LeT's dO tHiS pEOpLe

 

Blogging, blogger, blog.

Let's Go. 

Here it is. 

It's happening. 

What am I doing again? Oh yeah, blogging again. Wait what?! Oh okay. Let's do this. 

Hi, my name is Cherry, and I've been blogging for 15 years now and fallen off the wagon...again. Life just seems to keep getting in the way, and other things. Then I forget how to log in to Blogger and that takes me another half a morning to realise that I actually have to log in under my maiden name email address because I've never been able to sync my blog to my new email address and now I'm here I will probably blog once and then 5 years will happen and we'll repeat the process. So boring. 

But while I'm here...let's do this! I keep saying that. It's actually very annoying I know, but it's my default setting with 3 kids and an arsehole for a husband. "Let's do this!" is just my way of saying "fucking hell I want to go back to sleep for 100 years but I can't so please just help me out so we can move on with the fucking day". So Let's do this. 

I'm now 43, feel older every day, my boobs sag (like legit 90 year old woman sag) and my bum also sags. I'm not complaining because I weigh 55kg and feel like a goddess, but just a goddess with no boobs and no bum. But I'm not trying to impress anyone, least of all my husband whom I just try to avoid all contact with - like avoiding an octopus underwater in a 1m by 1m tank. The sagging doesn't seem to put him off unfortunately. When did I become incapable of even wanting a sex life? But moving on. 

I have two children in school and one in day-care which is mildly better than any other alternative up until now, but only marginally. 

I am working part-time as a midwife and riding that roller-coaster while still contract working for the DHB as a lactation consultant. I am a full-time mother, house keeper, lawn mower and accountant, among other titles, not least "Bitch of a Wife" the latest title I received this AM from my frustrated and sex deprived significant other (which I totally understand and get...but don't buy into). 

I sometimes sew things. I received a free sewing machine from Fly-bys points that were expiring anyway, and thought "chief sewer" was another title I could wear at home for those times that Justin whinged that I never repaired his blown out work pants...but he didn't like the sound the machine made so I compromised by finding a place in town to set my machine up and now I spend any free time there just creating and making little things and unwinding. It's just another dimension of who I have become. A distraction from the mounting pressure. And to be clear, it's mounting. 

So I am sitting (squatting is the term Justin would use) in a local coffee shop, blogging because I have been meaning to for a while, and contemplating life and where it is I am at, at age 43. 

I have started up a book group, and enjoy reading with a purpose to discuss and socialise around that. 

I also enjoy planting flowers in my garden and doing all I can to attract the bird life to our humble abode by way of feeders, a bird house (newly required) and hanging bird bath. I have asked Santa for a large pretty blue bird bath to attract them further. 

I still avoid anything to do with farming as it just brings misery to me every time. I could explain that more but I can't be bothered. It's so layered and so complicated, like my marriage. 

My family back in Australia literally consists of my Mother and my brother these days, and neither bring anything but drama and contempt. I have all but moved on there too. Life is too short for other people's bullshit. I don't inflict my BS on others, so I don't plan on taking anyone's on. It's that simple for me now. Cold; perhaps. Sensible; YOU BET!

And now I am over typing. My mind is wandering about the tasks I need to do today...like getting the milk that we ran out of this morning and saw me the worst wife in the world. EYEROLL! Please. 

Life can be ho-hum but I'm happy to be surviving it and being me in the ways I know how. Christmas is nearly here and I usually love this time of year. I'm trying to get in the spirit but it's harder than ever. I have the music going in the car, the tinsel up and the elves are roaming the house daily. All clutter of course to my pessimistic love match. Ha! Who is as joyless as I've ever known. 

I must away. Time is a ticking. 

Let's do this people. Let's just fucking do this already. 

   

A nEW iDeNtiTy



Marriage for me is still very surreal.

I thought I would not be affected; nothing would change...but that is not true. I giggle when I accidentally write FOSBERRY after my midwifery notes and then spend 5 mins having to contemplate whether to change it or not, only to decide to, and then find myself re offending 10mins later making my notes look like a dogs breakfast written by a deranged midwife who is clearly having some sort of identity crisis. Who is this C.LEE who claims to now be working in my place? It's like I have a split persona. An imaginary friend. When written too quickly it oft looks like GLEE (which even though I was not a religious follower - I still make the connection in my head and giggle again).

Some days you wake up feeling nostalgic and sentimental and Married...

And then... you feel trapped in a contract of legal obligation; and what that entails I still do not know (Ah.. the fear of the unknown - mans greatest undoing)...

And then of course you just remember that this is still what life has been for over a decade and you obviously feel comfortable with it enough to be content and happy.

The name change takes a bit of getting used to though, let me tell you. Not for the groom however, he just has to learn to share; not always mans greatest trait. This name change is easier for women who wish to discard their old identity, shed their skin, conceal their sketchy childhood, mask the old and embrace the new. I am doing all those things and much more. I am also branding myself with the label 'proper family' - thought about the use of 'normal' instead of 'proper' but the word 'normal' holds many a bad memory of lectures from know-it-all charge nurses and case workers trying to be politically sensitive to the mentally ill - at age 11 however - you just hear Blah Blah from a woman who gets to go home to her perfectly normal nuclear family to sit and eat and chat happily about the little ungrateful and possibly spoilt child who unintelligently blurted out that she "just wants things to be normal" because she has no understanding of the suffering that the chemically imbalanced and misrepresented population have to deal with everyday (what an idiot world we live in); so 'proper family' it now is, as opposed to an 'inproper family' which is much more fitting. The acceptance and adorance of being "one" with the people who I admire and strive to impress the most. Justin says I need to do nothing to impress anymore (out of the blue and wise words of intoxicative love); but the reality is I will gallantly fight, take pains even, upholding to my last breath the lineage of the most wonderful and beautiful peoples this world ought to have ever known.