If anything, I'm more together than when I started writing last night.
Here goes:
I've always been a big drinker. From the age of 16, I drank heavily at weekends out with friends and my parents always encouraged me to drink to relax and enjoy myself. I suppose I just learnt from them that it was the 'adult' thing to do. I gave up drinking through all three pregnancies, but it never felt normal. I think that pregnancy is such an altered state to be in that I never felt what it was like to be truly sober - it was like a wall, masked by the sickness and tiredness. A massive hangover without any of the booze, but with a little bundle of joy at the end of it..
I had my youngest daughter almost five years ago, and I have been hammering the alcohol ever since. I've performed badly at work, done things that I'm ashamed of, done things that are out of character and I really don't know what kind of a person I am any more. It has all been disguised through a mist of inebriation.
This year, there have been some sinister rumblings in my life. We knew we were likely to have to move house, I knew that, for financial reasons, I would have to return to teaching, a job in which I have had some horrible experiences, and I have spent a small portion of the year caring for my elderly grandma who lives in Whitby. She's really deteriorating. A staunch Catholic, she started soaking the bread with Holy Water while I was out, then shitting on the floor! When my Aunt (her daughter) came to visit, she leaned over with wild conspiratorial eyes and said, "I think there's something wrong with Zara! She's been spraying Holy Water everywhere and making the sign of the cross!"
My parents are going up to Whitby today to visit her in hospital, she's apparently very poorly and I must try and get to see her next weekend. This may prove difficult because of my other Grandma!
On 6th September of this year, everything came to a head. The house move was booked and I was starting a new teaching job on the same day (so the in laws had come to move us - result! Sadly, that very same weekend, my other Grandma who until then had lived down South with my uncle, came to visit my mum in our village, fell and broke her hip.
Through fate or God's will or whatever you like to call it, we had moved into a bungalow adapted for the disabled, so Grandma has come to live with us full time!
My life at the moment is like a British comedy; One Foot in the Grave or The Royale Family. But at least I am viewing it through calm, sensible and sober eyes.... long may it continue!
Today, we are meeting my husband's friend for Sunday lunch in the village pub. Once upon a time, I would have started drinking at the pub, continued into the evening and woken up anxious and unprepared for work Monday morning. Today, I will drink lime and soda in a wine glass, go to the gym and then spend this evening, learning how to do fucking fractions!
Let's see how that goes!
Zx
No comments:
Post a Comment