her to check she is listening.

She is.

Intently.

This urges me to continue on as honestly as I can, without losing my courage.

‘Some days I am bursting with unshed tears and excruciating half remembered shadows and demons, that torment my every second moment.  Who I am, where I am, the continual voices, the continual annoyingly jovial people who try to jivvy me out of being miserable, when miserable and bleak is the only emotion I can feel without having to try, and that in itself is exhausting. And then I have the days where I can’t stop the happiness, it floods me and floors me, I am euphoric, and then bereft when it leaves. All I want to do when these mentally stable people smile kindly at me, is cry and scream and scrape at their faces with my nails, because I am so angry. I am so angry. I want to shout about how it is not fair that I will never be normal, I will never get to just be, so no, death doesn’t scare me. Death feels like heaven.’

The office is thick with honesty.

It is suffocating us both.

The silence is seeping under my skin, wrapping itself around my head and my heart.

I cough.

I know she is gawping at me.

‘So then why are you worried about these lumps?’

I snap my head up to look at her in the eye.

‘Should I be worried about these lumps?’

‘No Lexy, I am pretty sure these are viral lumps, swollen lymph nodes, but if they haven’t gone down in three weeks come back ok?’

I nod.

I am relieved.

After all this I am relieved.

I know Cancer doesn’t mean death, I know it is far from a death sentence these days.

But…

‘Saying goodbye to Addison. That is my daily fear, on top of all the others. Fear I am going mad, fear I am not going mad, fear I have cancer, fear my dad will die, fear the dog will go missing, fear I will never be happy, never feel light, I cannot live, die, exist, not exist, whatever – without him. The thought of leaving him is like…’

As I say this, searching for a painful analogy of what my life would be like without Addison, he looks up at me with his baby blue eyes and smiles.

This is it.

The overpowering love all the baby books spoke of.

‘Mummy?’

‘Yes baby?’ I ask him this while tracing my finger around his chin gently, looking down at his precious little face, my eyes begin filling up at the thought of missing out on his life, his tenderness, his beauty.

‘I am doing a big wee wee.’

I fly out of my seat like I have a rocket up my arse.

‘GOD DAMN!’

I nearly headbutt her desk in my haste to reach for my bag.

The Dr jumps up too ‘What, what, what is the matter?’

‘HE ISNT WEARING A NAPPY!’

I think I may have screamed in her face.

The appointment came to an abrupt end after that.

But not before she whispered the words every mental patient dreads hearing.

‘Have you ever wondered, ever considered, ever put any thought in to, or researched the possibility, that you may be Bipolar?’

No I haven’t.

And I won’t.

My son has sodden pants, lets just focus on that for now.

A lot later, as in, about ten minutes ago – as I lay in bed poking at my lumps which are still very definitely there, and wondering if I should, under her instruction, perhaps consider another, different medication I have not tried yet for my mental health problems, whatever the label they fall under, the Irish one trundles in.

I feel almost romantic.

Maybe I will allow him some sex this evening.

‘Addy has shit the bed. Do you know where the wipes are?’

It is these tiny moments of bliss that make life worth living.

Even with all the pain.

Together, we will clean up the poo.

And I will feel less alone.