Amnesty

Well, it seems the whole plan to blog daily has gone out the window. I can't blog daily when I feel like running away from home.


It's been a big week. Biiiiiiig. School holidays, swimming lessons, baby crawling at breakneck speed, dealing with the whole cancer/chemo/near-death/newborn aftershock situation. I swear to God, I am SICK of myself harping on about it.


Little things have profoundly affected me lately ... a friend of ours just got back from the U.K., and came over to have a cup of tea. Sitting there together, Dave was chatting about how he got pulled over by a copper for talking on his mobile while driving, but the copper let him off because it was his birthday. "Where was I driving too .... oh that's right, I was visiting Edes in hospital when she had the bub ...." (Almost nine years together and he still calls me Edes. I hate being called Edes. HATE. But he does it anyway).


And the conversation carried on .... but I was silently stricken with heavy lead. I wanted to scream at everybody in the room that no, he was not driving to visit me in the hospital. He NEVER visited me in hospital because he was down in his OWN hospital ARRRGHHHHH.


*Ahem*


If it wasn't so fucking painful it would be fascinating. It's like, I'm a soldier in the war and the war's over and you come home but all the trauma has only just begun. I'm like Hawkeye in M.A.S.H. when he flips his lid. Actually, I am like Hawkeye in M.A.S.H. - I always have to sniff my food before eating it. Always.


Yesterday I finally went through the government newborn/parent pack they give you in hospital ... mixed in it was all of Daves chemo literature, and the Non-Hodgkins survivor stories I googled and printed out. I flung it all in the bin, so deeply hurt and pissed off that Roccos birth got so tainted. I might just give myself a bit of time to feel it all, let it out, and let it the fuck go already.


You know how, when something really big happens - like a death or something, then your whole life stops? And changes? Well, I noticed tonight that I don't watch television anymore. Not one skerrick, since Daves diagnosis. The news, sometimes. Everything has seemed too serious to waste time watching the tube. I miss TV, for she was my first true love.


Max has had intensive swimming lessons every day this week, which has been great to just get up and go somewhere with the guys, get out in the day. I was watching him swim, and remembered the school term last year when he had his lessons late on Monday nights. Dave was too sick to take him, so I would put the 2-month old baby in the car - sore scar, sick husband, middle of winter, and drive Max to his lesson. I would stand there with my iPod on, so no-one would come up to me and ask about Dave. (They did anyway. Apparently curiosity did NOT kill the cat - I almost did, though HA). I don't know how I did that. I think I'm paying the price for it now.


When Max was born I was utterly Besotted. Amazed. Serene. Empowered. Enraptured. I distinctly remember him going through his babyhood, and each time he got a little older, reached a new milestone, I would think "Oh, this is my favourite age." Four months, nine months, one year ... it just kept getting better.


With my beautiful, tough guyo babyman who I was petrified of fucking up forever because of what happened .... I can honstly say, that this is my favourite age of his. On Monday he will be EIGHT MONTHS old. The older he gets, the more a relief it is. He has a crawling style of a man parched in the desert, digging his hands in the rug and pulling his lifeless legs behind him. HILARIOUS. (I remember Maxs crawling style ... he was hunched over like Cornelius from Planet of the Apes.)



Look at him, eating sand. He is SO TOUGH. He had to be. He does push ups! And freaking SIT UPS, from a lying down position! Like Regan from the Exorcist, he has this superhuman strength that freaks me out. I can hear strangers draw in their breath when they peer into his pram on the street, amazed at his intense eyes.

___


It's time, I think, to gently tell myself that the war is over. Lay down my arms of such rage and bitterness, and just live again. Today, during the big marathon marital pow-wow where we went over the same sticky issues for hours and hours. It was crunch time ... for better or worse indeed.

So, I have decided to stay, forgive him AND myself, love all the boys (my GOD this house is packed with testosterone Send. Help.) .... get some writing work cracking, start back at the gym, and just be nice. Nicer.

Life crumbles around me sometimes and I simply can't pretend. Sometimes I wish I could! I often tell people going through a hard time that there is strength in falling apart.

It just feels so darn messy when it's happening to YOU.

XO