Actually I’m not. I just love that grumpy girls face. Any excuse to use a good picture!
I’m not fed up. I’m kind of twitchy. Anxious. Worried about worrying. And worried about worrying about worrying if you get my drift? Actually scrap that. I am fed up. Fed up with worrying. Cos lets face it, it’s a female disease.
When I was little I used to whisper my worries to a little set of Guatemalan Worry Dolls. My teeny little peasanty best friends they were. Tell one a secret, stash her under my pillow and the very next day, my worries would have been whisked off to Guatemala, or the Land of Lost Worries or wherever the little people choose to take the kind of problems that harass otherwise blissfully happy chidren.
But little peasants, I do apologise, somewhere along the line I lost you. And I started stuffing my worries way down deep in my tummy and wondering why I always felt so bloated. But no more Housekeepers. I hereby introduce you to my new gang of mates: little ladies with magical powers to make my world, and yours, right again….
Lily, Mistress of The Little Worries.
Will I remember to buy electricity for the meter so we don’t run out in the middle of the night? What are those spots on Finley’s thighs? What is wrong with me- why do I keep forgetting peoples birhdays? Will the window cleaner remember to hang the wreath back on my front door? Have I remembered to renew my library books? (No). Will the milkman try to cheat me again this week? Or worse tell me I’m beautiful and touch my hair again? Will the church lady who called in this morning shout at me in the street if I don’t go to her Christingle service? Will I remember to put the recycling box out on Tuesday? Will I cry when I have to put the Christmas tree up all by myself this year? And on and on and on…
Vanessa, Mistress of Warts and Veruccas.
Why does my Doctor make me want to cry? Will I have to live on prawns and haddock for the rest of my life? Is it stupid not to get tested for Celiacs disease because I don’t like blood tests? What’s that mark on my Dad’s neck? What if that cheap chemist runs out of the only hair gel that stops my hair being a loony mess? Why won’t my Mum give up smoking? That hard skin on my right ankle, what is it and why won’t it go away? Is Pmt going to ruin my life? Will Finley go on a crazy glutton binge when he is sixteen and cause me no end of problems? How come I always look better the mornings after I’ve drank too much wine? Do I drink too much wine?? Is exhaustion just part and parcel of being a Mommy? What am I going to do about my baldy eyelashes??
Penelope, Mistress of The Pennies In Your Purse.
How on earth am I going to afford Christmas? Will Finn have to make do with a lump of coal? Would it be desperately selfish to buy that green top I can’t afford? What if the phone gets cut off? Will I have to get a proper job soon? Go back into interior design? Be beholden to Mark for the rest of my life? Have enough cash in the house to pay the milkman on Thursday? Does anyone know about the stash of unpaid bills under the quilted table runner? Will I ever stop buying things I don’t need? Will I drop dead if I eat the occasional tin of beans? Should I learn the art of make do and mend?? Let financial issues be the downfall of BrocanteHome? Ruin my babies life cos he doesn’t have as many toys as the other kids? Stop wanting so much…
Rebecca, Mistress of the Roof Over Your Head.
Do I define my house or does my house define me? Could I leave it all behind and start all over again? How will I get rid of the mould growing on the slug pellets trapped between the door and the step? Will the roof collapse all together if we get a heavy downpour? Is my titchy front garden the talk of the neighbourhood because I have lost the battle with the weeds? Can I afford to live here? Is the sheer relentlessness of housework the bain of every womans life? Is putting the baby gate on Finns bedroom while he’s playing in there, like locking him in prison on a daily basis? How will I cope when (in another lifetime?) Finley goes to do weekends in Daddys house? Do I want to live here forever and ever because I’m too scared to do anything else? What will I do if I need to get something out of the loft? Or change a fuse in a plug? What on earth will I do people??
Mildred, Mistress of Matters of The Heart.
His name is Scott. Want him more than I want Robbie Williams, and you know how utterly daft I am about him. I’ve never felt like this before and it isn’t going to be enough. He lives a trillion miles away and I get scared. Wear my heart on my sleeve like a glitzy vintage brooch. Then tuck it away in a drawer and insist on saving it for better days to come. So maybe it is time to stop dallying with other peoples hearts and fall in love with who I intend to be first? When do you ever feel grown up? Stop seeking permission from anyone willing to offer it? Cultivate independance? Tell me now, is it normal to be this scared of the people you love dying? Will Mark and I splitting up have detrimental effects on Finleys personality? Will he become a juvenile deliquent, tagged with an ASBO? Are my Mum and dad ok? Am I a rubbish friend? Why? Why am I so willing to share my world on paper and hate, hate hate making phonecalls, returning emails (They scare me. I truly can’t tell you why), and acknowledging small acts of kindness to people I adore? Lordy, I am sooooo rubbish…
Winifred, Mistress of Wishing and Hoping.
