Diary Of A Redhead

[mylolita]

1 hour ago, dias said:

I had a flashback. I don't see "scientist" or "engineer" on the list. It's not fancy enough? 

Weeelll we could list and list and list couldn’t we! 4 just seemed to have a nice rhythm too it 🤣

 

Brain surgeon or accountant could’ve been on there, anything that comes to mind that is normally regarded as “smarty pants” and “middle class professional” 🤓 I really don’t mind. My son keeps saying he wants to be a train driver and that, “I won’t even have to go there Mammy they will come to ME!” Hahahaha! 
 

Train driver would be cute. He’s train mad Dias. So many of my husbands side of the family went into medicine and science actually! Another one is an engineer! His Dad was a mechanic and had his own garage in the 80s. Yes! And then the rest have started their own businesses. My husbands Mums side are very working class and most of them had many manual labour jobs (nothing wrong with that at all!) apart from my husbands youngest Uncle helps builds nuclear power plants, he is on the engineering chemical safety side of it. I don’t understand. He does something freelance. It’s well over my head, I never got past A level chemistry and physics! 
 

Actually I have a bit of a story I could tell you about how so many times, if my husband has mixed with middle class professionals, they often sneer and reject him because he sells stuff, is a salesman basically. And doesn’t have a degree or three. Teachers also often think they are quite above it all. Starting your own business often doesn’t come with as much prestige as you might imagine. He’s not a huge company or anything. He does well for me and the kids, but he’s not Virgin Airlines or the McVities biscuits fortune 🤣

 

He went out for a drink last week with a few neighbours. The husbands all went out. Two GPs, a property lawyer and my working class husband. He’d been working on the house all day in his shorts and steel cap boots and I said, “Don’t you want to change love?” He said, “Who am I trying to impress!” And then my son chimes in, “Yeah Mammy! Let Daddy go out as he is!”

 

I said of course, sorry, ignore me, go enjoy your drink 😉

 

He’s really not bothered. 
 

And honestly, I’m not a snob! I promise! I don’t have anything to be snobby about really! Just hoping business stays afloat, covid was bad and he took the 50k bounce back loan which is like paying a second mortgage every month on that alone. We knew a few people who took it, packed up, moved to Spain and bought a car with it or put it towards a villa, no joke! We are still here, crippled by taxes 🥲

 

x

[mylolita]

On 4/22/2022 at 3:54 PM, Seraphim said:

Hahahahw my mum is still crying that I am gone and I am 55. When I moved from her city to far away she cried non stop for 6 months my step dad said. And my mom told me when we left and our son with us my step dad sat on the floor and cried because my son was “ gone” . Although not his biological grandchild but one had partially raised because we lived in a multigenerational house for 12 years of my son’s life. 

But , yes, enjoy this time and closeness because it is fleeting. These days I get “ whatever mum” and an eye roll at any suggestion of being together and closeness. Because he is a male child. In my heart of heart there is a tiny bit of envy for those who have girls because of their innate and intimate connection with the essence of “ mum” and a wanting to be close . I will never have that and will be alone  in that way after my mom passes. I will be afloat in a male world. 

Aw Seraphim!

 

Y’know, some people say sons never leave you! I know I have never been that close to either of my parents. I think it depends on your relationship with them. You do a great job, you do great with all these strong men!

 

I absolutely love having a boy! When he popped out and the midwife announced it was a boy, I think we were secretly so glad! It’s lovely having both don’t get me wrong but, I think deep down my husband was very chuffed to have a son. He dotes and dotes on his girls but, boys are lovely too. I think they get you in a different way as you say.

 

I think you will be just fine with all that make energy! I have always got in better with boys anyway! In general! I think that sounds like a fab thing!

 

x

[Seraphim]

32 minutes ago, mylolita said:

Aw Seraphim!

 

Y’know, some people say sons never leave you! I know I have never been that close to either of my parents. I think it depends on your relationship with them. You do a great job, you do great with all these strong men!

