Half Term Haunting

The October half term holiday used to be my favourite. Apart from a little planning and arranging of Christmas carols and songs there’s not usually too much to do. It’s not like having to write report comments. When the children were smaller, I loved Halloween. We would go to the allotment and collect and carve pumpkins. I’d make spooky food, like witch finger chicken strips, ghost biscuits, spider web cakes and a jelly brain. They would have all their friends round and I would tell stories and we would play games. I managed to convince my neighbours children that I had actually been to a school for witches, so that when Harry Potter came out they could tell everyone that they knew someone who had been to Hogwarts. Obviously, I’d never mentioned the name of the school because, well, you don’t tell Muggles, do you?

This half term hasn’t been as much fun. 

I miss having small children around. I miss the pretend haunting. 

This half term has been filled with the kind of haunting that no one wants. The kind of haunting that makes me cross. The sort that I don’t want to admit to. 

There was one of those silly things that appear on Twitter that said something like: For Halloween let predictive text answer this question. Type “This Halloween I am haunted by..” and let predictive text give your answers. Without thinking, I typed in my answer (with no intention to post) and got, “I am haunted by my Mum and Dad.”

Wow! Not such a fun game.

It’s true too and I hate it. If you had told me three years ago that I would still be having some difficulties 18months after both parents had died I would never have believed you. I’m strong, determined, bloody minded and have realistic expectations about death. Parents dying in their seventies is normal. To be sad and miss them is normal. But here we are and some days I can barely function. I can’t sit still or be anywhere where I feel trapped.  My brain still can’t take too much noise or flashing lights (films can still be difficult) and my concentration is shot to pieces. It takes me four times as long to do anything and even then I have little confidence that I’ve done anything well. And all of this is made a million times worse if I spend any time in my parent’s house.  

The Long Suffering Husband looks at me, pityingly. He can see the toll it takes in my face. 

“Every time you go there you age about 20 years,” he says. 

Honestly, he’s such a gem.

My sister has recommended wearing a hat.

“It keeps it all in,” she says, “You look a bit silly but..”

I’m considering fashioning myself a little tin foil cap. It might help to keep the weird things that are happening in the world out too. 

But it just makes me cross with myself. Pull yourself together woman. It’s mind over matter. Don’t mind and it won’t matter. Then I switch and try to be kind to myself. What would I tell other people? I’d say it’s fine. Look after yourself, do whatever you need to. And therein lies the problem. When you need to do opposing things simultaneously it send you a bit bonkers.

I am currently in a phase of this extreme adulting malarkey where my parent’s house is sold. That’s great but it’s a very final step. There is light at the end of the tunnel. One day, soon, I will never have to go into the house again and maybe the holes in my brain can finally start to heal over. But before then comes the very difficult job of raking through their possessions. We did quite a lot of clearing before it went on the market. Clothes, lots of books, dvds, and some rubbish all went. The nice things, furniture and bits and bobs, we thought might have value, stayed. Now, we have the difficult job of sorting them out and let me tell you, this is a pretty shit thing to do.

You feel completely torn. You’d like to not have to look at it. Some people do this. They hire a skip and chuck everything in, or get a man with a van to come round and take everything. Whilst that is tempting, it’s something I find impossible. Other people take photos and list everything on Facebook sales, or take pieces to auction. Other’s give bits away. This explains why we have a hideous mirror and some glassware that isn’t to anyone’s taste. You don’t sell things because you need the money, it’s just that you can’t bear to think that your parent’s lives had no value.

When there is more than one sibling, this can also be tricky. What if you both want to keep the same things? What if there are things that neither of you actually want to own but you can’t face getting rid of? Whose loft has to groan with ornaments that your children will have to sort out when you go? What if one can’t face it and leaves it all to the other? Ultimately, though, you just need to look after each other. Your relationship is the most valuable of your parent’s possessions.

Over the years, I’ve tried to listen to things other people have said and not make the same mistakes. As death is such a big taboo in our society we don’t talk or listen and so we have no real idea of how we are meant to complete these tasks. I feel like our clearing is proving to be a very long and protracted process but maybe I just stopped listening when people talked about it.

