The past has a nasty set of teeth

The past has a nasty habit of coming back and biting people on the ass.

In my experience, when it does, it usually always ends badly and makes for prime ‘I told you so’ territory. The trouble is, people are naïve. “If I ignore it, it’ll all go away!” So they brush it under the carpet and lo and behold it vanishes, for a few weeks, months…. And each day that goes by stirs a little celebratory voice inside going ‘’Yeeea I got away with it..’’

But you haven’t.

That bomb is still very much ticking and is ready to blow, and is just missing the vital ingredient to make it explode.

I have never known any kind of lie, or deceit or secret, stay hidden for longer than 6 months. 6 months is the metaphorical fuse on the bomb in my world… so you’ve got 6 months to run like hell and get as far away as possible because when that sucker blows it’s taking you and everything you know out with it.

And it’s going to be you picking up the pieces. Sorry, but it’s true.

I’ve never understood why people feel the need to hide things they know damn well could pretty much demolish people or things they care about. I am the ONE PERSON out there who thinks that being straight up front and honest with people from the offset saves a lot of heartache down the line? I’m always brutally honest. I tell people how I feel if need be even if they may not like it. How else can stuff get sorted and you not spend god knows how long paranoid and not giving your all to something because you’re too worried about x,y and z coming out?

My advice? Be honest. The truth may hurt, but it’ll be a LOT less painful that if it comes out 6 months down the line and it’s proven that you’ve lied all that time.

Common sense? I think so…. Feel free to ignore me should you wish…. But don’t say I didn’t warn you…

… and expect to hear the phrase, “ I told you so.”

The birth of Emotard

I’ve just realised I’ve never actually explained the significance of ‘’Emotard’’ or indeed which I now affectionately call myself it…

“Emotard”
Definition- A combination of “Emotional” and “Retard”, may or may not bare relevance to the “Emo” style genre of the early 2000’s. Generally characterised by over emotion, sentimentality and general extreme displays of feelings and fuckwittedness.

I R Emotard. *waves*

I’ve always been the same, I don’t DO normal feelings, I go to the next level with them. ESPECIALLY when it comes to negative emotions like sadness. I don’t just mope.. I mope BIG STYLE. I don’t just fall for someone, I fall HARD. And When I get hurt? I hurt bad. Which is where my ‘title’ was born. Over the past year I got hurt, and I suffered for a looooooooooong long time. A ridiculously long time. Granted it wasn’t really my fault as there were other things which dragged it out, but when push came to shove I couldn’t let go and after the ‘final time’ (I’ll explain all about this another time, sorry if it doesn’t make sense at the moment..) it took me a long time before I could even feel that putting my heart on the line again was worth the risk. A new version of Emotard was born, cynical, untrusting, hurt, cold and who expected to have her heart ripped to shreds again if she put it on the line. That ‘last time’ was March, and I can say that it took until at LEAST the end of June to be able to say “Yea, it’s worth the risk” again. It’s now August and I’m glad I ‘took the plunge’ back into the world of love again, as it’s paying off. I’m still fully expecting to get hurt again, but that’s part of the inevitable cynicism I’m developed from being fucked over so many times. It’s unavoidable. But at least now I’m willing to give it a chance again. The benefit of hurting so bad and so intensely is that it gets it out of your system quicker in the most cases. Unless history repeats itself, THAT’S when you get fucked over… *rolls eyes @ the memory*

I also cry. A lot. Although thankfully not as much recently as I have done in a while. I cry when I’m happy, I cry when I’m sad, I cry when I’m embarrassed, I cry when I’m stressed, I cry when I’m angry and I cry when I’m hurt. I don’t, however, cry when I’m bored, now that really WOULD be retarded.

I guess you could just say I’m very very empathic, and very in tune with my own emotions, and not afraid of showing them. Nothing wrong with that… but crying in public is just downright embarrassing.. lol

I wouldn’t change me though, being an Emotard is part of who I am, even if people do think I go to extremes sometimes. I just FEEL things. It also crosses over into my spirituality too and I’m more open to feeling things and sensing things, even if a few people do think I’m crazy, or a hapless victim of my own imagination. I believe what I believe, I feel what I feel, and feck ye if you don’t like it. :)

Stop knocking on death's door mummy, we want Dora on!

