Phase # 2529 Geriatric Philistine.

This is today. This is Tuesday October 2nd, 2007.



I have been so incredibly stressed out all day, due mainly to my family and their total lack of ability to trust me and my levels of responsibility. My nan especially seems to think that I am a total failure. Which I am not. I am only a little bit of a failure :-/



She also seems to presume that I am completely incapable of organising a piss up in a brewery, let alone my mothers funeral.



The cantankerous old bat hardly even knows me, for fucks sake. All our conversations revolve around the niceties and the weather, her T.V. schedule and her numerous aches and pains.



I have tried to explain to her on many occasions why I drink tea without milk, refuse to go to McDonald's and why I have an unhealthy phobia of social situations. But you try explaining the principals of veganism, capitalism and mental illness to a geriatric philistine. Then maybe you'll know how I feel.



Once mums funeral is over, that is it. I want nothing more to do with C.O.B.* She does nothing but make me feel small, stupid and worthless, and to be honest, my already somewhat fragile self-esteem can't really cope with that.





*Cantankerous Old Bat.

I really wish this wasn't happening.

I don't really know what to feel or think, so I'm going to write about my mother...

My mum was born in 1950, and she led a remarkable life. She never won any medals, or travelled the world. But it was her amazing inner strength, pride and determination which made her such an awe inspiring lady. She battled through so much. A difficult childhood, an abusive marriage, and being a single parent to three children. The death of her second partner, my step father, in 2003, broke her heart but she stayed so strong. When she was told about her illness, I remember her sitting us all down, totally unfazed, and dropping it into conversation as one would pass the time of day or observe the weather. To me and my siblings, however, the two syllable word echoed in our minds like a rusty bullet in a tin can. Can and ser. Can. Ser. Cancer. Cancer. Cancer...

I think she knew then, though she didn't let on, that cancer would ultimately kill her. The first time, it didn't. But then, one day last year, she sat us all down again, but this time it was different. This time the words 'tumor' and 'inoperable'.

Even then, right up until a week before her death she was just so strong. She kept her sense of humour, and her dignity, until the very end.

So, to Christine Margaret James. My amazing mother.

6:35 R.I.P.

Ma mere est morte.

For some reason, writing it in a foreign language makes it easier to deal with.

My mother is dead.

She died at 6:35 yesterday morning.

Just that word. Dead. She's gone. She's really fucking gone.

The sight of her body. Laying there. So empty. Just a shell of the beautiful, strong woman she used to be.

Phoning my sister in Manchester. Both of us broke down. The almost hysterical, wretching tears as I told her that she went peacefully and wasn't in any pain.

We registered the death this morning, and now that beautiful, strong woman is a piece of paper and a name on a database.

I have to keep believing that she's left this world to be with my step father, that she's happy, and that she's looking down on us right now with that wise old smile. I cannot comprehend my darling mum just ceasing to exist.

So, mum. I love you. I always have done and I always will. You were a wonderful, brave and inspiring lady. You will never be forgotten, I promise.

xxxx

Bounce Bounce Burn

Phase 263:

"This is not a test. This is reality"

Reality. Reality. Reality. Come down to earth. With a crash. And now a burn. Then a cut. Here we go.

I FUCKING HATE MONDAYS!

Group Therapy, Saving Myself and Other Things

I am feeling a bit lonely in cyberspace today. Isn't it strange. I can be surrounded by people, and yet still be totally alone. Dan is sat next to me, trying to fix a computer, but he has no idea what runs through my head sometimes. Christ, even I don't know what I'm thinking half the time.

I had group therapy yesterday. The leader blokey (the classic stereotypical shrink) had asked us each to bring in a piece of music that we like. I took in Nine Inch Nails - 'Into The Void'...

"Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away

Talking to myself all the way to the station

Pictures in my head of the final destination

All lined up (all the ones that arent allowed to stay)

Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away

Tried to save a place from the cuts and the scratches

Tried to overcome the complications and the catches

Nothing ever grows and the sun doesnt shine all day

Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away

Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away"

It's such a beautiful song to me. That one line "Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away". I can relate emotionally to that so much. It's so much harder to get a grip on sanity and 'normality' when sanity and normality keep slipping away from you or morphing into different concepts entirely.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a hole, trying to climb back up. Or that happiness, normality or whatever is always just out of reach. And every time I try to grasp it, everything comes crashing down around me, like punishment for ever daring to dream.