 

I absolutely love having a boy! When he popped out and the midwife announced it was a boy, I think we were secretly so glad! It’s lovely having both don’t get me wrong but, I think deep down my husband was very chuffed to have a son. He dotes and dotes on his girls but, boys are lovely too. I think they get you in a different way as you say.

 

I think you will be just fine with all that make energy! I have always got in better with boys anyway! In general! I think that sounds like a fab thing!

 

x

Men are more likely to roam off with their wife’s family. My brother did. My husband did. Men are more close to you as little boys, not really as adult boys. Sure they will visit but they don’t go shopping with you as a pal, they don’t phone you for heart to hearts.  It is a different connection when they are grown up. I am close to my son but he is a man now and for the most part it is run along mum I am having a life byyyeeeee. 
It is sad but true. 😑

[mylolita]

19 minutes ago, Seraphim said:

Men are more likely to roam off with their wife’s family. My brother did. My husband did. Men are more close to you as little boys, not really as adult boys. Sure they will visit but they don’t go shopping with you as a pal, they don’t phone you for heart to hearts.  It is a different connection when they are grown up. I am close to my son but he is a man now and for the most part it is run along mum I am having a life byyyeeeee. 
It is sad but true. 😑

I understand. It’s bitter sweet that any of them have to grow up and leave. I can’t imagine not having them here everyday, needing me in some way!

 

It’s great that your son has his own life and things he likes to do Seraphim! I am sure you are proud in some ways, especially with his autism, you have done a good job!

 

x

[Seraphim]

He still lives with us and may never be fully independent. He does have his own interests though and is busy with his stuff unless working for me. He is very very very private and talking isn’t his favourite thing to do. He spends more time with me when his dad is away but other than working he spends 99.9% of his time in his room. He speaks when he has knowledge to impart or tell a joke. That is pretty much it. He now wants to spend more time with his father. He was definitely my baby when he was little, but a man now and it is not manly to be a mum’s boy. I get the occasional warm hug and I love you mum. 

[mylolita]

47 minutes ago, Seraphim said:

He still lives with us and may never be fully independent. He does have his own interests though and is busy with his stuff unless working for me. He is very very very private and talking isn’t his favourite thing to do. He spends more time with me when his dad is away but other than working he spends 99.9% of his time in his room. He speaks when he has knowledge to impart or tell a joke. That is pretty much it. He now wants to spend more time with his father. He was definitely my baby when he was little, but a man now and it is not manly to be a mum’s boy. I get the occasional warm hug and I love you mum. 

Seraphim that is heartwarming though!

 

x

[Seraphim]

7 minutes ago, mylolita said:

Seraphim that is heartwarming though!

 

x

It is. He is a sweet guy. 

[mylolita]

23 minutes ago, Seraphim said:

It is. He is a sweet guy. 

♥️ 

[mylolita]

Don’t worry, the irony isn’t lost on me either.

 

I say this whilst typing on my smartphone - I have less than a month left of owning a smartphone. Goodbye, good riddance! Auf wiedersehen. 
 

The last few weeks, my useage has ramped up and I don’t like it one bit. It’s made me feel unhealthy. Physically, and mentally as well. I can’t be trusted to monitor myself, like a kid, I need the distraction to be taken away completely! 
 

I’m bizarrely looking forward to this D Day! Just a regular, basic phone. No internet. Abs a lovely camera, for taking photos. Nothing else. 
 

I need to draw up some plans for the new house, I need to organise and sort through and send to the printers lots of photos I want too keep, create physical, real life photo albums that sit, gloriously, BEAUTIFULLY, in a book shelf! IN REAL LIFE! Be still my beating heart! I would love to make a start on trying to write a book. And then throwing it out. 

 

I’ll need to start going at the new house with a paint brush or too soon as well. Or, hopefully, in the next month or so. I want to write physically in my leather journal. Tear off the pages. Hear the rip. Things like that. 
 

