It’s been raining for days.

Not that I’m complaining; not when the tanks are filling up and there are puddles covering the paddock, making the ducks happy. Not when the garden is thriving and the grass has gone a pretty green colour, as the raindrops sparkle in the light. Not when the sky is darkly dramatic and interesting to watch.

Still, it has been raining for days and being a country girl, it feels like it should be an auspicious start to May and the middle of Autumn, the season of hot soups and hot water bottle nights.

The trees have dropped their leaves and stand bare naked, inhabited by crows in the early morning light as we drive Amy to school. Birds nests stand out in stark relief against the sky as I wonder about stopping and photographing them, before the rain falls down ever harder and I huddle inside my jacket in the slightly steamy warmth of the car.

And it continues to rain.

I dream of my grandmother nearly every night and wake up with a headache and scratchy eyes, damp patches on my pillow. I watch her die, again and again, before dreaming that she is alive and all is well again.

I replay old scenarios in my head, the post death fallout that I was subjected to and wonder that it has the power to hurt me all over again.

Anne Lamott tweets:

If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.

And I hold onto that when I contemplate writing essays about things that hurt, in an attempt to lance the wounds that fester. Yes, I’m angry with you. I’m still angry with you – all of you.

In the middle of all of this, the fetus continues to grow, while I wait for the end of winter. Her birth will herald the coming of my spring and I cannot wait.

In the meantime, it continues to rain.

That’s the problem with social networks. They don’t know when someone is dead.

It would have been her 67th birthday today. We would have wrapped our Easter celebrations into a birthday celebration as well, and it all would have gone smoothly.

Instead, it’s been almost three years since she died and there is so much she has missed. How is it fair, to have someone you love, miss some of the biggest milestones in your life?

April 2009, we were moving through the cancer haze. A mess of appointments and treatment and long conversations in cafes. Of learning to read a CT scan report so that the doctors couldn’t gloss over the worst details. Of knowing, in depth, what metastasize meant in a real way, rather than an academic kind of way. Dropping cake crumbs on my new baby’s head, as he was carried to and fro with us.

It’s never pleasant to walk the path with someone dying, and yet, we were honoured to be able to do it.

—

Winter is coming.

It sounds trite and ripped from Game of Thrones – and you’re right. It is.

But it’s also how this time of year feels. April heralds the beginning of the dark months, as we move through birthdays and anniversaries. I could read back through my blog and find out what appointments we were attending three years ago, but I don’t want to.

April moves into May, which moves into June – the darkest of the months.

Cancer moved from her lungs, to her lymph nodes, to her bones.

Life moved on to death.

That is how this time of year works.

—

Death leaves a hole in your life that is unfillable. It will scab over and eventually scar, but you will always miss them. Sometimes with a deep ache, sometimes with a smile.

And sometimes, with piercing pain.

—

Happy Birthday Nan.

I’m sorry you’re not here to watch my children grow up and life continue on – I think you’d be amused at how similar Amy is to Mum.

Apparently when you have a fortnight as crazy as I did, you get to the end of it and your mental state is fried.

Who’d have thought it?

In lieu of blogging, I’ve been spending all of my time drinking tea and reading books (Diana Gabaldan’s “Cross Stitch” series) and contemplating my lack of energy. A little bit can be attributed to depression, a lot of it was sheer exhaustion. Today is better, thanks to a psych appointment yesterday, increased sunshine and warmth and an hour planting flowers in the orchard.

Admittedly my pear tree isn’t looking great, but it’s the first year in the ground.

Isn’t my view pretty at the moment?

I got my second set of HCG results back yesterday. Sixteen. ARGH. I’m still wanting to throw up on and off, which has to be my reaction to the progesterone in my system. It’s unpleasant, regardless of what is causing it.

My mental recovery has been relatively easy. Because I’d bled from the very beginning, I wasn’t entirely convinced that my pregnancy was going to be viable. Being proved correct wasn’t what I wanted, but knowing that nearly every woman out there has gone through it makes it a little easier. Misery loves company and all that. Knowing that I wasn’t alone in things, that helped.

