Doing OK Considering

And now to blog about the unblogworthy events of the last week.

The widdies have been on school holidays, reminding me yet again why I preferred being a working Mum. Have also had a few extra's - The Starchild's daughter, Virgo Nurse, was here on Easter Friday until Easter Sunday, bringing Bones with her, who is her half-brother...this is getting cofusing, so perhaps a proper explaination is in order.

The Starchild and I first started going out in July 1993 - the 4th of July, ironically. He was about six months out of a five year relationship, from which there was one child (here referred to as Bones) who was almost three at the time. He also had custody of his two other children from a previous relationship, his daughter who was eight when I met her (who I call Virgo Nurse here) and his son, who was five (who is the nine live cat with clipped wings in blogland). What was a smart, 18 year old uni student doign with this guy? Yes, well, I've asked myself that very same question over the years, but I do truly believe it was where I was meant to be.

The older two lived with us in Sydney until the nine live cat with clipped wings flew the coup at 16. Virgo Nurse stayed around for a while longer but found her own independance after a time. The Starchild and I had two children in Sydney, Kman, now 10, and the impossible princess, now 7 and we bought a house in Newcastle in 2004, moving permanently in January of 2005. We added another child to the clan up here, the smiley monster, now 3.

We'd had access to bones, who lived down in Nowra and when we were in Sydney for about a year and a half, maybe two years, but it was also fraught with problems and ended in his mother taking him, moving and breaking all contact. Some forteen years later, through the wonders of Facebook, we have been reunited with bones, now a man at 18, studing law and with very clear goals and plans for his future. We were heartbroken to find that his mother ended up in gaol about two years after we last saw him and that he and his two younger sisters were brought up by his maternal grandmother, as had we known we would have been able to have contact with him again and perhaps consider applying for custody. But, the main thing is that he has turned out wonderfully and everyone is looking at the future, not the past.

So, there's the overview of the situation, albeit sans most of the sordid details. Not a great tale and rather a lengthy way of saying Bones stayed with us for eight days from Easter Friday, which was the second contact we had had in two weeks after not having seen or heard from him in 14 years.

I guess that is related to why I haven't been active in blogland, partially because of the extra housework and social demands with three extra people hanging around of a day, but also because I have been trying to get my head around all of this.

There are some other unrelated aspects of me that I am taking a good, hard, honest look at and, quite frankly, I don't like what I see. I've been pondering self-sabotage, addiction, fear, maintenance and consistency and know that change is required. It is probably a good time for this with Samhain approaching here in the southern hemisphere with retrospection, honouring the past and endings being the focus. I've also had a cold for the last week and a bit, and that does nothing to improve one's state of mind, and trying to get quarterly BAS stuff sorted, so generally feel like I'm battling hard to ward off overwhelm, but doing ok considering.