D is also making the ditch. We are just gonna have a laptop. Maybe on an evening, if we wanna do some browsing, take turns using it. We are only going to have one laptop in the house. 
 

Not sure how this is going to work out but I am really looking forward to the distracting being taken out of my hands. I can’t tell you how many times a day I internally berate myself for, when I get a spare moment, checking it. Or how much I secretly hate myself for being tempted to check medical symptoms, or look up dramatic world news, and then have it plague me for the next few days. My head feels foggy and fuzzy for it.

 

I need to take a big break, and break a habit, hopefully forever. My kids don’t even know how to click on an image on a smartphone, or scroll the screen. I am so glad about that and just want it to stay that way for as long as possible. Every time I look at this stupid thing I am sneaking off like a criminal. I feel guilty guilty guilty. It’s one of my worst vices. 

 

x

[mylolita]

Just know, 

if it is raining, I am happy.

 

x 

[mylolita]

I’ve had a real strange day. 
 

You ever had one of those bad days, that felt like, it couldn’t possibly get any worse? But then, it turns out, it was a happy ending in disguise? And that day morphed in its twists and turns into a very beautiful, a very  poignant, evening? Some of us don’t always see ourselves reflected in the sun. Sometimes it’s the stars that are the mirror for us.

 

A couple days ago, I called my parents because I just couldn’t make it over to theirs with the kids that day. Truth be told, for the past couple of weeks, I have been extremely inward. Internal internal internal. I have been all about my brain, nothing about my body. I hardly went out. I only went out to go out with the kids to parks and the beach and things like that. I wanted to be alone. Really alone. I started wrestling with something mentally again. It’s happening again. I woke up a few weeks with that feeling, and I only quelled it two weeks before. The taunting cycle of me, myself and I. I stopped attending the social groups. I stopped doing anything that wasn’t necessary. I just didn’t want it.

 

At first, it started off as a mild excuse. Been up with the bambino all night (well, that’s every night nothing new). I’ll ditch this time, we’ll have a lazy day drawing, painting, reading, playing. I’ll do some housework. Cook some comfort food. Nip to the supermarket. Head to the park every other day but my out twice a day with three babies in toe just… crashed. I think I crashed. I didn’t know it at the time. Maybe I don’t even know it now.

 

The new house went through. Relief, but not as much as I had thought. Then the real work began. Now stress. Because we are supposed to be moving into a building site in two months. Money. My husband keeping his business afloat. No sleep, ever. I don’t do well on no sleep. I start to not get out of my slump that day I made the excuses. My excuse rolls into another excuse. I tell myself the same stories, I repeat the same justifications. I can feel my mood ebbing. I just felt bad, physically. I thought I had an infection. The consultant tells me I am perfectly well, perfectly fit, nothing wrong. My lungs are fine. So why do I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes? They give me antibiotics probably just to get me out of the office. 
 

I start feeling so off I start worrying I’m pregnant again. Thoughts circle round - how would I handle it? How could I handle it?! I’m not ready! Not this time! All of this.

 

Then I spend too much time on here, ruminating. It doesn’t even make me feel better. It makes me feel worse.

 

I have heard people who write often say, “If I didn’t write, I’d die.” Well, I’m not so sure about myself. It probably confirms I’m no writer, sure thing. More like, verbally leaving things all over the place for myself and anyone else walk-in’ around to pick up. I’m searching but the energy has gone. Slumped, totally. 
 

I start to detest the hollow platitudes people parrot. “Just forgive yourself”, “Do a bit of exercise and it will be better”. 
 

I was exercise obsessed for years and was just as miserable. I was a health freak, a total health nut. I was ruled by a control freak little dictator inside my head that told me when too eat and what not too and that I was weak and pathetic and a fat Trollope if I ate a bag of crisps. 
 

But outwardly everything is sleek and confident and pleasing and the compliments roll in and confirm, in your own twisted way, that you are doing the right thing.