7am...

''Muuuuuummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..... muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummy''

*Sar opens her bleary, aching eyes, and blinded by the sun which sends searing pain through her head, stumbles half concious to her daughters' room...*

''Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?''

''I want Dora on.....''

*Sar struggles with the stair gate, her aching joints shooting needle like pains through her limbs with every movement.... she hobbles over to the tv and puts Dora on for her ever so beloved children...''

''D-D-D-D-DOOOOORA!!! D-D-D-D-D-DOOOOOORA!!!! DOOOOOOOORA DOOOOOOOOOOORA DOOOOOOOOORA THE EXPLOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!....''

*Each syllable of the hell that is Nickolodeon's finest export echoes around her head with the force of Hurricane Andrew, tearing down her immune system like a picket fence, and leaving what small amount of sanity she had left, a scattered field of primary coloured and educational debris....*

*Sar staggers across the hall, the creak of the floorboards tearing at her ears and collapses into bed, muttering faint prays to whatever the hell god is responsible for easing the pain of swine flu.. *

''............ muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummy.....''


Welcome to the world of single parenthood. When you're a single parent, you are simply BANNED from being ill.

Ever. At all.

Never.

Cold? Awww shame... where's my breakfast..

Appendicitis? That much hurt! Change my nappy!

Swine flu? Oooh piggy! I'm going to have a tantrum now!

Dying? Not before you put a movie on for me.. THEN you can die..

No matter how ill you are, no matter how grave your circumstances or how rough you feel. Life HAS to go on. You can't just forgo any duties around the house or to look after them, even if the only thing that'll help you get better is 24 hour bed rest....
Yea. good LUCK. In 24 SECONDS they'll have destroyed the house, set themselves on fire, defurred the cat and eaten the entire contents of the fridge/freezer, frozen/consumable or not..

If you think about it seriously it's quite scary. There has been a few times since my exhusband and I seperated, where I have been so ill I've been on the verge of being physically unable to look after the girls, but I've had to struggle on... food poisoning was one where I demanded that my ex have time off work and had the girls for the morning as I had been up for 36 hours and spend 12 of those vomiting violently.. but that was back when we were still on speaking terms, presumably because he thought there was some hope of us getting back together.
Another time was when my health really suffered because of the hell and upset of the whole 'best friend romantic involvement' incident. In the end the stress and I guess mild depression affected my health and I became really ill, could hardly breath, had chest pains, palpitations, could hardly stand without needing to lie down.. but I had to carry on regardless. In the end after a few weeks I got better and all was well.. but at the time it was horrendous.
The most recent time being this bloody swine flu.

Still quite scary to think about... even if I keeled over seriously ill.... and I needed to go to hospital and was literally at death's door.. I'd STILL have to sort the girls out even before that.... now that's a chilling thought.... :\

An ode to swine flu in song..

*cough* oink *cough*

Emotard officially becomes a UK swine flu pandemic statistic... yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
*cough*

Yesterday I woke up with a slight cough, so presumed that either
A)Being in a room full of smokers the night before had wreaked havoc on my respiratory system
or
B) I had a cold coming.

By midday I was starting to feel really awful, blinding headache, deep chesty cough, aches and pains, COMPLETE loss of appetite and general lethargy, however I still went to meet the fella for lunch. He seemed to be quickly going down the same slippery slope of health I'd been going down, and had similar symptoms. Didn't think anything of it at the time, but come early afternoon I was pretty much confined to lying on the sofa or bed, feeling weak, sensitive to light and with a gradually worsening cough and headache. Other than getting up to see to the girls I don't think I moved at all. It hurt too much!
The fella an I had been joking about it being swine flu and out of interest I googled the symptoms and eventually came across the Flu Pandemic website which said that

''Congratulations! You have swine flu, and your prize is a special one off code to take to a special collection point to claim your prize... a course of Tamiflu!!''

