Dear Dad, Margaret Thatcher has died.

Dear Dad,

Just to let you know Margaret Thatcher died. I don’t believe in heaven or hell but if you do happen to bump into her in the afterlife, I’m sure you would be kind due to her dementia even though I know how much you utterly hated the woman and the devastation she wrought on the mining community you hailed from. Your dad was a miner but died before she came into power- I think you were glad of he never got to see what happened to the village you grew up in.

I don’t think it’s nice to crow over someones death, I’d be sad if anyone was happy you died, even if you did have a knack of deliberately rubbing people up the wrong way sometimes.

I’m not happy she died, if anything her dying has bought my own grief for you up. She was always in the periphery of my childhood and so I remember happier but hard and worrying times in the eighties growing up. I remember being very scared when the Falkland war started as I was convinced I’d have to be an evacuee, and we were about to get bombed! This was despite the fact we lived in rural Midlands.  My primary school history lessons clearly had some kind of an impact.

I also remember we all knew she stole our milk but then I never really understood that one- we had to pay 10p for a carton of slightly warm milk or a glass of apple juice at breaktime and when in year6 me and a few other girls were made milk monitors and were allowed a free drink for our troubles- except we kept nicking more and more milk and juice and the profits went down.  Given I also wanted to be the next woman prime minister in Y6 maybe she had had more of an impact on me than I thought….

I don’t really remember joining you in solidarity on the miners strikes but I still have the picture from then (and you assure me I met and charmed Arthur Scargill aged three or four!). We still have the jigsaw somewhere made from this picture that mum got from saving up coupons from marmite jars. She would never let us actually do the jigsaw incase we lost a piece. It was recording history!

Anyhow. You’ve gone, She’s gone, Joe’s gone, Both sets of Grandma and Grandpa’s have gone, Becci’s gone, Sam next door went yesterday, one day we will all be gone, ashes to ashes and all that.

Death- bit shit really.

Miss you dad.

LadyC

Dear Beano

Dear Birthday Beano,

I am decoupaging my father in laws old trunk into a toy box for the girls covered in your fabulous comic. I bought random selection of 17 on eBay from 1981 1982 and 1983. They arrived in the post today, to my complete surprise there was one from the exact day I was born!!! Given you were only produced once a week on a Thursday, then the odds of me getting a Beano out of the 17 I received from the exact date of my birth were slim (I had no idea I was born on a Thursday or the Beano was issued on a Thursday) and to get this treat on today of all days made a very hard day (first anniversary of my fathers death) a special day. I don’t really believe in ghosts but I’m comforted by pretending it’s a sign from Dad.

Thankyou Birthday Beano. You shall occupy pride of place on my daughters’ new toy box.

Love LadyMinnieTheMinxCurd

(for security reasons not actual birthday Beano)

Dear Time

Dear Time,

Time heals,
Time ticks on,
Never waste a moment
Seize the day
Time expands
Time contracts,
Baby is born
Father dies
Toddler turns 2
Life goes on
Tick tock
Daughter avoids grief
Life goes on
Baby turns one
Anniversary of fathers death.
Tomorrow about 9.30am ish
Time to pause
Time to grieve
Toddler will turn 3 next week
Life goes on.
Time goes on.
Tick tock.

Dear Dad, Happy Christmas

Dear Dad,

First Christmas without you. Mum and bro seem to be having fun chez. Curds.

Mum keeps nicking all my Baileys that Bro bought me (since you can’t buy me my annual bottle anymore he has taken over the tradition). Bro is fine helping with dinner and girls adore him.

Girls are being poppets, Omble is not in the slightest bit interested in Christmas but likes the wrapping paper, and Oddler has turned into present demanding brat from hell but now they have run out she is very happy with her presents- I think LordC doing his usual trick of dragging presents out to make them last was winding her up (That and the sugar mouse mum gave her for breakfast!), just like you used to with me and bro! 🙂

Strange not to talk to you today. Miss you. Love you.
DaughterCurd

Dear Superwoman

Dear Superwoman,

Hate to break this to you, but have put your red tummy control pants on outside your blue lycra tights, and um let’s face it, that’s really a clear sign of a woman not actually coping at all.

If you just admitted that you being so SUPER all the time is a total myth, that would be lovely as I’m sure the rest of womankind might then ease off the pressure on themselves to try and be perfect all the time.

Just saying.

LadyPantsOnRightWayGivingUpOnTryingToBeSuperwomanCurd

Dear Bereaved

Dear Bereaved,

They say bereavement is a journey, one that never really ends but has easier paths and harder paths. I’d say since my dad died I stuck my roller skates on, load my backpack up with more and more stuff to keep me busy and preoccupied from grief and got my head down and tried and skate through it as fast as I can.

Except I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’ve crashed into a wall, and fallen flat on my arse, the contents of my backpack are strewn around me. I’ve realised that although it was the only strategy I felt I could adopt at the time (I had a three week old baby she took priority, then she got easier, so I took more & more on at work to keep me busy and distracted) it was not a sustainable strategy.

So I’m stopping to rest for a while and I’m taking some time to sort through my backpack, getting rid of some of the items causing the most weight and stress, working out what’s most important, before picking myself up to continue with this journey. It’s scary because I am no quitter and some of the things in the back pack being got rid of will cause difficult consequences for other people and I really really hate letting people down.

Actually admitting I’ve crashed into a wall is quite embarrassing for me too, I’m usually the perfect superskater, I don’t ever stumble or fall, I just carry on, but heck on the otherside of the wall is a giant drop. So I’m glad I’m stopping now and sorting it out with a bruised bum and pride rather than carry on hurtling on and ending up with a broken neck/brain.

