Time for a Hiatus

Well Uni is over for the year, and so far I have managed to spend a good deal of time sitting here in front of the computer but haven't really achieved a lot-
a few games of Scrabulous, a bit of e-mail contact, a fair bit of doing nothing...
But that's OK!
We had a torrid couple of months, John's dad becoming very ill and dying, Sam turning 21, Uni assignments, colds and infections,
Now I think I have a license to just sit back a bit and chill
Don't I?

While the world around me begins to wind up frenetically with all the shopping, buying consuming and stressing over the traditions of over-consuming, buying, shopping, stressing over Christmas,
I intend staying grounded and sane, well, I can try.
Christmas will be low key (as ever), but even more so this year, we will be minus Pa, and temporarily minus my in-laws' grandma .
So one oldy (Kath) and the first Christmas without her other half.
Weird and sad.
I still am surprised at the depth of grief I have for him. Not having him just feels so strange.
And it's not like we had an amazing rapport, or that I gave him special attention as he got feeble and more deaf, sometimes I forgot he was even there!

Even so, the world is different without him. I'm aware of my mother-in-law, being on her own, and and I know it's going to be tough for her for a while.



Now, about my new life-style- it includes a daily siesta, and I'm due for mine in 5 minutes!
By the way, Sam's party was heaps of fun, the kids all loved my speech.
I deliberately kept it pretty unsentimental, and yet the boys in particular were very touched by my words, and said so- which, when you think about it is pretty amazing-
I mean, boys, coming up to me and telling me what a wonderful mum I was, and that they hoped they would have their mums say such things about them.
I actually didn't say very much-
I could have said so much-like about how much I adored and lived for that baby-how my whole life had revolved around him. I was so intensely besotted with and proud of him, and all that he was and all that he did.
How disappointed and heart-stricken I became when he turned on me, and lashed out in his temper rages during moments of ill-health and then adolescent hormonal surges.
How useless and rejected I felt when he discarded me and my adoration of him, as he became a man.
How I still worship him from a distance, but keep it mostly quietly to myself these days (only my ever sharp-minded daughter has suspicions, which she regularly voices, in jealousy!)

Ok, Now it's out- and that's good. I never got to say it so I can be assured the words never got to embarrass him. I roasted him in a good natured and fairly superficial way- and he loved it- any more mushy, and I know he would have hated it!

This is Sam and co. having fun, his sister looking glam in the black sparkles on the far right.