*rolls eyes*

by 6pm I was pretty much unable to get off the sofa without serious amounts of pain, and when I was up, I had to walk around with my eyes closed because the light was agony to my head. Once I'd put the girls to bed I set up basecamp on the sofa, and kept drifting in and out of dozy consciousness until I was woken by my boyfriend who'd text me as he was worried he'd not heard from me in maybe 1-2 hours. After that I just slobbed, avoiding the light and any major movements until I could summon up the energy to go to bed about 10pm.

Armed with water, paracetamol I stumbled up to bed.. numb and very much looking forward to collapsing into bed. Little did I know I'd end up with around about an hours sleep in all, after spending all night tossing and turning through waves of pain and intense fever, nearly passing out a couple of times from it. Looooovely.
One of those nights where you're glad to see sunrise!

Thankfully, this morning, with some paracetamol and continued slobbing on the sofa in front of the tv/laptop I'm feeling a little bit better this morning. The paracetamol I had first thing has tamed the fever and headache for now, so just having to deal with the cough and general lethargy but fingers crossed the worst is over. Apparently I'm supposed to stay in the house until the symptoms are gone, and the symptoms can last anything up to 7 days apparently. I've not gone down the road of the Tamiflu as I've heard bad things about it and would rather just let me body get on with it. Also hoping the kids don't get it but will see how it goes I suppose.

And to quote my boyfriend, ''I'm having a big sausage and bacon sandwich when this is over, REVEEEEEEEEEEEEENGE!''

Had to do my food shopping online and have it delivered (poor tesco.com man's probably going yo get swine flu... oops..) and on my shopping list? Bacon and pork chops... the go with the sausages I already have.... revenge is a dish best served with red sauce.... :D

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh...

I think I may get this once this is over....

clicky..

Mum.

I remember doing a blog on myspace about my mum and how she came to be taken from me... instead of upsetting myself typing out a new one, I've decided to copy and paste it.
This was written the day of the 3 year anniversary of my mum's death.
____________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, September 14, 2008

And so another year passes.
Firstly.. apologies to anyone who may be reading this... as I fear it's a bit of a rant/self indulgent ramble... but then again today is a funny kind of day and maybe by putting it all down in writing it'll help ease it a bit. A word of forewarning though, this has turned into a bit of a longwinded and depressing spillage of emotions and memories and some people would be best avoiding reading it. Especially if you've lost someone you love recently. But if you still want to read... then carry on, but don't say I didn't warn you.


Unfortunately today is the one day each year I dread. Maybe dread is a harsh word but I suppose it's the closest I can get to, as 3 years ago today my mum died. Couldn't even bring myself to go down the cemetary today... so feeling decidely shit with myself at the moment. Maybe I'm just pathetic. on the one day a year that it matters.. I couldn't bring myself to go. How much of a bitch must that make me.


For those who don't know my mum died of lung cancer on september 14th 2005. I didn't even get to see her on the day she died. The unit called me in the morning (as they had done quite a few times in the run up to all this, as due to the nature of her illness we had many 'false alarms'..) to say that mum was going downhill again and they thought I should go in... but selfishly, as I'd had so much time off work in her last weeks I just said to them that I'd be in after and to ''Tell her I'll see her later....''
I had another call at work about 4pm to say things were getting serious and to go in.... but me... I guess in fear of asking to leave work early again, put off telling my boss and asking to go...
I finally left work at 4.30ish, went to pick up Ste and Ste's mum and then finally got to the residential home at 5ish...

God.... why am I writing this... *sigh*... oh well...as they say on mastermind.. I've started so I'll finish..

I walked through the door and down the corridor headed towards mum's room to be met by the head nurse. She asked if she could talk to me privately for a minute... and how stupid of me.... not even thinking anything of it... what an idiot... but then again I guess I didn't want to think about what she had to say...

We went into her office and she left me in there on my own for a minute before returning with another of the nurses... looking back it was so obvious what they were going to say but at the time I just wanted to see my mum and wished they'd hurry up and get on with whatever they wanted to tell me before I went in to see her and have our usual chats about how Ashli was, work, the weather.. how god awful tv had been today... just the usual menial stuff that everyone takes for granted. No idea where Ste and his mum were at this point... or whether they knew... but as I sat in that office it didn't even cross my mind the possibility...
So there I was. Sat in a cramped little room with bog standard day to day shit like filing cabinets and paperwork... completely oblivious.. but this wasn't everyday... the nurses weren't giving me their usual chit chat... or their niceties of telling me things that mum had made them laugh about today... instead all they said was...

