Sunday 8 May 2016

One Damn Thing After Another

Suddenly the house is so quiet. Suddenly I have time to organise my thoughts and put them down in writing. And of course, I go blank.
After the torrent of events and celebrations and some glitches - good old raisins and almonds, sweet and bitter- suddenly I am drained. Depleted of adrenaline. Just plain old tired, with my 60 year old body creaking and groaning and whingeing about everything. Shut up, already! Here, take a Celebrex and leave me be!

The last of the Pesach visitors left this morning and after weeks of Party Central, endless noise, people wandering about looking for things to eat, Olympic-level grocery shopping, sampling every kosher eatery in Melbourne after Pesach at the behest of My Daughter The Chef, after the Seudahs and Yom Tovs, including all the celebrations for 2 new grandsons and a Sefer Torah, after all the 2, 3 and 4-year-old grandchildren battling for control of the toy stroller/easel/scooter/teddy- quiet.
Even my work phone has gone quiet- not complaining! Need a break!

And the weather has gone all wet and mopey, after 2 weeks of almost perfect days, children playing in the garden, meals fressed al fresco. Today- grey and windy. (Sort of how I feel.)

And Mother's Day yesterday. Bless. Mother's Day is not for mothers of young children, and if I ever hear another idiot say 'But EVERY day is Mother's Day', I will afflict them physically. All I ever wanted for MD was to be left alone for the morning and not to have to do laundry or cook or work or anything. I never wanted poxy breakfast in bed - yuk- but I was polite enough to fake it until the kids actually understood that I didn't want it. When the kids were grown and had kids of their own, we started doing brunches at home, because people who take small children out to brunch on MD are delusional. Adults can take out their mothers, do whatever they want, why not? But it is only torture to take out a bunch of young kids,  and I can assure you that the mothers of said kids are not having a good time.  I speak as a grandmother of 13, KA'H, B'H, ptu-ptu-ptu, but even one small child will make eating out unbearable as a rule. So please, be sensible, save all that for when your kids are grown up enough to actually pay the bill.

And the 'Yoms'. Yom HaShoa last week, Yom HaZikaron this week. As a member of a family of 2nd generation Holocaust survivors who also lost a brother in the Yom Kippur War, I feel bookended by misery. I still don't know how they switch from sorrow to elation the way they do in Israel, from Yom HaZikaron to Yom HaAtzmaut; flick. From wailing sirens to dancing in the street.

So I guess this is what passes for a breather in my life! I sound like I am complaining, but I'm not. My life is privileged and amazing even if I don't go around hash tagging how blessed I am. It's just life: 'One damn thing after another', as Mark Twain put it.

But I don't know what to do with myself. So I thought I'd write about it.

(Huh, looks like the sun's out again.)

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