Thanks to our wedding gifts, we’re hopeful that we can get the toilet moved inside in the new year, which will be great. Another winter of freezing near to death in order to pee doesn’t appeal to me.

We’re down to two ducklings now. I started listing all of the things that might have happened to the other babies the other day and then went “huh. I am really not surprised.” It’s a harsh world for small bundles of yellow fluff.

I also bought myself some water colour paints. Now I’m just trying to work out if I have the energy to paint myself a pretty new header for here.

I am getting married in just over a week.

I discovered today that we don’t have as many tables as I thought we ought to, seating is a bit iffy (picnic rugs anyone?) and everything is needing to be tied together. If we add in an IRL fight with someone (and I am RIGHT and you are WRONG and being an IDIOT) and a Big Thing* happening at the same time, I have my hands a little full.

Okay, they’re a lot full.

Adding to this, the entire house has been stricken with some form of ‘flu and we’re all whining at each other, while we fight for space on the couch and which DVD we want to watch.

To top it off, I appear to be getting my period. Cycle day 57 people. FIFTY FUCKING SEVEN. Tomorrow should be cycle day one. ARGH.

And the cherry on top? I dislocated my GOOD knee yesterday.

Never mind Internet, never mind. It will all be FINE, but you know. If bursting into tears while venting during a DM conversation last night is any indication, I’m a little stressed.

+++

When I was a kid, each year before my birthday, Nan would take me to a musical at the Theatre Royal. It would make up part of my birthday present and frequently we would get front row seats, which was very exciting.

One year, the musical was Les Miserables and it was a HUGE performance at the Derwent Entertainment Centre. It was even more exciting because Nan was part of the cast, singing in the choir. I spent weeks down at her house before hand, listening to her sing while she learned all of the songs.

After it finished its run, Nan gave me CD’s with the entire performance recording on them. Somewhere in a couple of house moves and a very active destructive toddler (Amy) I lost two of the CD’s.

But, for a long time, Les Miserables was my go-to music when I was stressed.

Screaming baby at 3am? Play Les Mis.

Angry at Nathan for working all night and then needing to sleep during the day (the cheek!) Play Les Mis.

Sing the songs, listen to the words and calm back down.

+++

I hadn’t listened to any of the songs from Les Miserables for years now.

Nan is dead and some things just don’t need poking.

But, I was talking to Nathan the other day and I mentioned “Lovely Ladies” as a song to make you smile, in a warped sort of way. And so I found it on Youtube, along with the entire musical score, care of someone uploading it.

And you know what?

It still works on stress. Of course, it makes me sadder now, but there is nothing like a good musical for making you feel ever so slightly better.

In a warped sort of way, anyway.

*I should be able to announce the Big Thing early next week. I’m just waiting for some things to fall into place.

I got some amazing news today. Throw your hat in the air and shout kind of news, run around the house squealing, tell everyone in sight kind of news.

(No, I am not pregnant.)

It was amazing news. I poked Nathan until he woke up – lazy bones was napping on the couch – and told him. I rang my parents, and spoke to my father and told him the great news. Mum wasn’t home.

I was so over the moon that I caught myself for a split second starting to dial the number for my grandmother.

And then I burst into tears because she is dead and I can’t ring and tell her. Suddenly I wasn’t so excited, I was just bone crushingly sad.

Death is hard. Death hits you at the strangest of times, when things are going well. You’ll be travelling along, and things will be just fucking perfect and then your brain will collapse in on itself and you’ll be left sobbing. Death is so final and I think that is the hardest part to live with.

I cried for an hour and then I rang my mother and we celebrated and cried together, because that is what you do.

Knowing that Nan would be excited and proud isn’t the same as ringing and speaking to her. Knowing that she would be cheering me on from the sidelines is nothing like sitting down and telling her about it. It’s just not the same.

Things are going well for me. They’re going really really well. I got another couple of businesses to sign on to Showcase Tasmania, I’ve got a few more interested and in the process of confirming and deciding and (the biggest thing I suspect) it’s finally Not Winter anymore.