Thanks for listening to my half term horror story. Let’s try the predictive text thing again - “I am haunted by my knitting.” That’s more like it.

Clear the Clutter.

There is nothing more therapeutic than doing a great big tip run.  Getting rid of all the stuff you don't need any more, making room for new things.

The TV shows where people have so much stuff they can't get into bed fascinate me.  A lot of my hoarding comes from laziness.  I genuinely can't be bothered to throw stuff away.  The Long Suffering Husband keeps bits of wood and rusty screws because, "you never know when they might come in useful."  He would only reluctantly throw away something that was broken because, "I could fix that!"  He also keeps the cardboard boxes from when we've bought large expensive items, "just in case they need to go back."  We can't be the only couple in the world to have a box for a Commodore 64 computer in the loft.

When throwing stuff away there is always a frisson of fear, a  thought that nags away, "What if I need it?" I think this is worse for people from poorer backgrounds.  Could it be an inherited genetic survival instinct?  If you don't know where your next jam sandwich is coming from you don't throw away the crusts just in case you are hungry tomorrow.

To cure myself of my hoarding habit I bought a simple little book by Karen Kingston called Clear Your Clutter (although some would argue that as I hoard books more than anything else it's not really a great purchase in the attempt to clear the rubbish) .  Her advice really helps me to clear my wardrobe out regularly.  She says that if you haven't worn it in a year you are not likely to and that you should give it a 3 month warning.  If you still haven't worn it then it needs to go.  I don't suppose this would work if you collect clothes, or shoes or handbags because then you are keeping them because you love them and not because you are too lazy to throw them away.

A Level Notes

When my daughter finished her A levels I suggested that she throw her notes away and make a bit more space in her room.  "But what if I fail?" she said.  "Then your notes were rubbish and you need to make more."  My Dad said, "Oh no, don't get rid of them, you never know when you might need them.  I've still got all my notes on how to work a telephone exchange in the loft.  If I ever need them I know where to find them."  As he hasn't used them in 40 years she agreed that maybe there was no point in keeping them but would wait until after she had her results.

"Why don't you have a burning party?" I stupidly suggested.  "You can BBQ and all burn your notes.  It will be therapeutic!"

That is what is happening right now, outside my patio doors.  As I sit and type this, the Long Suffering Husband is enjoying what he says is like Big Brother on a huge screen.  It looks fun.  The whole garden and house is filled with smoke, the box of notes is slowly emptying, food is being eaten and Prosecco being drunk.

There are people bouncing on the trampoline, swigging from bottles of WKD and toasting flumps over the incinerator. It makes me wish I was young again.

There is only one thing that worries me.

Who would store a toddler in a plastic box?

Poor Finisher

Waterstones, Oxford Street branch are very entertaining on Twitter.  The other day, they tweeted that they were thinking of removing the signs to the self-help books as telling people where they are kind of defeats the point.  Self-help books were a particular favourite of mine throughout the nineties.  I don't know if they went out of fashion, I grew up or I just learnt everything I needed to from them but I don't read them any more.

During a flirt with Feng Shui and Clutter Clearing I read that anything unfinished is clutter that is stopping you living a full and worthwhile life.  As life is, by definition, unfinished this has always seemed like a really stupid statement to me but as a strong starter, weak finisher I do have millions of unfinished projects that sometimes leave me feeling as though I'm wading through treacle.  

Starting has always been more exciting for me.  I remember school sports days and the anticipation of starting the sack race, egg and spoon race or the three legged race (with my Dad).  It was exciting.

 There was as much chance of me winning as anyone else (I was delusional) but after the first half-dozen steps the excitement was over and I didn't really want the race to end so that I could be awarded 5th place.  It's the same with books, trying to eke the last few pages out so that the story doesn't end.  

Half term is a great opportunity to finish a few things.  I've finished a few books, although I have started another.  I've finished knitting a baby jumper for a friend.

And I've finished eating the heart shaped biscuits I made yesterday.  (If you can't make heart shaped food on Valentines day then why can you?)

I've finished a bag of Doritos, some Minstrels and a large bottle of fizzy pop.