the scent of water

my life as a blue lace-cap hydrangea

The thing about the macro lens, in all its cheap non-focusing glory, is now I see things that I always wanted to see but never knew I wanted to see them. I live inside flowers now. I live inside flowers and I identify as a blue lace-cap hydrangea and I call myself Princess Melissa Rose. It's not a random name, the internet revealed it to me, and who am I to argue with the collective font of all human wisdom?

I also drink flowers. Child number three bought child number one some French Earl Grey for Christmas, but he doesn't love it like I love it, he doesn't appreciate it and care for it and lay his life on the altar of its goodness the way I do. It's mine now. All mine, my precious...

Which is useful because I am going to need a lot of tea to fuel the next 4 days, which is all I have left to sort my life out. You'd think I have years, even decades, to sort it out, or, if you are especially optimistic, perhaps believe that my life is just fine how it is and doesn't need sorting out in the first place, but no. Everyone knows that this is what the days between Christmas and New Year are for, except that I wasted a few in a food-induced coma existential crisis, and watching movies and braving mall-shopping (because I have teens and they have money), and another half a day writing this, so I only have 3.5 days left. That should be enough. Expect reams of unrealistic plans and schemes and ideas to follow.

This approach has never worked for me in the past, it is true. Not even once. However, isn't the definition of sanity to keep persisting at the same thing until it finally works? 

And anyway. I now have a weapon of mass creation. What could possibly go wrong?

glitterati

Who knew a cheap macro smartphone lens could bring a woman such joy? Probably you. You seem to know a lot of good things. 

Whole new worlds. Worlds within sparkles within worlds.

I feel you really should have told me about this much earlier.

not dead yet

Attractive pictures of my latest 'itis. It's the third one this year, and I was still weak and occasionally sore from May's brachial neuritis, and tired from the October's cellulitis, when I got hit, boom, with December's urticarial vasculitis. It's bloody itchy, a little painful, entirely exasperating. It's like being simultaneously attacked by a dozen mosquitoes every day and whacking yourself a few times hard enough to bruise. The bruises clear exceptionally fast. It's weird.

And here's why I'm telling you: screw that. I've spent months exhausted and sad and barely keeping up with my day and wondering what the point of trying to achieve anything was when the long hours I worked to achieve it ended up making me so sick. And feeling like shit when one of my kids ran into a wall of their own, and I was too tired/passive to help them quickly enough, making the whole experience way worse for them than it needed to be. I've spent a lot of my kids' lives tired and sick and I can't ever quite feel okay about that. They deserved better. They still do.

I can't fix being so prone to the 'itises, it's literally in my DNA (have I mentioned it before? I don't make enough Complement 2, a protein vital to a robust immune system). But I can fix how I feel about it. Even now, after all these years, all these experiences that would show me otherwise, I still believe somewhere deep inside in 'The Fix'. The fix of the right diet, medication, exercise, meditation, supplements, magic fairy dust, after which I live out the rest of my days healthy, wealthy and wise.

It ain't coming. Nothing can make my body produce more C2, nothing can stop the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, nothing can stop time's inevitable descent into decay and decrepitude. (Merry Christmas!). I should be so lucky to reach decay and decrepitude. Plato said it more succinctly: Only the dead have seen the end of war.

There's such liberation in accepting that. I always knew it, we all do, yes? But every year I come to accept it more, and better, and in the acceptance develop an ability to surf those tidal waves better, to put on my lippy and cloak myself in a persona who is braver, wiser, smarter, more motivated than the scared 12 (3?) year old I constantly feel inside. The 12 (3?) year old is allowed her moment, and she deserves her moment (Warren: what can I do to help you? Me: hug me while I have a tired cry...). What she can't be is in charge. I forget this, way too often. So I'm surrounding myself with reminders so I don't forget: bright lipstick, beautiful flowers, happy colours.  And a power bracelet, kind of like this one..

I don't have a power bracelet yet, but when I do KAPOW. I will wield it like a fierce and mighty Amazonian warrior.

Or something. Because life is shit and short and glorious, and only the dead have seen the end of war. So best enjoy the peace while it is here, and prepare for the battle which is coming.

I'm almost looking forward to it.