Friday Roundup Sept 2012!

What a week! What a month!! What a year!!!

For the first time ever we have welcomed an old school friend of Laura’s to London, and to our flat! We love having new people to show around the city we LOVE and Alison has proved a willing victim/guest. We plan on taking her on her first food/grocery shop and a ‘drive by night’ tour of the city tonight to help her get her bearings and because we think London looks amazing at night.

Alison is here to stay and will be living in London for at least a year so we will take it easy and take our time showing her all the highlights but we love nothing more than a willing tourist.

It’s getting cold here in the UK, so autumn is definitely upon us. The trees aren’t quite changing colour but flip-flops have been put away and jackets have been brought out. For those of us who love the summer and the heat, the darker evenings and cooler mornings are normally a sad sign, but I have Laura and through her an appreciation of Autumn that I have never had before.

Talking to one of our friends on email today about how fast this year was going and how Christmas would soon be upon us, this was Laura’s response:  

What about autumn?
  
Crisp cool days, beautiful autumn leaves, hot chocolate, scarves and sweaters, fireplaces, my birthday, Halloween, pumpkin flavoured things, THANKSMAS, potential for snow, soups, stews, boots, hats, soooooo many great things about my favourite time of the year!!

I guess someone likes the time of year around their birthday J

In other news, we have a family event tomorrow that involves Laura and I BOTH joining my Mum and sister to see Jersey Boys at the theatre. NEVER have I been so torn about going to see a show. Those of you who have followed us for awhile will know that WE love a good musical – Shrek, Singing In the Rain, Priscilla - you name it, we have seen it or want to see it. But with my Mum! With Laura and my Mum TOGETHER! *shudder*

Sooooo we all know how my parents would rather ‘ignore’ Laura’s existence and pretend I will get over my ‘phase’ and end up marrying Mr Right sooner rather than later. And you may remember how our meeting at my sisters seemed to go fine but then NOTHING changed, in fact it hasn’t been mentioned since, besides the odd threat about not telling anyone in my family about us.

Well, it was actually my Mum who suggested this London rendezvous, and is paying for it as our Christmas present – excuse my French at this point – it’s kind of a mind-fuck!!!! I have asked my Mum outright what she thinks she’s doing and her explanation is that ‘getting to know Laura in London is different’ – so make what you will of that.

Worst still my ‘time’ to confront my Mum over ANY issue that I have is forever being postponed by drama, and most of it is bad drama! The fact that she has known about us for over 2 and a half years and there has been very little change, or willingness to change: the only thing that has changed is the name calling and evil emails have stopped - makes it even more frustrating.

For example, I wanted to confront my Mum this weekend about her nastiness and threats the day we went to see Lady Gaga, but my sister has just had a very urgently needed hospital appointment postponed and my Mum is now frantically trying to get it rebooked, cancel non-refundable hotels and is in tears on most calls.

Thankfully she was pulled over by the police last night for……wait for it…..DRIVING TOO SLOW!!!!...hahahahahahahaha!!! And I say thankfully because at least it stopped the tears and gave us all a laugh.

The time before that I was heading home, all ready to say my piece and my Aunt’s dog died; I think this time it was more me in tears. I first met Evie as a puppy so small she could sit in my hand, I looked after her whenever my Aunt and Uncle went away and she was the first and only dog I got to see grow up and change over the years – I loved her and will forever miss her soppy face.

But seriously, the level of drama that my family manages to create means my internal and eternal frustration at their lack of acceptance is always secondary. I always feel incredibly selfish wanting to demand to be heard and am constantly going in thinking ‘what if I make things worse’. Laura thinks it’s the way I grew up – my Dad had a brain haemorrhage and was hospitalised for almost a year when I was 8 so I was looked after by my grandparents and tried to stay out of trouble and be ‘the perfect child’.

When I was 12 my sister had a spinal bleed and was hospitalised for 18 months in Oxford, my parents went to stay with her and I either stayed at friends, neighbours or my grandparents, again I tried to work hard, do well in school, look after everyone, and stay out of trouble. I learnt that kicking up just caused trouble and never got me the attention I wanted. I just tried to be helpful and supportive. I was no angel but I was drama-free.

It means it’s against my nature to stand up and confront my parents, and it is always about everyone else before me. It has gone way past behaviour I can forgive and I know it has to change, and that the way I compartmentalise things is not the best way to ‘deal’ with life, but causing upset amongst drama just isn’t my thing.

I agree with L when she says with my family, there will always be drama, but with so much other stuff going on in our lives, and so much of it good, do I need to rock the boat and bring more negative attention? Do I really want our wedding plans mixed with evil texts and hurtful emails? I LOVE the life Laura and I have built, and the fact that my parent’s attitude has already impacted that makes me reluctant.

This has turned into a stream of consciousness now rather than a post with a point but boy does it feel good to get that out there. I always find writing down these things useful. I feel like I cleared a bit of space in my mind. Laura and I tend to talk about things like this on our journeys together but that means there’s an end point – we either have to kiss goodbye and head to work or arrive home to plan dinner but either way it never gets resolved. I appreciate the blog for that. I can spend some time to just ‘empty’ my thoughts on to a page…..imagine doing that to a poor unsuspecting colleague who asks what you’re thinking about J

 

To end on a lighter note have you seen this: GANGNAM STYLE – brilliant!!!

Enjoy your weekend!

Love

Sarah

xoxox