As 2012 Draws to a Close...

I'm feeling quite good with myself at having managed to get through a family gathering yesterday without having scratched my arms and rubbed my hands until they bled. This is due in part to the half bottle of gin I took with me which definitely got me through and masked me from the constant talk of football and who scored what and when. I should feel hung-over this morning, but I actually feel fine. Gin doesn't have a lasting effect with me and it's a drink I have learnt to use for its medicinal effects.

Coffee is something I received a lot of this Christmas. I have a nice new container in which to store it and as I type this the smell of freshly filtered coffee is drifting into my office and over my desk. I also received some very nice chocolate (diabetic) from Thorntons and a bag of utterly delicious Brazil nut toffee, again diabetic. I fear that it won't last very long before it is all eaten.

My son is still very much in a Christmas mood. He returns to school a week tomorrow, but this is a distant thought as he creates new and exciting worlds with his Lego and Imaginext castle. He is still in the grip of a Chicken Pox infection with a few spots visible on his face. It doesn't seem to have caused him much harm thankfully and he views it simply as a minor inconvenience. He had a bath the night before last in Dead Sea salts which are supposed to help heal the spots. Their effect also was to send him into a deep sleep a few minutes after he had rejoined me on the sofa.

Today is the first day of the festive period that actually feels what it is - Sunday. We've decided to stay at home today save a brief excursion to the local Co-Op earlier for some essentials and some fresh rolls for lunch.
It's not even mid-day and I've already this morning put some air in the car tyre and fixed the patio door handle, which every three of four months manages to work itself loose. I think I've done quite well.

My thoughts turn to the Group and our forthcoming meeting on Tuesday. We're planning on having bacon sandwiches and baps for the first time. My colleague should be joining me there despite having crashed her car a few days ago. I'm hoping she will have a courtesy car else I'll need to give her a lift.

Looking back on the past year I am thankful and somewhat relieved that we have survived to see another Christmas. This is due in no small part to my wife's budgeting expertise and our diplomacy with creditors and the bank, aided of course by our guardian angels, the Spalding Citizen's Advice Bureau. I don't wish to predict where the coming year will take us, I prefer to live a week at a time. I do however hope that we manage to secure funding for the Group and that I manage to find some kind of paid work, that I'm able to cope with. If nothing else, provided 2013 remains as stable as 2012, then I'll be quite happy. Anything else will be a bonus.

A Family Sized Challenge

I had a family christening to attend today, the youngest daughter of my sister-in-law. For me, it was another one of those awkward family gatherings that I used to cope so well with. Now it is just a struggle, something I never really enjoy and hours of wishing I was somewhere else. I do wonder if I manage to hide how I really feel. I've never really been any good at small talk and prefer for others to speak to me. I'm OK when that happens, but I simply don't have the courage any more to start a conversation myself. The confidence I once had has all but gone. This is how I am in 'family' situations. How different it is at my Tuesday A&D support group. I'm at ease there and I feel able to start a conversation and keep it going. I'm amongst friends there, people who were a few months ago complete strangers, but people who now know more about me than my family. I know this sounds mad, but it is true. For there is so much I am able to discuss with my friends that I wouldn't dream of mentioning in the presence of family. I know my friends feel the same way, so perhaps it is more common than I'd realised.
Alcohol does give me a degree of temporary false confidence, but it doesn't mix well with the tablets and I soon find myself becoming very drowsy and often get a headache. I do find that since my illness, I am left pretty much to myself and rarely does anyone attempt a conversation with me. I think this is a natural reaction - some people prefer to steer clear.
How relaxed I feel now I am set free and back in the safety of my own home. I can be myself here and jig my leg as much as I want without stares from those who like to judge. I can feel like this in one other place, each Tuesday amongst those who understand me and accept me. Why can't family be like this and why does it feel so foreign to be amongst them?

I have my father-in-law's notebook computer to repair. He's managed to get some kind of virus on to it. I know when he calls what to expect. It's always something to do with his computer, and my heart sinks at the prospect of having to help him. It's not so much the task, it's more the explaining why it has happened. How do I tell him he's simply downloading too much junk? How do I tell him not to click the download button on every game he comes across? It's such a dilemma and being the only 'IT guy' in the family, it's a burden I simply cannot escape.

We had a mini-tornado here last Thursday. The weather has been freaky all week and local events have been cancelled due to the heavy rain. I managed to capture the twister on my camera phone on the way back from a visit to the library. It had caused some damage which was evident from the number of roof repairs taking place the following day. It's not something you see every day...

I have a date for my NHS Volunteer Service interview - it's on the 3rd of July and being a Tuesday I'll be at the venue anyway. It's all a formality really as I've been in the role for some time, and like any similar role, a CRB check has to be completed.

Finally, it's an evening dominated by football once more and the roads around here are wonderfully quiet. Oh how I wish they could be like this all the time. Followers will know by now that I'm not exactly a fan of football, perhaps another reason why I feel so awkward around my football-loving family. I'll be checking the score of course, and if it goes Italy's way then tomorrow is sure to be a day of misery... If we do well, then we face Germany, and part of me does get ever so slightly excited by the prospect - but that's all!

A miserable couple of hours

This afternoon saw another one of my in-law's BBQ cum family gatherings. I had been secretly dreading it but what made it worse this time was the fact that my wife took my son to a Birthday party nearby, leaving me on my own for two hours. I've remarked previously about my difficulty with social gatherings - even family - but my darling wife forgot this and cited our lack of funds for not letting me stay at home and collect me when the party ended. 'You'll be fine', exclaimed my wife. 'You know everyone there'. It makes no difference if I know the people or not. It doesn't help that two of the people there (a couple I call the Bungy's), actually come from Bungay in Suffolk and are pleasant enough but they are also the most quite, the most boring people I've ever met. They don't even talk to themselves much of the time. So there I was having to endure two whole hours in near silence, hoping, praying that something would happen. It didn't. Instead, we found as much interest as we could in the weather, staring out of the conservatory at my father-in-law as he struggled to get the BBQ going. At one point the sun emerged from behind some heavy clouds and that gave way to about thirty seconds of mutterings, followed again by silence and the odd grunt.
The whole experience was excruciatingly painful - and my wife knows it. Worse of all is the fact that she hates me for it. She won't talk to me as she knows I wasn't looking forward to the event - and didn't enjoy it. OK, I admit it was a relief to see them arrive straight from the party at 2 pm, my son clutching a motorbike fashioned with balloons, but I soon found myself alone again with little or nothing to talk about feeling as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit.
It felt like an eternity until I heard the muffled sounds of 'time to go home' and 'say goodbye'. Oh, what a relief, my agony and torment would soon be over. I could get back to the company of my computer, the Internet and my safe haven I call Home.
The drive back was silent. No a word was muttered and my wife looked the other way the whole six or seven miles back to our house. I knew I was in the wrong - I always am - my social ineptitude and inability to make small talk goes completely against my wife's sense of family duty. To her, I'm not normal and I suspect this is the sentiment throughout the rest of the family. The thing is, for someone who's had a breakdown - a breakdown that nearly finished them off, nothing really is normal ever again. I know it's my fault and I accept that. Everyone tries to be as nice as they can, but deep down I know they are doing it because they feel they have to. You make the most of it, you force yourself but most of the time, you just want a little understanding.