I am happy. I am truly truly happy. And in the same breath, I am so terribly sad, because I am getting married in a month, my blog is doing well, things are happening for me and my grandmother is still too dead to share this with.

And that is the problem right now.

***

Ghosts and the possibility thereof aside, death is death. It’s final and I can’t change that.

I should hopefully be able to share my news with you in the next week or so. I am really excited about this, but you know, pass the tissues. I’ll cry and dance at the same time.

My last few years have been … eventful. Starting with a pregnancy that didn’t look like it was going to end well, cancer, death, family fuckwits, autism x 2, early intervention, Ehlers Danlos, a falling down house, debt and depression. It hasn’t exactly been the time frame that I would hold up to the light and dissect, more the time frame that you force to the bottom of your closet, stomping on it as you go, so that you don’t have to deal with it anymore.

I signed up to participate in RUOK Day and then promptly decided that I would be better off stabbing myself in the eyes.

I am not okay. I am so far from okay, that okay is the distant shore that I left some years ago, before doctors told me that things were “all in my head” and tossed around words like anorexia and problems at home to explain why I was sick and exhausted, why I threw up every day and why my joints hurt so badly.

You tell me, how are you meant to trust the medical professionals to help out with mental issues, when mental issues are what they thought your major, genetic, connective tissue disorder was? I don’t trust them to help anymore.

I watched my grandmother die. I dealt with the fallout that rewriting a eulogy caused. I read long winded rants about myself on the Internet, written by a family member. I dealt with the trolls. I helped clean out her house, knowing that it was never going to be okay that she was dead and we were parcelling up her belongings.

I went to a doctor to discuss anxiety medication, only to be told that it would be better to sort out WHY I was anxious, rather than just medicating. You can’t cure grief by wanting it to hurt less, any more than you can make a broken bone heal faster than it does. I left with medication, that didn’t work anyway.

My son was diagnosed with autism and while it wasn’t the worst thing to happen, it was the straw that broke the camels back. Really universe? Autism and Aspergers ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE? REALLY?

Fuck you.

I would like to be okay, in the same way that I would like my joints to stop dislocating and to stop vomiting all of the time. To stop having to deal with meltdowns and the assumption that I am okay, because I tell everyone I am. I would like people to notice, without having to be told, just how far from okay this whole mess is and to stop assuming that they know how they would handle it.

I would LIKE for the Pain Olympics on the Internet to stop and for people to stop negating what I am dealing with, because it could be so much worse. Sure it could be worse, but stop trying to fucking jinx me. Last time I thought that nothing else could go wrong, everything else went wrong.

And you know what? I DON’T want to talk about this. I don’t want to cry anymore, or have to talk about this, or try to explain. Writing it is hard enough. The last psych I talked to about my anxiety and grief, seemed to think that it was nothing to worry about. Obviously I downplay things, really well.

RUOK?

No. No I am not.

Now excuse me, while I get off the Internet, before I am tempted to swear anymore.

It’s like poking at a sore tooth, wanting to flip the world upside down and peer at the dark underbelly of humanity and our arrogance.

I make myself do these things because I feel I need to bear witness, and then in turn, ask other people to bear witness with me.

I watched The Cove tonight on ABC and I cried. The slaughter of dolphins in a cove in Japan, when the water turned red with blood.. Images of dolphins trying to escape and the screams of the babies as they were stabbed to death will make me cry for while yet.

Dolphins are possibly, more intelligent than humans. They are self aware and yet, we insist on killing them. Most dolphin meat isn’t sold as dolphin meat, but sold as whale meat (which: whole other issue, humans should not be killing whales either).

The dolphins that are killed are the ones rejected by the dolphin trainers. Deemed not pretty enough, or perfect enough to be sold to places like Seaworld, they are herded into the cove and slaughtered. Every single one.

If we didn’t have a market for captive dolphins, would the slaughter still continue? I don’t know.

I can’t do anything to help, except throw a little money the way of the campaign and add my voice to theirs.

