As I sat on that heinous twenty-four flight from London to Sydney, for the first time in a long time I found time to ruminate and reflect on my life.
And I came back with lots of good intentions – about how I would generally be more positive, change those parts of my life that aren’t working so well and tweak other areas a little so that they run more smoothly.
The problem with good intentions, though, is that life gets in the way. You see, for them to really work, there can’t be any obstacles or surprises – otherwise we’d all be doing everything perfectly.
So those good intentions, (that I got all excited about in my delusional state, mid-flight somewhere between Dubai and Sydney), included: not droning on and on at Kurt like a stuck record about the stuff I think he should be achieving, and to discipline myself to sit back and let him make his own mistakes decisions; to cook properly – inspired as I was by all the fabulous foodie-fare I devoured over the two weeks in Europe and which pushed uncomfortably against my seat-belt on the plane; to do more fitness – (nuff said); to try and show more appreciation for the old man and more pride in NC, and to seriously focus on my writing again, because it has recently become bogged down by the wilderness of life’s bitchery, too.
The old man did a reasonable job of babysitting our two near-adults and our baby, the Princess, while I was away – as in, he kept the fires out. But what he didn’t attempt to deal with was the daily shit.
He obviously saw his role as deterrent, so his presence prevented Kurt from throwing wild parties and eating something other than sugar every day; he made sure the Princess didn’t starve (as I suspected she might) and he even managed to select, pay for and organize the installation of a new fridge…
FUCK ME! Do you think he’s having an affair?
But he left those nasty, threatening N Award letters from Kurt’s school and the organization of his multitude of medical appointments on my desk for me to deal with when I got back.
So I’m bad cop again.
Back on the boy’s case about all the stuff I deem important and he deems a waste of time, such as school, organization and his whole fucking future, which looms perilously closer each day, while he and the old man bury their heads together merrily in the sand.
And then there’s work, which always rears its ugly head when I think I’m getting on top of things and has already begun to poop its annoying demands into my inbox.
What no-one in this family really understands is that nagging and worrying uses up a lot of energy; energy that could be positive energy given the chance to evolve properly. Mindless domestic administration, brown-nosing to teachers and cleaning properly, and all those other boring, inane things leave little time and enthusiasm for wonderful new Jamie Oliver-esque culinary creations (which would probably be rejected anyway) or for thoughts like ‘I’d love to go to the gym’ suddenly popping into my head.
But having good intentions is a start, right?
#happiness #Family #Humor #teenagers #Marriage #Relationships
Louisa Simmonds 
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