''I'm sorry Sarah, your mum passed away about 15 minutes ago.
''

....

I don't remember much in the minutes that passed... my first memory is walking back down the corridor towards Ste. The only thing I could say was a feeble ''Ste'' before collapsing into his arms in tears.
The next memory I have is of walking down the corridor towards her room... passing other people's mums and dads and grandparents and just looking at them. gathered round the communal tv..... at this point I was just numb... their faces said it all.... I caught eye contact with a couple of them... their faces were just emotionless and empty. They must've known.. all I could think about was that fact that because of my fear, and paranoia about what work would say.. I missed my last chance to say goodbye.


I then went in to see my mum. I guess part of me needed to see her to take it all in. Wasn't quite prepared for it though, but then again how could you be? I remember walking in as I'd normally do. If I remember right I even said 'Hello mum' as I went in as I'd do everytime... the only difference being that this time I got no answer... nothing... just silence... the room was dark and everything was just.... well.... still. Even if you hadn't have known about mum as soon as you walked in the room you'd have known. It was so surreal. My mum was there... but... she wasn't.I just sat on a chat at the end of her bed for ages... just... numb.....
I'd never seen a dead body before then. But that's it, it wasn't just a dead body. It was my mum. The one person who'd been there for me all my life and the one person who I expected to ALWAYS be there. Who now wasn't. The cruel cycle of life had claimed its next victim and taken her.

...... I'm going to stop there. The rest, is as they say, history. It is true that the pain eases as time goes on, but you never get used to it. So many times I've thought to myself, oh I'll give mum a call... and then had to go through the whole heartache again of the realisation of it.
*Sigh*
There's been soooo many times where I've needed her... but... I guess there's not a lot I can do.


I'm really sorry if anyone has gotten this far and wishes they hadn't read it. I guess this is more for my benefit than anyone elses.. but I've posted it to show to people that you can come from being so low... and rebuild your life. I'm not the same person that I was, I guess something like that is bound to change you..and I've had to do a lot of refinding myself and rediscovering the person that people know and love... and god knows whether I'm anywhere near to being that person again... but I guess here's to another year of moving onwards and upwards... and trying my best to make my mum proud.


Mum, if by some weird twist of fate you can read this. I love you, and I'm sorry.

x
___________________________________________________________________________________

3 years on...

3 years ago today I was getting married. I was 21, and 16 weeks pregnant with my second baby, and about to marry the guy I’d been with since I was 16. 5 whole years.

Today, I’m 24, and a lone parent to 2 children, on benefits and with a divorce petition that’s just gone to court.

Didn’t see THAT one coming 3 years ago… I’ll be the first to admit I got married too young. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, or didn’t want to marry him… but the one small thing I wish I’d known in hindsight was that, for all me saying ‘’I’ve always been mature for my age, and I’ve ‘done’ my youth, I’ve got kids and responsibilities, this is it for me. Time to settle down. I’m not going to change. This is me.’’, quite simply I was wrong. I have changed more in the past 4 years or so than even I think I realise. I’ve grown up. A lot. I’ve become a different person who has gone through utter hell and had to reassess and correct the course of my life on numerous occasions. Here’s a brief timeline of the past 5 years or so..

2004 -
June – Find out I’m pregnant and due March 2005
August – Get engaged
October – My mum is diagnosed with lung cancer
November/December – My mum undergoes radiotherapy, all the while claiming she was getting better and the doctors were saying she’d recover, but I’ll leave that for another blog. It’s the anniversary of her death next month…

2005
17th March – Ashli, my eldest is born.
May – I start work at a Nursery as a trainee nursery nurse.
June – My mum is taken into a hospice.
August – My mum goes into ‘Palliative care’ at a local residential home.
14th September – My mum passes away.

