Washed Out

I wake up yesterday morning and I feel an ache fused with frustration, fury and absolute exhaustion. I feel totally and utterly washed out.

My son will be in school in a minute. My baby. My sweet, sweet boy.

I cannot sit at home and wait for him. I will go out of my mind with the frustration and the fury that is bubbling beneath the surface of my skin.

Gossip Stop. Go to Gossip Stop. That is where you always go when you are having an existential breakdown and you know you will not eat. Go there. It is a refuge where gossip doesn't start, it stops. You can just be. No-one will bother you.

Having penned the latter part of my weekend on Sunday, I should pen the beginning. Washed out dear? Hang out your dirty washing.

It is quite possibly the best thing I could have done. The early part of my weekend was fun, positive. My challenge is to write myself into this frame of mind.

"Two eggs on toast and a cup of tea please."

Write, write, write. Go for a cigarette, order another tea.
Write, write, write. Go for a cigarette, order another tea.

The woman who works there (runs it?) comes over and asks if she can tell me a story about her brother. He was having a roll up not far from a bus stop the other day and when he stubbed it out, under foot, on pavement, two men grabbed him by the arm and fined him £50. No warning.

I tell her I heard that on the news the other day and because I write a blog, was going to try and fit it in amongst some smoking things I wanted to write.

Smokers are so penalised, she tells me, the government wants to make so much money out of them.

This gets me going and I say that this country is rich thanks to poor people. Rich bankers put their money overseas so they do not have to pay tax. Meanwhile the poor are bled for everything.

She agrees with me. I tell her in the Square Mile they are giving people portable ashtrays - fag bags. She says her brother was given one, but should have been given a warning first.

It is a nice break for me. The service, the people is why I like this caf so much.

I write and write and smoke and write until it closes at 2.30. I go home and finish a post I started which makes me late to pick up my son from school.

I run and when I get there the classroom is dark. Where is he??? I go to the after school club. Is he here? It's not his day I'm told, he might be in the mentor room. Guilt. On top of everything else I'm feeling, guilt guilt guilt.

I see my son, sat next to his friend K, crying his eyes out. I kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss him. I tell him I'm sorry. He tells me he wanted to come back yesterday.

I see his teacher to ask about the family mentoring. She says to speak to the Deputy Head.

My son was late to school this morning. That is good for me. That is something I can use.

My son is too tired to go swimming so I say just this once we will miss it. We put up our anorexic christmas tree then dance to a lounge music cd. He is delirious but funny in his delirium, stuffing blankets under his vest and dancing with a 'big baby belly mummy!'

I give him a bath. His dad didn't do a nit check on him and some eggs have hatched.

I read him A Christmas Carol and tell him we'll go see the film at the weekend.

I kiss him goodnight and he hugs me tight.

I switch on the computer and transpose my weekend. I don't think it will take me long because it is already written. At 4am, I give up with two more posts to write this morning, and go to sleep. It doesn't come easily.

I am wired now but at least I am 'up to speed' in blogland. I still haven't gone into my inbox. I will wait until I speak to the school before I open it.

No more long posts. "My weekend" is a one off. I may go and edit later, but then again I may read something and cringe at how badly written it is and just leave it. One day I will write a short novella, take pains over every sentence to make it the best thing I have ever written.

My blog is not for this. It is to write the pain so that it might remind me, and maybe someone else, that as long as you are doing something, you can acknowledge somewhere within you that you are stronger than you think.

Right, I am going back to Gossip Stop for two eggs on toast. No pen. No paper. Then I must buy chocolate cereal for my son. He was a right grumpy teenager this morning, telling me off for not buying any. I didn't lose my own rag, I merely said: "Are you tired?" and he nodded and said "Yes."