Confession Is Bad For The Soul

About as bad for the soul as it gets.

In the wee small hours of the morning

When the whole wide world is fast asleep,

I think of  . . .

And never ever think of counting sheep . . . .

Having had a full body massage today/yesterday doesn’t help, a massage always stirs up all the aches and pains that normally get buried during the day and then proceed to nag me all night. And without a massage I’d never get full control of my joints and never get rid of the rocks lodged in them.

It is 3 in the morning and sleep is as far away as the man in the moon.

Tomorrow/Today is my birthday, one of those with a big fat nought, the one where retirement and old age start, where you finally have to face up to the fact that you will never do any of the things your vast talents promised you’d do when you were young,

I have just been downstairs to the drinks cupboard and poured a large glass of sherry; on top of 20mg of temazepam and a double dose of paracetamol that should at least dull the feeling of dissatisfaction, even if it doesn’t knock me out sufficiently to send me into the arms of Morpheus. 

I wish I could be the kind of nightowl who sits over a glass of whiskey on the rocks, a gently smoking cigarette in the ashtray and a romantic tear glistening on her cheek. I am not even granted that dreary stereotype, being far too damned realistic and down-to-earth for any fancy rubbish like that. Besides, I neither smoke nor drink spirits.

I am the sort of insomniac who tosses and turns all night, whose thoughts are of the pointless, circular kind, who feels nothing but self pity and useless regret. And is going to be a complete wreck in the morning.

A group of boring women is taking me out to lunch tomorrow. There is no other kind of woman in rural England; the sort, for whom a good gossip is all the intellectual stimulation needed to provide a warm glow of rather nasty self satisfaction. I shall look a complete mess, which can barely be hidden under a layer of make-up. Still, at least I know how to put on a party face and these poor souls mean well; they went to the trouble of booking a table, organized others of their sort to come along and make up the numbers and they probably feel they are doing me a great favour, when all the time I feel I’m doing  penance.

I’m too bloody kind in spite of my nasty, sneering nature. I should have told them I was busy. It is my birthday, after all.

All of you would probably be overrun with family. The number of female bloggers who describe themselves as “mother of ../ wife . . ./grandmother of…./ always surprises me. I thought we’d left the era when we were somebody’s appendage behind us, and had become women and people in our own right and not valid only because we filled a niche in somebody else’s life. I’m wrong there.

I am all those wheels on somebody else’s carriage myself but I’ll be damned if I validate my existence other than by my own efforts, on my behalf. Still, it would be nice if any of the brood could be bothered to make a fuss of me on my birthday.

I was a rotten mother, always too busy earning a living and being a friend to my children. “I don’t want a friend”, my daughter, who no longer speaks to me, said, “ I want a mum, like the other kids have”. Tough tittie. Food and clothes and a roof over your head came first, my girl.

Right, that’s got rid of most of my readers. In my present state of mind I don’t care, although it would be very kind of you if you could overlook this lapse of good manners and give me the benefit of the doubt. I might behave better in future.

But now I am depressed; I am aching to go to sleep and stop talking rubbish into nothingness, which is all there is to the virtual world.

Thank Goodness, You don’t know who I am.

Confession is bad for the soul, not to mention embarrassing.

If I post this, I deserve to be evicted for stupidity.


Would you believe that the thrush has started his morning concert, and there is already enough light in the sky to see the river? I think I'll go down the bank in my nightdress and drown myself.