2006
14th September – approx hmmm….April/May 2006?? – Can’t remember any of it. At all. I guess it was the grief. I went onto autopilot for most of it. I can barely remember any of the wedding prep.
April/Mayish – Find out I’m pregnant again, due Jan 2007.
5th August– Get married
November – Go on early maternity leave due to Symphysis Pubis Disorder, in so much pain I could hardly move and relying on a special belt to essentially hold my pelvis together.

2007
29th January – Kaitlyn is born…. screaming…. Should’ve known we were in for trouble then!
Feb/March approx – Sink into postnatal depression.
May – Due to return to work but end up having to leave due to the depression and extortionate childcare fees.
August – Decide to turn my life around and get myself out of the depression, as the antidepressants were simply keeping me reliant on them and nothing else. I start playing bass again, join a band, and get a Saturday job to get me out of the house. Start reinventing my image and trying to get out and make friends again. I literally gave up all social life when I left work and was depressed. I had NO friends. Except online. I was determined to do something about it, and get me out of the depression a the same time.
September - Took myself off Antidepressants

2008 -
Jan - Started going out to pubs with my then best friend. Started making friends within his group of friends and slowly creating my own circle.
Feb - Decided to volunteer for the CAB, with a view to eventually having a career as a debt advisor. Started my general advisor training doing 2 mornings a week and
Apr - Started work at the CAB, and also became self employed working for Ann Summers, working around childcare home life so I could work 16hrs plus and get tax credits to help with the childcare while I was at CAB, and also just to get out of the house.
May - signed up for an open university course 'you and your money' on personal finance to supplement my CAB work.
Sept - Separated from my husband, forcing me to leave my saturday job, as well as Ann summers. But I carried on with my CAB and OU work. Focusing on it to be able to get me through the stress. My husband moved out, and I became a single parent and on benefits for the first time in my life. My husband took the car, so I was pretty much housebound apart from the 2 mornings a week he let me use it to continue my CAB work, (He doesn't know it, but even through all the stress I am eternally grateful that he let me use it, as at that point the only thing keeping me going was the kids and my job).
November - March 2009- Become romantically involved with my best friend. Who inevitably broke my heart numerous times and destroyed my self esteem and confidence at a time I was most vulnerable. This may be the subject of a blog in the future. I've not decided yet. It's a time I don't really like to think about, but either way I'm not naming anyone as you never know who reads these things. Plus that's not really the point of this blog post. For the record though, I've forgiven and forgotten the whole thing, although it did, and probably still does affect me to some degree. But life's too short to hold grudges. Just hope that maybe one day we can be friends again.

2009 -
April - Became a qualified CAB advisor and around the same time found out I'd passed my OU course.
May - After pestering and request from my ex husband I started divorce proceedings. Also was offered position as a paid advisor at CAB, running a newly weekly outreach, and finally got my foot on the employment ladder.
End May - Started dating my current boyfriend, who, full aware of everything inc the best friend stuff, was totally patient with me and just gave me space to be able to work out the kinks to allow me to put my heart on the line again. I'm still scared of having my heart broken again, but on the whole I'm slowly coming around and much more relaxed now.

.. and that... in not so great detail.. is how I came to be where I am today. In just over a month Ashli starts school, and I'll be looking to go into more hours at work and come off benefits completely, and pay my own way again. The divorce has gone to court and just waiting to hear from that. Work is great, and bar usual up and downs which frequent my life (My life wouldn't be mine without drama..) life is good in general.

I don't really want to go into the reasoning behind my separation. In the end, his behaviour, and me heaving myself up out of depression and moving on my life inevitably left him behind, and we grew apart. There are other factors which I won't go into on here. But the choice to leave was mine and there are times I still feel guilty for hurting him, but it's a 2 way thing and end of the day, we've both moved on and now getting on with our respective lives.

Everything happens for a reason, and I truly feel that the reasoning behind everything that has happened is to create a stronger me. I'm the strongest I've ever been, even when dealing with continual crap. I have wonderful children, my own (admittedly rented) home, and a decent career on the way. Just sometimes you kind of sit back and wonder what the hell happened. My best friend (female) said to me not long ago..

'' What with everything that's happened to you, how are you still standing?''

In all honesty?

Not...a....clue.




Note: This is too long for me to be bothered reading through for grammatical errors. There's bound to be some, but please ignore them.