I'm An Armadillo

I am having to put my armor back in place. I had got rather good at it, this self defense malarkey. Of course it means I don't get to feel much at all....not even the nice stuff. Have you ever tried stroking an armadillo, they don't respond much....not like a cat, the purrs and mews and pushes itself against your hand desperate for that extra attention, the tickle behind the ear, the gentle tummy rub. No, armadillos don't react much at all, the tough shell preventing the touch from reaching them.

But they don't get hurt as often, can't feel the sticks and stones thrown, defended against a vicious kick or jab.
I'd rather be a cat. But, for now at least, I am an armadillo.............

A Thin Veneer

I am in trouble. Biiiiiig trouble.

I am terrified I am spiraling down a rather long dark path again. It's occurred to me a number of times of the last few weeks. And there is no one thing that I can pinpoint that has made me feel this way, I can only admit to a number of things that have made me feel fragile, scared, raw, numb and out of control.

I miss my Mum in a way I never thought I would. I always knew that I would miss her physical presence, her smile, her hugs, her 'I love you's. I accepted that her home would feel strange without her in it. That I would expect to feel her there when I visited. In fact I don't that much. My parents home is always pristine, it is one of those homes that you could invite people to view at any given moment, there were never magazines, books, knitting or random things lying about, nothing for me to physically miss. All things had a proper place, all things were put away and stored where they were supposed to be. It still does. So yes, I miss her and yes I miss her sitting in her place at the kitchen table or being in her favourite chair in the lounge or the sight of her sitting up in bed when I pass her room. But more than that I MISS her. Do any of you out there know what I mean?

I simply haven't got a Mum any more. Oh I know I have, she will always be my Mum, that death doesn't steal the relationship or love we shared. But the here and now is that I am Mum-less. And there are times it completely floors me how much I ache for her, what I wouldn't give to have just one more day with her.

Add to that my Dad. I love my Dad but we have shared an odd relationship over the years. I have never felt quite good enough, a bit of a disappointment to him, so many things that over the years I have felt he hasn't approved of. I can never remember him telling me he loves me.

Sex at the age of 16.
Leaving home and 'carrying on' out on the town at 21.
Marrying a black man at the age of 27.
Never managing to put any money into savings age 30.
Getting fat age 35.

I have felt the weight of his disappointment  all through my life. But I love him, I love him utterly and his disapproval has coloured my life. Now there is just him. No Mum to cushion the relationship, to bridge the gap in us. Just him and me.
I visit him 2 or 3 times a week and we talk more than we have done for many many years. Finally I have seen hints in his words and actions that show his love for me, that express his approval and recognition of the person I have become.
He is sad and lonely and feels he has no purpose anymore, he had made it his personal aim to out live my Mum so he could take care of her. He has achieved it and he now feels he doesn't really have a reason to go on. I know that his one small pleasure is his garden, its winter and damp, cold and dreary, not the weather to go out and potter outside. Especially at 87 and only 2 weeks after a bout of bronchitis and 3 weeks after an operation!

Anyway, as with any elderly parent he gives me cause for concern. I hate the thought of him being sad and yet feel powerless to do anything. I hate the thought of him being lonely and yet he declines all offers of company, invitations and visits. I hate the thought that he has no future to look forward to as such and yet have no answers in the face of his determination to remain in the past.

And I am utterly terrified of losing him too. It means I will then have to grow up, be a grown up myself......

And then of course there is K. I must be totally fucking mad!!! I had just about got myself to a place I could function. Just about, it had been 20 months and he was still my first waking thought and the last when I closed my eyes but at least i thought I knew it was over, that I had to get over it. And now it appears I am back up to my neck in it! We are in contact each and every day, many times a day. We utter I love you's and forevers. We shared 'intimate' moments of a sexual nature (he is my sex life). We chat by phone as often as is possible and have plans for lunch together in a mere 11 days.

