tahariel: (I want you to know that)
Today is the third anniversary of Mum's death. Me and Dad and Lucy went to the churchyard this morning to take her some lovely flowers from the florist down the road. It's strange to think that it's been so long, and yet so short, a time since it happened. I guess I don't really think about it all that much any more.

For those of you who I've only become friends with recently, my Mum died of an aneurysm in her brain, very suddenly and quickly, over a couple of days, in the first week of December 2004. You could say we had a bad time of it - my sister was ill with glandular fever at the time, and I was in my final year of high school preparing to take some important exams. A month later our elderly dog had to be put to sleep, and that year both my Dad and my sister developed depression, and my sister's glandular fever turned into ME. It sounds as though I'm making it up to be dramatic, but I'm really not. That year, year and a half was awful, and it was one thing after another.

What I really wanted to talk about today, though, was how far I feel like I've come since. I failed to get the grades to get into university that year after everything that happened, so I reapplied and got jobs and worked. I learnt the value of money and how things really work in the world. I grew up. I found a course, and what will eventually be a career, that will suit me infinitely better than what I was going to do, and I am so happy doing it. I genuinely enjoy my lectures. I have become more self-sufficient and confident in myself, because I have had to.

As a result of everything that happened I am not only a much more determined writer but, I think, a much better one, even if only because I had to find an outlet for the way I felt and it expressed itself in thousands of words of writing that let me practice and practice and practice my skill. I feel like I have acheived a depth in my writing that I never used to have.

It feels sometimes like things have always been this way, that my mother never existed and it has always been the three of us. I can't remember her voice any more, or the way she smelled, or even her face without having to build it up out of photographs I remember of her. I think after a while those things just slip away from you.

I turned eighteen without her. I went to university without her. I will have relationships and get married and have kids without her. That hurts.

But I am stronger now than I ever was, and I'm grateful for that, even if I wish the reasons it has happened hadn't. I know what I want and I want to try hard to get it for myself, because I know that things don't always last.

I am proud of myself and where I am now. I hope she would have been, too.

Three years is a long time, and no time at all, for everything to be different.

Quiet day

Aug. 22nd, 2007 11:14 pm
tahariel: (FFX - Yuna - my life before)
The day is awfully long when there aren't any people in it.

You see, today Lucy and Dad went to see Kings College in London - to see if Lucy wants to apply there next year - and then to the England/Germany match this evening, so I've been alone all day except for the dog and the guinea pig.

We went to the churchyard first thing today to put some flowers down for Mum because it would have been her birthday today. It doesn't really mean much any more, if I'm honest, even though it feels like it should - it's not like she's there, anyway. I was copying out some of her recipes to put in my little notebook for this year, since I'm going to have to cook, and found a little note next to a spicy recipe to make plain chicken for me because I can't stand spicy food. It made me feel loved, it was nice.

I forgot to tell you, actually, that I had a little car accident the other day! I was trying to pull out of the car wash at the crossroads near where I live - there's this terrible hedge there, you can't see anything - and a van was coming and hit the car just next to the headlight. I was so worried the guy was going to be an asshole, because it wasn't completely my fault (that bloody hedge), but he was really nice and was more worried that I might have been hurt than anything else. He told me he'd actually swerved to avoid hitting my door full on in case he'd hurt me. As it is, the car was only scratched a bit, and I was barely jostled.

Anyway, the guy was really nice even though his van got a bit of plastic knocked off - it doesn't do anything - and his numberplate bent, and wants to sort it out without the insurance companies getting involved, which is fine by us. It also turned out that he's one of the travelling people who live - illegally, I might add - on a field in the village. Not that that means much, really, since they've not made any trouble at all since they've been here. Its the principle of the thing that makes the village dislike them - for one thing it lowers house values, and for another if you built so much as a shed without planning permission you'd have to pay to tear it down, but the've built a whole caravan park with not a word, and have been told to leave after legal proceedings and are still there. It's - well, just annoying, really.

But that was my first car accident. May I never have another, or if I do, may it go as quietly as this one has!
tahariel: (SGA - Rodney - McKay and Mrs Miller)
It was Mum's birthday on the 22nd, and it was weird not because it was her birthday but because it really doesn't mean much to me any more. It really doesn't get to me. Thinking of Mum doesn't make me really sad any more like it used to. I guess that's progress of a sort. It's sort of a comfortable numbness now, if that makes sense.

Today a huge bunch of stuff arrived from Liverpool about arriving and getting set up as a new student and accomodation and all sorts, and now it finally feels like it's happening and it's a little scary but also really cool, because I have been ready to go for months now. There's loads of stuff I need to take and have done, like check which vaccinations I have and haven't had, etc. I need to decide which Freshers Events I'm going to go to, as well, as apparently it's usual for them to sell out so you need to book in advance. I'll be going on the 19th of September. (Kat and Katie, I want to see you before I go as I have birthday presents for you! From Chicago! Yay!) Any advice people feel might help me out would be greatly appreciated, since you've all done this before. (Not stuff like, 'don't be an idiot', because that's not very helpful even if you think it's funny, okay?)

I WANT THE NEW EPISODE OF SGA NOW INSTEAD OF TOMORROW. It's going to have Rodney's sister Jeannie in it! Played by David Hewlett's sister Kate! How cool?!?!

ETA: I went to the dentist and they had to redo my filling and now the side of my face is numb and it feels like my mouth is twisting weirdly every time I move it >-<;;
tahariel: (Default)
I've been dreaming recently... I think because my sleep pattern has changed so I wake up at a time when I can remember my dreams...

Last night I dreamt that I kept seeing Mum outside my house looking in at us through the windows. Nobody else could see her, and every time I ran outside screaming for her she vanished right in front of my eyes. She was wearing her black coat with the red lining and the make-up she always used to wear and smelled like Estee Lauder, because that's my 'mother smell'. But she always vanished, and I was left standing on the lawn in the snow confused and upset and alone.

Some days it hurts more than others.

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