I am standing up to say that this isn’t right and more steps should be taken to stop it.

You can watch The Cove on iView if you missed it. It’s available for 13 days, after that you’ll need to buy the DVD.

Have tissues handy.

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My children have been screaming at each other for hours. Amy has done something to Isaac, but Isaac has touched something of Amy’s and it’s just this big convoluted mess of screaming and sibling angst and apparently I’m not paying enough attention to either of them, despite ending up with both of them in my lap at every opportunity.

We’re all sick, with some sort of fluey cold thing, and I’m due for my period, which means my joints keep falling out of place. Exhaustion levels are high, as are levels of snot soaked tissues (and shoulders and knees – thanks Isaac) and PMS.

I spent some time looking back through old photos, like I always do on Sunday and now I’m sad. I’ve got PMS and I miss my grandmother and the week of slightly warm weather has decided to disappear and nothing is working how it should, least of all my body. Shoulders are not meant to go crunch when you roll over in bed.

Some days, I would like to just go back to bed and stay there. Some days, it all just feels like too much and I’d like to trade back the dead grandmothers and autism and Ehlers Danlos for a door that isn’t quite so tough.

Please.

My children before they got all angry with each other:

Our sunset the other day:

And these, that make me miss Summer so terribly.

MONA FOMA:

My garden – before the frost killed everything.

See more Sunday Selections here.

When I was at the Queen Victoria Markets a week ago, I bought some soap. Carefully chosen scents, some to wake me up of a morning and some chosen because they reminded me of other things.

One of them is a lemon verbena scented soap and smelling it for the first time properly tonight, as I showered, I was overwhelmed with a rush of memories. Which sounds silly, but scent and music will for me, always hold more memory than most other things.

In the weeks before Amy was born, when I was heavy and slow and waiting on her birth, my mothers friend gave me a gift basket. Just for me, it contained a loofah and some lovely soap, scented like lemon verbena. For after the birth, she said. Every woman needs a little bit of luxury, because the first shower you have after giving birth, feels like the best shower ever.

I carefully packed it into my hospital bag when I was 38 weeks pregnant, amongst my tooth brush and face washers, the tiny baby clothes and the smallest socks you could ever imagine. It was mine, all mine in a bag full of maternity pads and underwear, nipple cream and nursing bras.

After Amy was born, in a rush of blood and screaming (the doctors, not mine) and trauma, oh so much trauma, I forgot about the soap. I had a baby you see and there isn’t anyone quite as proud as a new mother. I held her, skin to skin before she was removed to be checked for breathing difficulties and then, thankfully, returned. Her eyes blotted out the terror and trauma that birthing her had caused and it wasn’t until years later that I was even able to think about how she got here.

Before they put the hat on her, to cover up the giant swelling on the back of her head. Forced extraction is not fun.

My family arrived, while I concentrated on Amy’s face and lay with my legs in stirrups, being sown up three times over. Even then, it wasn’t easy, my skin not holding up like it should and preferring to tear. A sign of things to come.

Photos were taken and a very proud (and very tired – having just come off night shift as I went into labour) father got to hold his daughter, while I showered.

Lemon verbena soap smells about as good as anything you can imagine, when you are covered in blood from your breasts to your knees. I sat on a chair and showered, while my grandmother talked to me, before washing the blood off my legs. It was a hard birth and I was still shaky as she helped me get dressed. I knew exactly what my mothers friend meant when she said that the first shower after a baby is luxurious.

I used that soap for the first few weeks of Amy’s life, before everything got the best of her and she decided that sleep was for the weak and silence was for fools.

When she was four months old, we moved into a new rental property, with a lemon verbena bush growing next to the path gate. Amy used to escape from that house and crawl down the path and together, we would pick sprigs of lemon scented leaves and crush them.

On the long days, when I would walk for miles in the hope of getting Amy to sleep, or stop screaming, it would be the lemon verbena bush I would brush past as I took the pram in and out of the gate.

I wasn’t blogging then and had scant comfort, living in the middle of nowhere with a sleepless screaming baby. It was a hard year.