Of course you could just accuse him of having his cake and eating it too. And I don't blame you. Except he isn't. He has told me we can't be intimate in real life, that its too much of a betrayal. (Yeah yeah, how can he make love to me with words, tell me he loves me, chat to me for hours, write me poems and send me pictures and it not count as a betrayal? How the hell do I know!!) and yet that is the way he sees it, its the way he can cope with sharing his time, days, thoughts, emotions with me. Quite frankly I would rip any mans head off that had even a smidgen of the intimacy that we shared with another woman, sex or no sex!! But hey, thats me.

And so once again I find myself dangerously embroiled in a love affair that can only end in tears, probably for us both but its mine I am most concerned about.

So I feel my days are spent walking a tightrope, teetering on the edge of a precipice that I might tumble into, crashing through this thin veneer of happiness if I allow myself to wallow in any of these emotions, and that once tumbling I shall just free-fall myself back into a bucket of Happy-Pills once again.......and one of the worst things? I can't tell K, one of my best friends, the one I tell all too. He has just let slip to me this very morning that he thinks his wife is heading for another bout of depression in response to their being issues with his son.....so how can I tell him that his long-distance-lover is also turning into a nutball.........

Inner Child

I recently found this posted on the adult site I am a member of, a lady there had written about her changing life and the way she is attempting to discover a more light hearted approach to life. A few members had replied to her with thoughts and mentioned the 'inner child' in all of us. One posted this link below!

I defy any of you not to smile while watching this......how many of us have watched our children play with a feeling of envy....would you remember how to play? I have to admit that while grinning inanely at the screen my eyes also filled up, I so don't want to be a grown-up some days.



One of my favourite films is "Big" with Tom Hanks, and my favourite scene of that is where he and his 'girlfriend' trampoline in his apartment! That makes me fill up too LOL jeez i need to get out more!

Friend or Foe?

When I was a little girl I had a 'best friend'. Our Mums knew each other and we played together a bit in her garden when my Mum was invited round for coffee. They then moved away and lost touch but a few years later they returned to the house whose garden runs down almost to the bottom of ours. The girl and I resumed our friendship, now teetering on the cusp of being teenagers.

We experimented with our new found fashion sense and kissing skills (yes she really was my very first snog!) There was the natural young girl jealousies, she was petite, dark haired and tanned easily, her eyes were large, dark and framed by lashes that sneered at mascara, she had boobs before me and whenever I managed to cajole or pester my Mum into eventually buying a much wanted 'fashion item' (namely some hideous platform shoes, some hot pants and a pink butterfly dress) she would admire, note and appear in just the same outfit the next week.....

Every boy I liked during my early teenage years she threw herself at and 'got', being so much louder, forward and seemingly confident than me. Even the boy I went out with on and off for 5 years (age 15-20) wasn't off bounds to her, and during a couple of 'off' periods hung around with her. You get the picture? But we remained friends....... until at the age of 20 and then she finally blew it for me.

I had parted from my long term boyfriend and she took me under her wing and dragged me off to the city centre night clubs, to spread my wings and stop me moping. Of course what it then turned out was she wanted to snare the DJ there and hadn't got anyone to go with and I was left on my own for most of the night while she pouted, flirted and displayed herself in front of his 'booth'. Fortunately for me there was a girl there who had just started work at the same store as me and she let me join her and her friends (she so happens to be one of the ladies I now go on my annual Girlie Holiday with 30 years later!)

During one of these nights out, when I would accompany her into town and to the club and she would then latch onto DJ-Man and I would join my 'new friends' I bumped into a lad I had gone to school with. He had been my first crush, I had adored him for my 4 years of Junior School. He had grown, my how he had grown! Now 6'2" of gorgeous, golden haired, blue eyed lusciousness! We chatted and laughed and flirted and he asked me to go for a drink with him. I went out on a couple of dates with him and was quite smitten....... you can sort of guess what happened can't you? You can see it coming......

