The Easter period has passed and a rather sinister looking Easter Bunny about sums it up. Not the new camera I may add which still sits there gathering dust. This was the wee compact and taken last year. Or was the year before? Can't really remember. My mind has never had much of a scale of time when it comes to memories. In this one my youngest daughter in a bunny mask.
Not actually from Easter I might add. I do know that however much my mind falters. I know its not Easter because every year since we met my wife has gone to her parents where all her family spend Easter Sunday somewhere having a picnic. So I know this wasn't Easter. I used to go. I actually used to enjoy in a perverse kind of way because there was little to enjoy. It was good to be out but not on a Scottish April Sunday. We'd be sitting in some area with a spread of food on the ground or on a table sipping wine from paper cups while getting blown by gales and/or soaked at the same time. But it was the meeting up and getting out that was the best part. So that is why I know it wasn't taken on Easter because the last Easter Sunday I woke up beside my wife as before my youngest girl was born. Must have been 2005. Possibly not. Possibly 2006 but no later, definitely no later. But had it been in 2006 she would have been 9 months old and certainly not that here. Anyway, what the hell am I waffling on about? Its clear to me its taken in my living room so certainly wasn't Easter Sunday.
No. This is my sixth or seventh year alone at Easter. Not that it should matter. As it happened it also landed on my wife's birthday. And birthdays apart there are other events I spend alone like Christmas. So nothing new there. And rightly so to. Why should everyone else sit at home with me because I cannot go where they want to go? Why spoil it for everyone. So I am more than glad to be left behind like the old cat.
I don't usually think about it. This time though was different. This time I found myself dreaming of being there among them all with a smile on my face, a cup of wine in one hand, a soggy sandwich in the other and running about with the kids. And I saw myself with my new camera taking snaps. Lots of new things to make stills of. A joy in my heart. A longing. Yes I wanted to be there. Yes I missed it. No about missing out for the sake of missing out. To be honest I do well enough left to my own devices and find plenty to occupy myself with. But it was a craving to be somewhere else and around people rather than stuck at home for another year between these same 4 walls. A hunger to get well. A frustration at not knowing the best way to do it and an annoyance at my own impatience to stay the course for lack of perceived progress. An anger inside that someone cannot say to me what I need to do and an anger at myself for not after all these years being able to discover it for myself.
When I get like this I push myself out the door. Push myself throw the growing panic and growing fatigue. Past the point where I feel safe and into the point where I feel vulnerable. Then at some point the anger vanishes and I find myself naked and scared seemingly far from home. It is then the tormented journey starts of exhaustion and mental pain all the way home with my tail between my legs feeling I have failed once more. I know I need to "get it". That is all it is. "Getting it" is readily available. I've had it in my hands a few times but its a slipper bar of wet soap. It shoots out the hands leaving only is soap residue. In that moment its there the journey ahead looks clear and I tap right into that inner strength feeling bigger and stronger. But it vanishes all too soon. That is the constant futile inner turmoil of knowing it but not being able to keep hold of it.
Ah well. Such is life. People tell me I will get there so I can at least hold on to that no matter how long it takes. Lots of events missed but no need to salvage them as the best of those may be yet to come and if I can get there then it might even be worth it as I will probably appreciate them more than all the mindless folks around me.
For now I will just sit here happily thinking of times to come, better days, munching on my Cadbury's cream egg Easter egg in solitude.