 

I cannot seem to do anything half way, or… I don’t know. Why does it have to be all or nothing with me? Why am I so, f**k you, I don’t care! But so God damn sensitive all at the same time?! Why?! Why can’t I just wake up, take a good God damn look around, look around at beauty and love in every God damn inch of my life and just be GOD DAMN HAPPY ABOUT IT?! Why?!?!?

 

Sick of asking why. And why should I?! No one else is bothered! I say to the last girl I was social with on a regular basis, I don’t need female friends. Overrated. I’d be better off without. And a month goes by in my self induced little triumph. I think this is what I want. But I feel just as alone as ever. Still no one to connect with.

 

D is out, in our new area, absolutely enjoying himself. He’s in pool leagues, having drinks, spending days knocking walls down at the house with his old friends who are all tradesmen. Sailing back after more drinks. Happy as a clam. And, I think it’s great. I wish I was having the same luck and drive.

 

First two months here I sincerely propelled myself into it all. Even started up a reading group with another lady, because, I could only move somewhere that had a small library, very local. And our library is only a 10 minute walk. Perfect. Heavenly. Bliss. A world of books. A world that smells like books! My kinda world.

 

I meet a whole bunch of people. We are going for drinks, taking yoga classes. Then I crash. I just, I just see a pointlessness suddenly. These women, it always starts like this, just the same. They are all in! Exclaiming love and friendship! You are the best thing everrr! Sooooo exciting! And then I will onoy be a few weeks into knowing them, something they say, do? It falls apart for me, and I just know if I carry on it will run a course and then end up like the rest of them. Me, wanting to get out. 
 

I have no problem making friends, I have no problem keeping friends. Do I meet or make the right friends, for me? Someone who could be a friend, for me? No. I have only had that matched within my husband. 
 

I need someone to talk with. And I mean, talk and talk and talk and talk. I want to see the sunrise. I want someone to be there sometimes, through the midnight drives. I don’t want to wonder if I should say that thing, or feel guilty about holding a certain opinion. I want to be freely and exhilaratingly honest and myself. I don’t need someone to like it all, I would just love someone to accept it.

 

I guess, whatever - shut up Lo. Cry me a river and row in your raft. Everyone has their problems, what makes you so special?

 

Nothing dear. Nothing at all.

 

My Dad answered the phone. Are you okay? Sorry we’re going on holiday, it seems like you need us? 
 

I have never used them for babysitting my whole life. They can’t be trusted. And I would never want to tell my parents that. It’s… beyond complicated and trippy and problematic. I don’t even like to think about the past sometimes in those ways. Then Mum gets put on. I asked for her, I rarely do. I can feel a lump swelling in my throat. I’m just having a bad day. I just really really want to go to bed. But I can’t. I have gorgeous, sweet children who need me. And I feel like a bad mother. I feel like, for the first time in my life, I fear death. Not after, but actually dying. I keep thinking about my Grandma. I should be over it by now. I keep having this warped and horrible thought that, I put my children on this Earth to in the end, be alone, and then die themselves. I can’t tell you how this realisation makes me feel. I am almost having a panic attack.

 

I try to begin. I just want to scrape the surface. I don’t know what I’m looking for from her. Some connection. Something.. human. Relatable. I want her to tell me everything is going to be okay. I want her to tell me, I’m not a bad person. I want her to tell me she loves me. I want her to tell me, everyone feels like this, they just don’t say it like you do. But, she instead tells me I might have gallstones because my diet is too rich and I need to go vegan like her. Then she lies and tells me the phone is running out of battery, forgetting that two years ago she slyly joked too me that when her middle sister calls her and she no long has the guts to just say, enough, she scams her into thinking the battery is dying.

 

I just said, “It‘s okay Mum.”

 

”Oh.. alright Lo well, okay bye.”

 

”Bye. Bye bye bye bye bye.” 
 

I put the phone down. 
 