One particular night my 'friend' was going to a party, she asked for my help so I did her makeup, her hair and she borrowed my new bright yellow out fit (it was in then! it was the 80's!) I even dropped her off at the damn place she was going and then headed off into town to meet 'new friends' at the club and with the promise that First Crush would meet me there later in the night. He never appeared and 2am arrived and the clubs closed, I headed for my car (yes you are reading correctly, Clubs really did once close at 2 am and yes no one frowned and thought you were bad for drink-driving.....madness!) I dropped off all my friends and heading home happened to pass First Crushes car parked up next to 'friends' house. Yep, there she was a tangled mess of hair, makeup and my yellow outfit, wrapped round my new love interest in the front seat of his car.........

That truly was it! There was a calm but small scene and I told her she better be at my house in the morning to return my clothes! We never socialised again.

It was 9 years later that I saw her, I was married and pregnant with my first baby and knowing she had recently come back to the area and was working for her step-dad I called into the office one afternoon. She was thrilled to see me and we chatted a while. We talked about old times and teenage years (skirting over the unpleasant bits of course) and she told me she had always wanted to be like me! Me!?! Me????? Why????

Because apparently everyone loved me, I was sensible, people took me seriously, she loved my smooth golden brown hair, my blue eyes, my gentle golden tan. She liked my height, my long legs, my straight teeth! Jeez isn't being a teen mad! We had been total opposites and yet we had compared and envied each other all those years! She invited herself round that night to see my house and meet my husband (I can't say I wasn't a little bit uneasy at this LOL). We spent the evening catching up, drinking wine and talking about the impending birth of my new baby!

I never saw her after that........we never kept in touch....

A few months ago, 21 years later, she has found me on Facebook through a friend of a friend. She now lives down south and is married and has 2 boys much younger than my girls. We have chatted briefly on FB chat and we have commented on a few of each others photos. She then announced that she and her hubby were coming up to my home city in February and maybe we could meet up and go for Sunday lunch somewhere. I hesitantly agreed.

I then got a further message a few weeks later telling me that they were coming up to watch the Rugby (some corporate event of her husbands) and that could they join us for a meal or take-away in the evening....oh and could they sleep on my floor?????? I replied that I could do better than that, they could have my daughters room for the night as she would be at her boyfriends. Why did I do that?? Why didn't I just say no?? What got into me??

I have now received a message to say that they will be at our house around lunch time Saturday, that hubby 'may' go an visit an old friend of his and she could 'spend some time' with me and have a 'massive catch up' before they head off to the rugby match and then come back to us for food and bed....

Am I wrong to feel royally pissed off at all this? I know that I have gone along with it, that I could have said No, that I could have made excuses or said we were away.... I am not sure why I haven't. Perhaps some bizarre need to not let the past influence me, to still appear to be lovely, warm, friendly, forgiving me, it was after all 30 years ago, we are different people......aren't we?

Then there is the part of me that thinks I have managed perfectly without being in contact with her for all that time, why the hell should I feel any need to resume that contact now?

I also know that part of my reluctance and worry is that my hubby and now won't be able to put on a believable 'front', all our friends know how things are between us, we don't have to pretend or hide the distance between us, we are usually seen in public at do's or parties, plenty of people to mingle and mix with, we don't have to put on the facade of the 'Happy Couple'. This time it will be just the 2 of us with the 2 of them, so much harder to hide the cracks, I'm truly not sure how apparent our cracks are to an outsider.
I also feel I am once again 'being used'......or is that a terribly cynical assumption? Had it been the other way round I wouldn't have dreamed of inviting myself to stop over with what are effectively strangers, I would have booked a cheap hotel for my weekend and asked if they would be free for a drink and a meal..... So maybe we are still SO so different......

*sighs and wonders whether to feign some personal drama that means I have to leave the country that weekend*

The Gift

I have recently finished reading a book, one of my favourite type, fiction, a bit of a tear jerker, funny in places, you know the sort, an easy read. 
The main character wasn't a particularly good man, bogged down by misplaced loyalties and personal goals, self centred and blind to the person he had become and yet cleverly he was delivered to you in a way that made you care about him, you wanted to find him likable. 

He befriended a mysterious stranger who seemed down on his luck and in return was given The Gift. The Gift of being able to be two people, to be in two places at any one time, to carry out two sets of commitments simultaneously. What an amazing feat, how utterly brilliant that would be if only it were possible! 


