![]() |
Not my palettes. |
So I’m over halfway through
my holidays now, and I’ve had a productive break so far. I’ve crossed the most
important tasks off my to-do list (‘Sign up for a month’s free trial of
Netflix’, ‘Watch season two of Orange is
the New Black’, ‘Read Faith Shift’,
and ‘Do some colouring in’), so now I’m up to ‘Blog’. A couple of days ago I
actually sat down to write a ranty piece about nagging but it was based on a
blog post I’d read a loooooong time ago, and when I went back to the website to
revive my anger I discovered that the author had edited it so that the quote
I’d taken wasn’t there anymore, and I couldn’t build an argument based on what
he’d left behind.
The synopsis of what I
would have written: if someone’s nagging you, it’s because you’re doing a bad
job of communicating with them, either by lying (“I’ll do it this weekend!”) or
by failing to explain that The Thing is obviously less important to you than it
is to them. So: Tell the truth and have a flipping conversation. If you did say you were going to do something
and you didn’t do it, apologise, and then either do it or work with the nagger
to figure out a solution to the problem (that may not involve you). And stop
being so judgey about the way the naggy person’s communicating with you and
instead listen to what exactly that person’s trying to communicate. It’s not
that difficult. ALSO, from my understanding of the way the world works, your
wife can act respectfully, but she
can’t respect you if she doesn’t respect you. I hope that makes sense, Mr Walsh. (The definition of “respect” also suggests that it is something that has to be earned, but I’ve argued with youth group
leaders about this before, so it seems there are mixed understandings of what
the word means.) PHEW! It feels good to get that off my chest. That’s been bothering
me for over a year now.
Anyway, after giving up on
that post I realised I only have updatey things to write about, and I don’t
know if updatey posts are incredibly boring for you, dear reader. I have no
idea who most of you are. I have no idea if you want to know that I’ve been
feeling pretty crap lately, and it’s frustrating feeling pretty crap when
you’re taking antidepressants (I took the name more seriously than I should
have, obviously). (I’ve only been on the new medication for a month, and these
ones take a while to kick in, apparently, so I should be more patient.) (I suck
at patience.) (The psychiatrist was neither old nor gruff, which was a pleasant
surprise; he said things like “fragile sense of self” and “attachment trauma,”
and called my children “triggers,” all of which I’ve translated to “Things may continue
to be yukky for approximately 16 more years, if not forever.” He told me I
should go back to the psychologist, and I said, “I don’t know that I have
anything left to talk about, though” and he said, sarcastically, while flicking
through his pages of notes, “Really? You have nothing to talk about?!” So I’m going back to the psychologist. For
the next 16 or so years. Or maybe forever.)
I’ve no idea if you want to
hear about how different it’s been wading through the thick of depression with
kids around compared to before kids, when I could work with earphones on and go
home when I felt like it and ignore Alan and mostly be left alone. I could put
things where they belonged so that our house was tidy and together, unlike my
head. These days, our floors regularly look as though they’ve been vomited on
by a drunken rainbow who for some reason ate a stack of toys and textas and toast.
These days I spend a lot of time with Moses and Hazel, neither of whom
understand the concepts of “alone time” or “quiet” or “calm” or “crying in the
dark because I really can’t cope with people (especially small people) at the moment.” Poor kids. Poor me. In times like
those we are the worst possible match, and so I cry about the fact that my
children didn’t get someone better as a mother, someone who’d be mostly joyful
and playful and generally –ful rather than empty
and in regular fight-or-flight mode. So, yeah. Here’s some
colouring in to lighten the mood:
SO! I’ll tick blogging off
my list now, too. I was also going to write a post on podcasts, but I don’t
know if it’d be that great. The synopsis: Chat 10 Looks 3 is my favourite podcast ever – I smile through every episode and
love that Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales have silly sides. Here’s the Thing (with Alec Baldwin) is also really enjoyable – he
asks the questions and makes the comments that I’m thinking of as I listen to
the conversations, which is incredibly satisfying; I’ve been surprised at the
episodes I really like, and the ones I really don’t (I turned off Jerry
Seinfeld after about 10 minutes). I particularly liked his interviews with Ira Glass
and Julie Andrews, but my favourite was the one
with Bryan Stevenson (the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative), which made me laugh and cry. I also like Bullseye, partly because of who Jesse Thorn talks with (Nicole
Holofcener, John Cleese, other people whose names I can’t remember right now…),
and partly because his insight into the work of those he interviews seems to
impress even them. Let’s just pretend that sentence made sense. He seems to get things.
And, finally, our podcast is now on iTunes, which
means I don’t have to keep trying to work out how to embed the player here! And
you can subscribe and therefore have new episodes magically appear while you’re
sleeping or something! Hurrah! Search for “Ms Sundays” in the podcasts section.
We’re up to eight episodes now, although the last two are Sarah-free, and Sonia
and I accidentally talk about penises and TV too much when she’s not around.
I was hoping that all of my
bloggy to-dos could be crossed off in this one post, but having just failed at coming
up with a one-paragraph synopsis for my thoughts on church, I’ll be back again soon.
0 comments:
Post a Comment