Maybe it’s not always me. Maybe I’m not always the bad guy. Maybe I’m not crazy. Maybe I shouldn’t have to be eternally positive. Maybe people aren’t entirely good and entirely bad. Maybe vegan food isn’t going to solve all your problems. Maybe you have problems until the day you die. Maybe, maybe, you should really just get angry for once, and stop turning inward, stop turning everything on yourself, and start looking out for once, and say, y’know what? Y’KNOW WHAT MUM? JUST TELL ME IF YOU CAN’T BE BOTHERED WITH IT! Don’t pull that phoney s**t with me! Because I KNOW.

 

Sometimes, you don’t know anything. Sometimes, ya do.

 

I’m not going to apologise all the time. Maybe they should be apologising too me. Isn’t that a doosie.

 

Why does everything have to be “fixed?” Can’t we have a low mood anymore? Can’t we have a bad day? Can’t we get tired, when it’s completely natural and legitimate to get tired? Are we supposed too be, perfection? Robots? Are we supposed to be, “living our best life?” Blissful, all the time? Satisfied, fully? 
 

What if we just allowed ourselves to feel bad. Instead of tripping over a hundred years of guilt to convince ourselves why we shouldn’t, or what best way to mask it, or just, get over it? Are we not human? Do we not love to eat? Love to f**k? Cry? Laugh? Have hot blood, pumping through our veins?! 
 

I look at other people, and see zombies. They think they’re alive. They don’t seem in touch with their humanity at all. 
 

If you think you have the answer, you don’t. If you think you can fix it completely? Forget it. There will be something else to fix or complete you right up the whole next week. Can’t we just, ride it out with as much compassion and dignity and willingness that we can muster? Does everything need the pills? Are your chemicals imbalanced?! What about, everyone’s imbalanced in some way. And if you don’t think you are, then you are fooling yourself all the way into the next life and back again. 

 

I had a bad day. Why is my first instinct to say sorry? 

If I allowed myself permission to feel sad, I might actually allow myself to feel… happy.

 

x

[mylolita]

In other dramatic news.

 

D comes home, hand behind back, with the most gorgeous bouquet of wild flowers.

 

”You can always talk to me. You know you can. Lets go to bed, see how you feel in the morning.” 
 

He knows me so. Wild flowers are my favourite flowers.

 

———

 

 

The hills were alive with wildflowers 
And I was as wild even wilder than they 
For at least I could run they just died in the sun 
And I refused to just wither in place.

Just a wild mountain rose needing freedom to grow 
So I ran fearing up where I'd go 
When a flower grows wild it can always survive 
Wildflowers don't care where they grow.

 

- Dolly Parton, ‘Wild Flowers’

 

x

 

 

[mylolita]

I just realised, window open tonight. I can hear the ocean from our house.

 

x

[mylolita]

Last night, D had came back home holding two small wetsuits behind his back. 
 

The kids hear the doorbell and instantly dash down the stairs then through the apartment door all the way door the corridor to the front gleefully exclaiming, “DADDDIIEEEE! DADDIEEEES HOME! DADDIE DADDIEEEE DADDIIEEEEE!” 
 

My daughter takes a run up, leaps into his arms. He spins her round. Her loose curls fly a second behind her. 
 

They absolutely adored the suits. We ran the bath and they wore them in the tub, playing divers and penguins!

 

When the whole room had turned dark, and everyone was asleep, apart from me, I climbed up the only flight to turn in and there in the bathroom, hung over the glass shower doors, in a slither of moonlight, were two, inside out, tiny, drying wetsuits. My heart ached. And I really felt like, it looked as if some coastal, outdoorsy family lived here. Lived happily here. Then I remembered,  we are that coastal, outdoorsy family! And, we are happy! 
 

I will remember those out turned wetsuits hanging side by side in the dark for the rest of my life.

 

x

[mylolita]

 

Yes, I am blind 
No, I can't see 
The good things 
Just the bad things, oh...

Yes, I am blind 
No, I can't see 
There must be something 
Horribly wrong with me?