 


I could be here living in the bosom of my once-adequate marriage, loving and caring for my girls, close by my widowed father, not in the least concerned with the lack of passion, intimacy and companionship in my love life. Because elsewhere there was the 'Other' me, loving and living, laughing and sharing my 'Other' life with my lover, the 'Other' K, the one who was free of commitments and guilt, free to love me and be mine and full of the life and love I crave....... 

And he in turn could remain where he needs to be, with his children and their mother, with his friends, family and neighbours, unrocking their world and not caring about its similar inadequacies because his 'Other' self had me....!

Of course the price for this wondrous gift for our questionable hero was his life  (there's always the kill joy downside eh!) ....The Gift was given to him so he could tie up loose ends, make amends and complete his personal goals all before his untimely end...... 

So with that in mind I'll happily give it a miss and carry on with my imperfect lives and loves  ....but it was a lovely dream on a damp dreary windy Sunday afternoon 

A Vent into the Void...Not

Its hardly a void is it? Not when there are people out there reading my words. Of course I admit there aren't many of you, a handful of folks intrigued or bored enough to devour my meagre words...but hey my lovelies! you fill the void! So I shall vent to you!

You now know that the relationship with 'K' has been, at least partially, resumed. We chat on an almost daily basis, have arranged a lunch date in early March and are hoping to plan a 'holiday' together ....ha ha ha its a day stolen from his time owed from work but it means we can spend a whole day together, we may go into London and explore!

Now for those of you of a delicate disposition please shield your eyes but I have written that we engage in sexual play of an adult nature before so you shouldn't be too shocked. We manage to lose ourselves in the erotic world of cyber, we make love with words and voices over the phone and we also play Femdom D/s games through the mediums of email, text and the web....shocking stuff!

This is the sum total of my sex life at the moment having not had any intimate contact with my husband for 19 months....nothing....zilch. It makes me sad. Not because I am not having sex with my husband, more because I am not having sex at all! I am a mere *@$?# years old and I have so much love and passion and warmth to give, truly the thought of never making love again makes me groan....and so NOT in a good way! But I have found that amazing 'cyber' sex is better than unsatisfactory real sex and so.........

I also am honest with my husband, as I have previously written, I never saw the point in creating more lies once I had been honest and everything was in the open, I don't go out to be cruel and I don't tell if I'm not ask but if I am I don't lie or pretend.

My Love and I have reverted to our past ways and tell each other often of our affections and thoughts and feelings, its what we do and do it exceptionally well.

So when this weekend he and I got into a wee discussion about morals and I 'jokingly' referred to them as a 'pile of poo' he retorted that was something we have never agreed on and that he was still making "a pathetic attempt at morality" (He means because he has spelled out to me at the end of last year that although he loves me intensely he can "never act on that love" - in other words I don't get shagged!) A follow up text confirmed what I was already thinking, that the irony of that comment wasn't lost on him as he was at that very moment walking around a Garden Centre wearing a pair of ladies panties at my instruction with a semi-erection! Enough said!

I was furious! I bit my tongue and simmered for a while before replying. But when I did I brought to his attention that whatever he thought of MY morals or views on them, it wasn't me that was living a lie or deceiving my spouse. When he and I first met and delved into our 'affair' he seemingly did an extremely good job at convincing wifey that all was good and dandy, for when he finally came clean and told her all she was shocked, she hadn't got a clue, she hadn't been suspicious, she was upset that he claimed he had been so unhappy with her and she hadn't been aware, as a husband he had 'ticked all her boxes'!

We now once again have lots of contact, we speak most days, he tells me he loves me, we share sexual times arousing each other with words and playing games when I know we are both focussed on each other and not our immediate surroundings....so either she is blind or he is doing another bloody good job of making all appear hunky dory at home!

I don't think its my view of 'poo-shaped-morals' that needs to be questioned at all at this moment in time!

End of vent *grins broadly* Thank you for listening.....