Think I might stroll the next part of my bereavement journey. Allow myself to cry that I can’t see my dad over Christmas, that he can’t see or celebrate Omble’s first birthday (he never met her) or Oddlers 3rd Birthday which falls exactly a week after the anniversary of his death. I need to get through all these milestones properly, carefully and finally allow myself to grieve. Properly, with the help of my family, friends and a bereavement counsellor, not by ignoring distracting and hurtling on.

So where are you in your bereavement journey and how are you choosing to journey?

Lots of love

LadyCurd

Dear Barbie

Dear Barbie,

I just read your gripping debut novel:

I know you have your position to maintain as a patriarchal consumerist toy but I know this is the real book you would have written if you could have:

Lots of love

LadyNeverAllowedABarbieCurd

Dear Voices

Dear Voices,

Tonight we were sat all together at the dinner table, me, my husband, our two children, my mother and my brother who is schizophrenic and has heard voices in his head for the last ten years.

During the meal Oddler (my 2.8year old) was pretending to chat on the phone (the palm of her hand) and was talking to her car apparently. He was big and plastic and had had a nice day. She made us all smile.

It suddenly struck me- no one thinks twice about the voices in our childrens heads- we celebrate them, we are amused by them, there is nothing in them to fear (even if the child themselves may sometimes be scared by certain voices eg. “The monster threatening to eat them”). We know that these voices are “normal”, and if anything they indicate our child is imaginative, quirky, creative and other positive qualities.

So how does it shift into this perception of fear and stigmatisation of adults having voices? What is normal in children is abnormal in adults. I understand the rationale why but the stigmatisation that is associated because of this can be hard to bear.

I don’t really remember my brothers childhood voices, and he never really speaks about his adult voices so I have no real idea about what his life is like living with these voices day in day out. What I do know is for him this is his reality, his normality, and I have decided I am no longer going to fear these voices or think badly of him for having them.

If I am not fearful of my daughters voices, I owe it to my adult brother to think the same.

My brother hears voices and he is imaginative, quirky, creative, intelligent and kind and many other positive qualities.

So thank you to my own voice in my head for helping me come to this realisation.

LadyPonderingCurd

Dear Follower re. Will Smith’s toilet habits

Dear Follower,
You may have noticed this blog has been very quiet of late, far from my four posts a day at its zenith. There are reasons for that, Omble no longer spends hours and hours breastfeeding so I have no excuse to sit and type anymore instead I am being kept very busy having two tiny kids under 3, plus I have gone back to work (as an employee plus do self employed stuff too) plus I am doing my masters dissertation and trying to sort my dads estate and support my mum and bro. In short I don’t have time to maintain my blog in the same way I was before, plus I’m finding now Omble’s sleep is so much better I am more coherent and this means no more bonkers sleep deprived posts!

There is another reason too- I’m going to call it the “Will Smith Effect” – I have no interest in the cult of celebrity and don’t know any details of Will Smith’s life other than I know he uses moist toilet tissue as to do otherwise is “to do his backside a great wrong”. Yes the only thing I know about Will Smith is that he likes to be ultra clean after he has a shit! He told a magazine that and I read it in the magazine (in a docs waiting room the only time I ever read ’em) and it is the only fact that has ever stuck in my head about him. I will never meet him, I will never speak to him in real life yet I know this about his post bowel movement habits and I really don’t want to!

Anyhow this got me thinking about things I have shared on this blog, whilst I am careful to not share anything I wouldn’t probably tell you within 10mins of meeting me in RL (I’m one of those open TMI person like that), lately I have started to ponder how much info is out there about me and how many people who follow this blog who I have never spoken to or interacted in RL know stuff that maybe borders on the too personal boundary- whilst I have never shared my arse rag of choice, there have been times where I may have overshared somethings and with hindsight I am not terribly comfortable about this especially now I’m working as an employee again (whilst self employed and my own boss personal and professional boundaries are much easier to navigate- employed makes me worry – hope my boss never finds my blog!)

Anyhow this isn’t to say my blog is ending because it isn’t but there will probably be a move away from the personal and more onto the commenting on the world stuff which I also really enjoy but the posts take longer to write as I am much more careful with especially re. Abortion, so it’s finding the time to write these. Thankfully @glosswitch‘s blog usually says the sorts of things I am thinking in a much wittier more intelligent way than I ever could so I suggest you just follow hers instead.

I may make an exception on the personal posts and continue to write about bereavement as this blog was partly started to help me deal with my Dad’s death and I would quite like to continue with that aspect in some ways.

Anyhow just an update really and an apology if you are missing your previous daily inbox hijack by moi.

Lots of love
LadyCurd

Dear PMT

Dear PMT,
Can say as I’ve missed you in the year and a half of being pregnant and breastfeeding and before that you only re-emerged a few times post being pregnant and breastfeeding so I have mostly had over 3years of being PMT free.

I definitely don’t suffer as badly as some women I know, and I know how lucky I am to have had no major issues with PMT or periods or depression in general, but today I am weepy. Weepy for my dad, weepy for death, weepy for my girls being so awesome and growing up so fast, weepy for LordCurd coming to give me a cuddle to cheer me up. I know this will pass in a day or so I will be absolutely fine again, but today I am going to indulge me and my hormones and just weep as I need too.

Pass the tissues.

LadyCurd

P.S if you have any tips on how to vanquish you then do pass them my way. Ta.