God, come down 
If you're really there 
Well, you're the one who claims to care

Love's young dream 
I'm the one who shopped you 
I'm the one who stopped you 
'Cause in my sorry way I love you

Love's young dream 
Are you sorry 
For what you've done? 
Well, you're not the only one 
And in my sorry way I love you

Yes, I am blind 
But I do see 
Evil people prosper 
Over the likes of you and me 
ALWAYS

God, come down 
If you're really there 
Well, you're the one who claims to care

Little lamb 
On a hill 
Run fast if you can

Good Christians, they want to kill you 
And your life has not even begun! 
You're just like me, you're just like me 
Oh, your life has not even begun! 
You're just like me, you're just like me 
And your life has not even begun! 
You're just like me, just like me 
And your life has not even begun! 
You're just like me, you're just like, just like me 
And your life has not even begun!
 

x

[mylolita]

Months ago, one of my husbands favourite friends and work associates came to stay the night.

 

I have always loved him. He is much older, in his late 70s, but acts and looks about 59! He is the real life Indiana Jones. I kid you not. This guy is the tribe diving, model dating, ends of the Earth fossil digging, diamond mining, illegal artefact collecting, published Professor real deal! 
 

I will never forget the first time I met him. I had only been with D about a year. On his business trips to antique fairs and London and auction houses and crazy peoples places who had mad collections of all kinds of curio… I used to sit there, in the passenger seat of his second hand small van, content and amazed and blown away by him, by it all. It was the smallest and biggest adventure to me. I was 19 and had all the time in the world and did exactly what I wanted to do and hardly worked and, I went home with this guy I had met to live down an ancient cobbled wynd. There lived a row of three, rickety, thatched roofed cottages, with almost low barn doors for an entrance. Little fireplace as soon as you stepped in. Oh my God, that place was amazing. Built 1589 or something. It was one of the oldest buildings I had ever lived in. Tudor, I think.

 

Anyway, that whole time had a rouge magic to it, it really did.

 

D said, 1am - “We’re gonna be meeting this guy. He’s a little odd but he’s a good friend of mine. Don’t ask him too many questions, let me do the talking. Are you okay?”

 

I’d spent most of the car ride throwing up violently because I was allergic to a contraceptive pill I was taking. I had to get it out my system. Only an hour had gone by where I had stopped being sick. I was slinky and rail slim. I looked vampire pale. The rose had gone from the cheeks. 
 

We pulled up outside a completely dilapidated house on a very affluent street. It looked like the house some old buff had died in ten years ago and no one has put a claim too it. Weeds, all the way up to the roof, buckling the collapsing guttering. Curtains drawn. Mismatched door frame and windows. I stood behind D as a straight of light caught our faces. 

 

First were the feet. Naked toes popping out from holes in socks. Scruffy jeans with a stain on the shin. Belt undone, leather highly creased and cracked with age and use. One button of his plaid shirt left open to reveal a tummy paunch and stomach hair. Disheveled top, creased, and wild grey Professor hair, now being swept back with a couple of goes from his sinewy hand. He smiled. A gold tooth glinted back at me. He looked like Indian Jones, aged slightly, drank a few too many beers but retained the charisma. I instantly warmed too him. He then made the blooper and called me by D’s ex girlfriends name. He apologies and says he never met her, but what was he doing with someone like me!

 

“Come in, come in!” He gestures into the hall. You can barely move already for the pile of shoes. His only boys trainers, stacked up. Then it hit you through the dimness and the clutter and the mess that you had just stepped into what looked like the insides of a museum vault that had been scattered with plastic bags from Tesco, old leftovers and bachelor siege. 
 

“Thank you!”
 

“Ohhh her voice!” Two voices now cooing! An elegant, slim lady with wild auburn hair in an expensive but raggedy cape turns up round the corner! She has wild expressive eyes and a paint brush held high up in the air above her head. Quick smile, straight teeth. This, I later learnt, was his girlfriend. 
 