<3 <3 <3

I love my boyfriend...

But it's O.K, I'll hate him tomorrow...

I just want a normal, happy relationship. But it's all so fucked up. We love each other one minute and hate each other the next...

*groan*

Vodka is urgently required.

Oh, O.K. then...

It didn't delete it. It saved it in drafts. Ignore previous blog entry, please.

:D

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have just written a really long rant about my day, but then the stupid bloody laptop messed up and I lost it all.

I am *not* impressed.

I am going out for a joint.

Hello, again.

Went to visit my best friend-slash-worst enemy today. Oddly enough, he is also called Dan. There seems to be a pattern of Dans here. Although, I do I think I may be allergic to them.



Anyway, this particular Dan is a cunt. But I love him. Not in the romantic love way, but in a more complex mash of emotionally fucked up situations and habitual drug abuse. At one point, he was my world, my everything, and my painstakingly unrequited love. Last year, I was a mess. Constantly taking drugs, getting into fights and contemplating suicide. And Dan was my partner in crime. He rode the come ups and come downs with me, he cut me and I cut him, we hid away from reality together. Then I made the catastrophic mistake of falling in love with him. It was 6 months of absolute hell. It took a fucking lot of vodka, numerous agonising conversations and a hefty dose of that horrible reality thing for me to realise that we just would not work out in a relationship. So fast forward another year or so...



I'm at home. My mobile rings. It's Paul.

'Dan's crashed his bike...it's fucking bad. You need to come to the hospital'

I have never been so terrified of losing someone in all my life. Dan was there, all wired up to a life support machine. He's surrounded by doctors, who are pulling all this messed up stringy red shit out of his left leg, which we later learned were tendons. He nearly died that day. Seeing your best friend, someone you have loved so much, lying there like that. It's so scary.

He survived though. He is minus a leg, all the muscle died and they had to amputate, and he has lost the use of his left arm due to nerve damage....but he's alive. This was two months ago. Writing this now, I can't help but feel that I'm glad I love him, and he says he loves me, in our own fucked up little ways. I think the kind of love we have is the best kind. It's complex, it's deep and at times it's been bloody painful. And I'd rather have that than to have never loved him at all. We have been through so much together, we have destroyed each other over and over again, and yet we're still...we're still.....whatever we are, I guess.

Testing, 2, 3, 4...

Hmmm. So, here I am. Finally got around to setting up one of these 'blog' thingies.
I have been meaning to for a while now...
So I guess I'll tell you about myself.
I'm Crimson, I live about 40 miles out of London, in the U.K.
...and I have 'issues'.
But that doesn't mean that I'm a bad person. In the words of Kate Winslet in 'Eternal Sunshine...' I'm just a fucked up girl, trying to find her own piece of mind. So, my current issues are as follows:

• Mother: 58 years old, lying in a hospital bed, dying from cancer. I hate seeing her like that, like all the life is being slowly and painfully sucked out of her.
• Love comes in the form of a two year, on/off rollercoaster with Dan. Lovely, irritating arsehole, Dan. We have a love/hate relationship.
• An ongoing problem with minor insanity. Or, as the doctors tell me, post-traumatic stress disorder, complex personality disorder and manic depression.

Oh, it's all fun and games in Crimson's world. Today, I am feeling O.K. I took the stitches out of my arm last night, which means I don't have to go back to the doctors (they want to put me on meds again. No offence to them, but if I'm going to be happy, I'd kinda like it to be because I'm actually happy, not because I'm drugged up to my eyeballs)

Ooh, drugs...for all my ranting and raving about meds, I did have a lovely Saturday night with my friend K. I think I only enjoy it because it's not legal. O.K. so that makes a me a hypocrite. But recreational drugs are like a holiday for me, away from reality, and like all holidays, I always realise I have to return home at the end of it.

Sunday was spent lounging around in bed, watching T.V. with Dan and Piper (the dog.) Fast forward to now...went to work (in the pub that me and Dan live above) and now I'm sat here...

This is pointless...

I'm going to go and get stoned.

Bye.