Does everybody know I’m all fur coat and no knickers? Does not really caring about the world outside my door make me a bad person? I never, ever watch the news. Never, ever. Kind of couldn’t give a damn. Does wanting something that is never going to be make you daft? Is it my job to define Finley’s future more clearly than I do? Give him a path to follow? Don’t let him fall off the straight and narrow, or take the path less certain? Is it ok to dream great big dreams? Or are tiny little opportunities passing me by while I keep my eye on the main chance? What happened to the girl in dungarees who went to art school. the girl I used to be? What does making Razorlights "Before I Fall To Pieces", my housekeeping song of choice say about me? Mum asked me why I couldn’t be normal the other week. Why can’t I? Is it time to buckle down to reality? Harnesss my dreams? What if New England, my New England doesn’t exist. What then, eh Winifred?
Goodness I feel as light as a feather after getting all that off my chest!
Housekeepers, I don’t expect answers to my trivial little troubles. Simply committing them to the arms of my six mistresses of worry is enough…
My very own worry dolls. Feel free to borrow them should your troubles get on top of you, and smile, smile, smile!
I know. It’s March. Let’s not even go there. I’m dizzy. I work four months behind the rest of the world. This morning my son told me he was sad because I was one of those “immature Mummies”. So clearly there is no hope. But I will always have puttery treats. Always a darling little…
There are things no-one tell you about death. They do not tell you how still it makes you inside. They do not tell you how it will feel to hold your beautiful Mum’s face in your hands, while you try to ignore how unnatural it feels to touch such ice-cold flesh. They do not say…
The Art Of The Folding Napkin. How fabulous! Wow your friends! Impress the neighbours! Or throw a Cinderella party and fill the little slipper napkins with a tiny bouquet and impress yourself with your ingenuity… Good old Mrs Beeton.
Home Bird And so as I pack my suitcase for the first week long actual holiday I have had in more than twenty years (sad but true), I am all of a quiver about what a person does when she is spirited away from her usual routines and plonked down on the rainy shores of…
**(Taken from woman magazine, 1958. With a hefty dose of irony)** DARLING, it does suit your foot. Makes it so slim . . . and I do like that T-strap thing—it’s new."Two heads—his and hers—bend down to look at the elegant, taper-toed shoe she is trying on."Well, if you like it," she smiles up at…
5 Comments
Alison, You sound perfectly "normal" to me. Smiles! Hugs! Best Wishes!
Alison, I have been meaning to ask you this for an age. Where do you get all your wonderful images for this site? Google Images is useful, but I'd love to start my own collection. Can you point me in the right direction?
Dear Alison, you're only human! And don't forget: Jesus loves you very, very much and wants you to come to Him and lay your burden on Him so that He can help you! He's doing it for me and I'm just like you, maybe even worse?! Take heart & care dear, I'll be praying & thinking of you and your lovely little boy!
Well, I am glad that you are feeling lighter now that you've expressed your worries! I could worry for Britain, if they made it an Olympic sport, so I sympathise. But I just wanted to say… What's so good about being normal? What is 'normal' anyway? And imagine if you were still the person you were ten years ago – wouldn't that be weird? Wouldn't that mean that every experience you've had in the last ten years had had no effect on you? You still have dreams – isn't that what's important, rather than that they're still the same? I know, I know, I'm lecturing – sorry!
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Alison,
You sound perfectly "normal" to me.
Smiles! Hugs! Best Wishes!
Well said Marie!
Alison, if you were not normal, then you wouldn't worry about these things!
Alison, I have been meaning to ask you this for an age. Where do you get all your wonderful images for this site? Google Images is useful, but I'd love to start my own collection. Can you point me in the right direction?
Dear Alison, you're only human!
And don't forget: Jesus loves you very, very much and wants you to come to Him and lay your burden on Him so that He can help you! He's doing it for me and I'm just like you, maybe even worse?!
Take heart & care dear, I'll be praying & thinking of you and your lovely little boy!
Well, I am glad that you are feeling lighter now that you've expressed your worries! I could worry for Britain, if they made it an Olympic sport, so I sympathise.
But I just wanted to say… What's so good about being normal? What is 'normal' anyway? And imagine if you were still the person you were ten years ago – wouldn't that be weird? Wouldn't that mean that every experience you've had in the last ten years had had no effect on you? You still have dreams – isn't that what's important, rather than that they're still the same?
I know, I know, I'm lecturing – sorry!