My voice had been made husky with all the throwing up. They approved. 
 

That winding avalanche of mess and priceless pieces went on and on. I had never seen something like it my whole life, or heard anyone reel off stories, along with every other word casually being f**k or f****g done in a gifted, gentlemanly, don’t care way! 
 

When we left, D said his whole collection of first edition books alone was probably worth 10 million. And the rest, about 20 million. And he had holes in his socks and was eating an out of date yoghurt.
 

I kind of zoned out, as if in a dream. I walked into a world that I never left. 
 

18 years on, we still see him and his girlfriend and they do stay once or twice a year. We have the best banter. He shamelessly flatters me and I do the same in return.

 

The last time he was here, he sank himself into the first armchair he saw. I asked him if he would like a coffee.

 

”But..! You DON’T have to fill the whole thing with f****g milk, sweet Lola!”

 

His son, now 26, chimes in lazily, “What are you talking about? What milk?”

 

“She knows. And she’ll do it, too.” Gold tooth, flashing. 
 

“He means, to make a proper coffee! OF COURSE!” I wink. 
 

“What?” Son is half asleep.

 

”Just don’t bother for me. I know you are the type. I don’t want to cause you anymore work. You have enough on your f****g hands.”

 

I laugh; take a bow, turn round and head towards the kitchen. I hand him the coffee perched on a saucer and filled to the brim.

 

”Ahhhh, lovely. Thank you darling Lola.”

 

He takes a sip.

 

”I knew she’d f*****g do it!”

 

I clasped my hands together.
 

”I always do!”

 

x

[mylolita]

I am in just such a good mood tonight! Not too amped, not too mellowed. Just right. Full of love. Feeling perky!

 

I nipped to the little corner shop today. I started talking to the guy behind the till. I just talk with everyone, a total blabbermouth. And, feeling especially bouncy. I slide the over spilling basket on the counter. 
 

I say, “Hi! How’s it going?” Young-ish guy, dark beard, side swept hair. Geeky vibe. Average build and height. Sweet, kind face. 
 

“Good thanks! You?”

 

”Yeah, real good! Apart from, I was supposed to go for a jog today for the first time in a decade, but ditched and came here instead.” He starts genuinely laughing and mock shakes his head. 
 

“What do you mean a decade!”

 

”A decade! Well, last time I ran I was probably about 23. I’m 32 now.”

 

”You are NOT 32!” 
 

“Ohhhh get outta here!” We’re laughing. Lots of people are waiting. He’s scanning my stuff through very slowly. “You can serve me again!”

 

”No honestly, I would’ve ID’d you!”

 

”Ohhhhh behave! Oh definitely! Well I always say to my kids, when I’m out with you, you age me.” We’re laughing, few beeps from the scanner. “Only joking, only joking.”

 

”How old do you think I am?” He asks, pausing and turning to give me a side profile and back again. 

“Oh my God! Don’t do this too me!”

 

He’s very entertained and enjoying the mundane break. “26!” I am being nice and slightly flattering. 
 

“No, no! Try again. It’s the beard. I have it to look older.”

 

Pause. Unzip my purse. “28 then!”

 

He snaps his fingers. “29!”

 

”Oh well, well done! I did say younger!” I take the bags he hands me. “Men get better as they age anyway! It’s alright for you!” 
 

We laugh and rib some more. He opens the door for me. 
 

“Enjoy your run tomorrow then!”

 

I turn back, leaving, “I bought trainers two months ago. They’re still in the box!” 
 

I’ve just realised, every time I go out, I end up talking to at least one or two strangers. I almost can’t see how you could not? Does this make me gregarious? I don’t know. I just adore people.

 

He was such a sweetheart. Most people are so nice.