The soap I used this evening brought all of this back to me sharply. The pride I felt in myself and my newborn daughter, coupled with the intense loneliness and isolation a small, screaming baby and rural life can bring.

Five years have passed since I was given that soap, but tonight it feels like no time has passed.

I could call myself stronger for all of the things that have happened since, but I don’t feel stronger. I just feel more tired – tonight more so than anything.

But I will continue to use the soap, because memories – they aren’t a bad thing. Even if they sting and take me somewhere I wasn’t sure I was ready to go yet.

What holds strong memories for you?

It’s easy to fall out of the habit of blogging and harder to get back into it.

When I first started blogging, I would write every day. I read back through my early archives and cringe; the writing is terrible and did anyone really want a play by play of how Amy wouldn’t sleep through the night? I wouldn’t think so, but apparently they did and eventually, readers and subscribers came.

I kept writing, every day, even when I was tired, fighting the guilt when I would miss a day. I managed NaBloPoMo in my first November of blogging and after 30 straight days (of drivel, no doubt) I was in the habit and I continued to write something, every day.

Someone even convinced me to sign up for Blog365 and there I was, committed to blogging every single day for a year. I knew I was insane and this was proved by my incredibly crappy writing early on in the piece and my increasing panic, as we completely failed at trying to get pregnant, bought a house and moved into it.

But you see, the thing with moving house is that you end up with no Internet for a while and there I was, three months into Blog365 and 5 months into my blogging every single day adventure (idiocy) and suddenly left without Internet for 10 days.

After the first three days of freaking out and chewing my fingernails, I realised that I was probably every so slightly addicted. Which, maybe, isn’t a bad thing, when you think of all the other things I could be addicted to instead. I spent the next week unpacking, laying in the beanbag, reading and playing with Amy, who was a toddler terror.

Of course, the world didn’t implode and I started blogging again, as often as I wanted to and about whatever I liked. My stats rose, my subscribers slowly came up and I gave myself permission to not blog as often.

Time passed, as it does. We managed to conceive Isaac and a hellish pregnancy later, we had a healthy baby. Considering I had been certain my pregnancy was going to end in disaster, it took a little while to come to terms with the nature of Isaac being entirely healthy (barring EDS – which we didn’t know we had at that point, and autism).

As that time passed though, I dialled back on what I would and wouldn’t blog about. Constantly reassessing my privacy, as my blog became more well known within my circle of friends. Nan was dying of cancer at that point and I didn’t blog the first day after the diagnosis, instead posting a video of REM “Bad Day”. It was too raw and I didn’t want to be forced to share the raw with anyone.

Between a newborn baby and traipsing backwards and forwards to the hospital, blogging dropped off my list of top priorities. I couldn’t give up this space, but I also wasn’t giving it the time I had in the early days.

I guess that’s one of the good parts of blogging in the early days, everything is so full of fire and excitement that it’s easy to keep up.

Between then and now, I guess I fell out of the habit of writing as much as I used to. Which was great, for my sanity and also, terrible for my sanity. A double edged sword.

I look around at how blogging has changed in the last 2 years particularly and I know that I’m not keeping up. I also know that I don’t have to be keeping up to be happy with what I’m doing and I can’t deny I am entirely happy doing what I’m doing.

I just feel like sometimes, this whole thing, this writing gig, is getting lost amongst the noise. With the PR pitches and stuff, I’m wondering what happened to networking, to community, to friendship building and my habit of writing every day.

Change is not a bad thing. There are things coming out of the last two years of change that have been particularly spectacular for me and I’ll hopefully get to announce them publicly this week.

I’m just wondering when I changed. When I stopped writing a post because I was worried about traffic, or stats, or how it would be received. When all of my posts ended up going to drafts for weeks before publishing, rather than a quick edit and sending it out into the world.

Of course, some posts should not be written raw and some people should not be allowed to read my blog. These are things I know now.

I also know that I need to write more, even if it doesn’t end up here.

If I don’t, I run the very real risk of going mad.

And that’s probably not a good thing.