Alone again Naturally.

Yesterday was a mixed bag, Joe said he fancied a fruit pie so i headed to the kitchen and made one from scratch haven't made pastry for a while. Also made a lamb roast dinner which ended up with the kitchen looking like a bomb had hit it. Plates and pans all piled in the sink as the dishwasher isn't working at the moment....reminder to get this sorted!
I watched x factor and Downton ignoring the kitchen and popped some washing in for Zak for school tomorrow. Later Joe appeared and told me he had put his washing in for work.....i lost my temper mainly because Joe has a habit of just removing the damp washing and leaving it and then putting his stuff through and drying it only for me to find the abandoned washing later. I think having spent the day cooking and then sitting and ignoring it, it all built up and i had a major row with Joe. Adam came in and made the peace, and i complained to him how i was fed up doing everything!
i just sat and sulked in the living room i am not great at calming down, later i did go in to sort out Zak's washing and found Adam's dried washing which had been in the drier stuffed in a laundry basket by Joe....my immediate reaction was to do the same to his now dry washing but i didn't, i folded it up so it needed no ironing which couldn't be said for Adam's washing and left it on the top of the drier. I took the mature way out when earlier i had reacted like a petulant child.

I watched the hillsborough drama which was emotional and verified everything that had been highlighted in the press lately although it had been made a few years ago and then flicking through the channels after watching the highlights of the Ryder cup i found my favourite film The Bridges of Madison County starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood,The brief, illicit love affair between an Iowa housewife and a post-middle-age free-lance photographer is chronicled in this powerful romance based on the best-selling novella by Robert James Waller. The story begins as globetrotting National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid journeys to Madison County in 1965 to film its lovely covered bridges. Upon his arrival, he stops by an old farmhouse to ask directions. There he encounters housewife, Francesca Johnson, whose spouse and two children are out of town. Thus begins their four-day affair, a liaison that fundamentally changes them both. Later Francesca chronicles the affair in a diary which her flabbergasted grown children read; never would they have expected their mother to be capable of the passion she experienced with Kincaid.
I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it but there is a scene near the end of the film which is so emotionally charged i would defy you not to shed a tear as i did again! well a few really. The problem is that as soon as you let yourself dip into that emotional space, whatever caused it, then cancer rears it's ugly head too and you end up roller coasting down into a mire of thoughts about your current situation and what the future holds. I ended up with a sleepless night the despair just becomes overwhelming and although i had put it to the back of my mind before going to sleep the mind just wouldn't settle and kept me awake for the duration. Usually i can pull back from the abyss and manage most of the time to sleep very well and during the day practically ignore the fact that i have stage four cancer. But when you open the door to emotions, you have to deal with the consequences. I bounce back very well and by the time that you read this will have found my comfortable place and be carrying on with things. I don't feel comfortable with people knowing that i have these moments it isn't me, so i will assume that no one has read this so that there is no need for comforting comments, in a very nice way :o)
This approach reminds me of when my mum died, soon after she passed about 10 mins or so i guess, i was standing in her room and could see the sister walking down the corridor towards me , being an only child i was the only one there with her away from home and coping as i do very well on my own, however i saw the potential in her outstretched arms for the control i was managing at that moment to go and as she came within earshot i said 'don't be nice' just talk to me about practicalities, i knew that if she cuddled me or said anything remotely comforting i would lose it and it isn't something that i have ever felt comfortable with outside of my own company. She understood immediately and we talked about mum's clothes and what the procedure was next. After that i went to Tesco to buy things for the nurses such as coffee tea and biscuits etc to show my appreciation for what they did for her, i remember standing at the till thinking my mum died an hour ago somehow you feel it should show but who would ever know? it's another day for everyone else working hard in their own worlds. Later in the afternoon i sat with mum's neighbour quietly, as she was in her 80's but it was right she was old and wise enough to know how to support me. Later on my own in my parents empty house with all their things around me i sobbed on my own and that's the way i like it.
I am pretty strong and i am 'over' it now but whilst still dwelling on the night, i thought i would write about it so that people i know who are also diagnosed with this disease and those who know us can maybe relate to the experience and know that it is not unreasonable to feel this way. I would be surprised if anyone who is living with cancer doesn't face their own demons here and there along the way, but they mustn't take you over, put them behind you and move forward to the next day!