 

x
 

 

 

[itsallgrand]

Ahhh I like this!!! I'm the same way. I used to consider myself pretty introverted because I really like my peace and quiet to myself. And I love curling up with a good book. But then I realized, a little while back when I stopped working quite so much, was working multiple jobs for years to plod myself ahead, that I just was getting my fill from constant interaction at work. My SO was like "yeah, you are so not introverted. You literally have gabbed at me even as I was falling asleep. Lol. You make friends wherever you go." And during Covid I really saw this.. I had to be involved, even when it was only online volunteering and such. I had to talk to people every day! 

I could totally see that about you. It's nice! Sense of community is often lacking for so many people but it's so important. 

[mylolita]

On 4/30/2022 at 12:49 AM, itsallgrand said:

Ahhh I like this!!! I'm the same way. I used to consider myself pretty introverted because I really like my peace and quiet to myself. And I love curling up with a good book. But then I realized, a little while back when I stopped working quite so much, was working multiple jobs for years to plod myself ahead, that I just was getting my fill from constant interaction at work. My SO was like "yeah, you are so not introverted. You literally have gabbed at me even as I was falling asleep. Lol. You make friends wherever you go." And during Covid I really saw this.. I had to be involved, even when it was only online volunteering and such. I had to talk to people every day! 

I could totally see that about you. It's nice! Sense of community is often lacking for so many people but it's so important. 

Thanks grand!

 

Everyone is always so welcoming! It touches me! Makes me quite emotional sometimes if I stop and think about it too much! 🥲

 

And another gal who talks her husbands head off until he has a head no more! LOL! Excellent I though I might be the only one 😉

 

I can have a conversation with myself! Sometimes, I have to catch myself because I do have a bad habit of talking too much, over powering a conversation, talking over people or just waiting there like an excited puppy raring too go and say their next piece. I reign myself in often. I need to improve my listening! But I totally agree - people are fascinating, I always want to know more more more, and I ask questions all the time too. Some of them are probably inappropriate 🤓

 

x

[mylolita]

My son, who turned 4 in January, just turned to me and asked, 

 

“Mammy, what does behold mean?”

 

”And, what does revolutionary mean?”

 

This kid is beyond me!

 

x

[mylolita]

Then he’s dismantled the head of a micro fibre duster and he’s squelching it around the floor with his sister and I ask them,

 

”What is that kids?” 
 

And he exclaims, “A sea cucumber!” And I’m thinking oh my God! And I ask, knowing vaguely what creature it is, “What is that son?”

 

He says after a pause, with a young kids strain when they are trying to pronounce an unfamiliar word, “It is an echi…noderm Mam”

 

Mind blown. You read them things you don’t even remember yourself and yet they take it in and retain this stuff and then correct you months later when you get it wrong. 
 

x

[mylolita]

I guess you could say I’m totally f****d up 

 

x

[mylolita]

——-

“The problem with people who have no vices is that generally, you can be pretty sure they’re gonna have some pretty annoying virtues.”

———-

“When the sun comes up, I have morals again.”

———-

“Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together.”

———

“God damn it, you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.”

———

“I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I’m not afraid to look behind them.”

———

 

- Elizabeth Taylor 

[mylolita]

So I'm back to the velvet underground 
Back to the floor that I love 
To a room with some lace and paper flowers 
Back to the gypsy that I was do the gypsy that I was...


And it all comes down to you 
Well you know that it does when

lightning strikes

maybe once, maybe twice 

Oh, and it lights up the night... 
And you see your gypsy 
You see your gypsy

To the gypsy that remains faces freedom 
With a little fear 
I have no fear 
I have only love 
And if I was a child and the child was enough 
Enough for me to love enough to love... 

She is dancing away

from you now 
She was just a wish, she was just

a wish 

And her memory is all that is left for you now 
You see your gypsy oh
You see your gypsy 

Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice 

And it all comes down to you 

And it all comes down to you
 

Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice 
It all comes down to you 

I still see your your bright eyes, bright eyes 

It all comes down to you

 

 

Always makes me nearly cry, if I let it.

 

It reminds me, always, of you! And me. And us.

 

x

[Seraphim]

Your son is a bright little one. ❤️