Yesterday Dale ordered a slender, almost needly tree and it was delivered a little after 7. Which gave us time to decorate it. Roslin was over so it was our special family time, though James wasn’t really interested in hanging anything for some reason. Well…we had played 3 games of magic earlier and we were all a little tired from that.
The tree is so small it’s weird, but I am tired of dealing with the large tree. We had taken to putting it in front of one of the hall doors (Dale’s idea really) and I hate it because it’s annoying having only the one door, and because it is behind us when we are sitting in the living room. This tiny little…slightly saddish thing is in front of the window. We will need to shift a few things but overall this will be better. This was a rush purchase. Next year we will buy a very nice, slender tree that has brighter lights.
Our party is on the 16th. We have done this for years and years. Most every year in fact. I love doing it and we missed it so much during COVID. I will clean a little bit each day. Roslin will be over to help me take things to Good Will & down to basement as we are quite piled up. But the most important thing of all is to not overdo it. I don’t want a bad migraine to pull me back under the eyelids of the moon. I’ve had enough sickness. I may do the bare minimum. I keep the house pretty clean and dusted. It’s really a matter of CLUTTER. As always.
I will only cook one large pot of something. Or a giant casserole. And buy little things from Costco–those quiches. And those cream puffs. And with everything else coming in….I may not do the quiches or the cream puffs. We will likely have an overabundance of food. I used to do all the food myself, but now I do let people bring stuff. And it is so much better.
I have not decided whether to have paper plates and plastic everything, or just do our small red plates with real napkins. In some ways it’s easier to use the real thing and yes, I just decided I am not buying paper when there’s no need. The bitch is cleaning all the glasses after and the glasses will, of course, be real. But I hate drinking good stuff out of dingy plastic Solo cups or the awful plastic wine “glasses.”
I am going to lay out liquor and mixers on the kitchen counter so that will be easy. And there’s always a multitude of wine. Dale may do some bubbling hot drink or at least we’ll do mulled wine. People always enjoy that.
So there is all that. Then after the party Dale is jumping down to Tampa for one day and then back. Then it will be time for family Xmas.
I am sort of sad about not going to church during this season because I do love it so much. But as soon as the awful virus was gone from my body I began to feel migraines again, not too terrible. I’ve taken medication twice, but bad enough for me to be alarmed. The church lights, hands down, are the worse for causing migraine. Well, and getting so excited, and the loud loud sometimes overwhelmingly loud organ. And the risk of smells. Everything in church is concentrated. It’s not like being out shopping when I can walk past a woman wearing too-strong scent and continue on my way, holding my nose, moving away from her icky aura. In church, if a woman is wearing strong perfume it permeates everything. It’s like being stuck behind a stinky car on the road in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The only escape is to just leave, which I have done so many times I’m shell-shocked.
And I simply cannot do everything. I have limitations. We will fetch up my brother from Fairmount, GA for Xmas. And hang out with my father whom I never see as much as I feel I ought. He is 84. I have a looming sense of when-will-he-die-when-will-I-die-when-will-the-human-race-give-up-its-long-and-terrible-ghost?
James is in another health sort-of-scare——liver enzymes elevated again. It’s impossible to know if he is in pain–he is autistic and when he was hospitalized this summer, for TEN DAYS, he never complained. He had pneumonia. He became septic. But never a complaint. He does not experience pain as the rest of us do. Or he doesn’t know how to express it, but he doesn’t act out either. He is just tired. And I have not done my duty. I have not been getting him to move. And move. I just don’t seem to be able to do it. Not with what feels like a whole lot of everything else.
But I do have what may work as a solution–I have bought clipboards and he will have reminder lists for everything. I think, if I can just get him going, that he will be able to keep going. But I don’t have it in me to be his sole motivation. I have enough trouble being my sole motivation. It’s a big job. If I’d known how difficult it is to be bipolar, to be a person, I would have chosen not to have children. Period.
Of course, I could not have made such a decision at the time. I was raised for one purpose–to marry and reproduce. That was pretty much it. No other expectations. And I threw myself into it wholeheartedly. There was nothing but the striving for romance, to find the “one.” Then I found him. And my life started.
But just now I feel as though my life is starting again. I am morphing.
Enough babble babble murmur murmur. Today will be a good day. It’s after eleven. Please to finish the coffee in your cup. Please.
~r.
