Usually in winter you climb into a thermal vest and refuse to step out of it until Easter arrives. But this year you have accumulated black satin camisoles to wear under everything you own and enjoy the sensation of surprisingly warm fabric fluttering against your skin. You wear them layered and hidden under jumpers, peeking out from under lacy jackets and today under a cosy cream cardigan with a necklace from which hangs golds pendants inscribed with the words faith, hope and passion.
Now you have taken off your cardigan and replaced it with a black kimono and you have dragged out your crying
A thermal vest would have protected you from such calamity.
Today there has been a lovely, happy children’s party in a sensory play place: a dark room with spinning lights and moving watery walls. Your beautiful cousin was there. A girl ten years younger than you who seems to be doing a much better job of being grown up. Indeed all the young women in the family seem to be pulling off adulthood better than you are: each with two children, weddings planned, husbands, jobs. And though you are rarely in the habit of comparison, you cannot help but feel that you, with your skewiff view of the world, your relentless capacity for trust and eccentric take on making a living, are not enough. And you are thoroughly exhausted by the effort it takes to feel normal.
This too will pass. This too will pass. This is just one sad little Sunday in a cast of thousands. So you light candles and fry mince and put your phone down and watch Ben 10 and exchange your camisole for an aubergine thermal vest and feel better, draping your crying
Perhaps then, this is not sadness but cold. The icy remnants of the high winds that have blown you from pillar to post this week, or the warnings signs of the kind of sniffles that have been threatening to consume you for days.
You stare at the flames. Goosebumps or no goosebumps, some fires burn too brightly.
Yes, it’s that time of year, when winter is not crisp and snowy but rather muddy, soggy and damp. And spring is nowhere to be seen. So, let’s forgive ourselves for being in a totally “cannot be arrised” mood, acknowledge that we are all right, really, and indulge in a few treats like a warming cup of fruity herbal tea, some scented hand lotion and a mountain of cushions. As you say, this soon will pass.
I too have those comparison demons…This is so well written….so beautiful…And so are you.
Hi my scrumptious New friend, wonderful wonderful site! I’ve been worried about you and yours with the floods are y’all okay?
I love that you have a crying blanket… I think I need one. I too have had those moments, where tiny little things, that should be nothing, have suddenly made me feel less than and the dreaded not-normal. Sometimes other women seem like resilient bouncy balls and I feel fragile, vulnerable, shadowed. I suppose that’s the curse of being super sensitive and eccentric – we’re just not like the others. Somedays I relish it, other days I feel as if something is wrong with me. Nothing to do but let it pass like a wave in an ocean. And maybe snuggle up in a crying blanket too…