Ah hah hah hah Stayin' aliiiiiiiiiiiiiive

Ok so I'm not male, don't have bouffant blonde hair, am several years too young and no my voice *doesn't* go that high!

But March has been all about being alive.

I've had me aps n dahns but it's been a good month overall. At first everything was feverpitch - an end of module assignment to do (which meant re-reading 3/4 of the course text in 2 days) and then the loveliness as Great Chief White Hair and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.

We had silver balloons and copious amounts of asti, and a 4-day break in a posh hotel - private 2-person jacuzzi, balcony, 3 piece suite, dining table, and a 4 poster bed so high I had to have a stool to step on to climb in. Lovely :-)

And no, the jacuzzi wasn't on the balcony. It was in the bathroom along with the second television. Obviously.

I can't begin to reminisce about 25 years of married life, some pretty major highs, some pretty somber lows, beyond saying that we seem to have got lucky when we met on the Number 2 bus that January morning of my mock o-level in home economics. Moving on swiftly, just to mention that I ended up with a grade 3 pass in a domestic science CSE. And we didn't start going out for nearly 3 years. Okay, lucky-ish :D

That was already 2 weeks ago. The year is zooming. My reason for writing today is really about how, once the excitement has passed, and we've just topped up our store of memories, life returns to everydayness.

Of course I came back with full expectation of resuming my diet and fitness schedule, and of course I developed a cold which, because of underlying conditions and medications, becomes a Problem. And so I rested until today, when with a surge of energy I actually managed to Do Something. Nothing exciting, and there's lots more to be done, but it's a nice feeling, and fingers crossed I get a bit more done before the men people get home.

The depression is still lurking, but amazingly, I've kept her in her place this week. I've shushed her voice, pushed her back into her box, and frowned at myself if, in poking fun at myself, I've used overly harsh language. None of that, lady! Routine isn't a thing I live with; I'll do what I want to do when I can, like gymming and swimming, and work around them when I can't.

Thanks to the EMA mentioned at the top, I now have a 10-year-plan, and an ability to mind-map. Every step I take today is one step closer to achieving my goal. It's a goal I've shared with Great Chief White Hair, and which has his seal of approval. Just as well coz by hook or by crook, he'll be doing it with me.

Weebles wobble...

...but they don't fall down. They have very, very heavy, round bottoms. And no matter which way you drop them, or from what height, they always work their way back upright.

We used to have a blue one. I wonder if Lil Bro remembers it?

Well anyway, that kinds of sums up how things have been lately. It's as though I'm pushing myself over as hard and as far as I can to see what will happen. What happened to our blue Weeble - eventually - was that its top half separated from its bottom half completely. Oh dear.

There are other, more obvious, similarities betwee that old blue Weeble and yours truly, but we'll gloss over those with some pineapple-flavoured paint. Or maybe not.

I don't remember if we ever tried the Weeble in the bath to see if it would float. The answer is probably not to both ideas. I'm not so much floating, as dragging huge lungfuls of air down to the bottom with me, and expelling them rocket-style to propel myself up to the top for another huge lungful. Swings and roundabouts it ain't. Sink or swim doesn't do it justice. The stupid thing is, the lifeline, the raft, the buoy - they're all at my fingertips. I don't even have to reach out to grab them, no effort is required, no tense dah-dah-duuuuuuuummm moment. Just if I want it, there it will be.

Sometimes the real effort is to just want it. To fight the urge to just roll back and let the tide do its worst. These are my demons, Lethargy, Apathy, and The Bitch and sometimes they talk so sweetly, offer so many enticements, they appeal to my very core.

Do I say something twee here, like "and then I look at the pictures on my desk of my two lovely men and..."? No. The truth is I can't - I won't - do it for them. I can only do it for me. Do it for someone else, and they become the weapon of my own destruction, the heavy, metal-studded club of a million guilts that will swing down and send me flying as I reach the liferaft .

The Bitch is back. She's been creeping in ever so, ever so quietly, silk-shod. Whispering about my failures, pointing at the work undone, telling me I'm not good enough for YM's new friends and their families. Laughing at me in my sleep, and dogging my days.

Well, I see you now, and the fight begins. Lethargy and Apathy can go hang.