I cannot remember a year go so quickly as this one has so far. Its difficult for me to get my head around the fact we are into June. The schools finish up next week and the long summer begins. There are things on the horizon keeping me from looking too far forward into the year. Lots of positives but never all positive. Its not supposed to be easy I suppose and when its all passed I will be stronger for it, I am told.
I look at my kids and wonder where the time has gone. This is a product I am sure of getting to the school more now. For many years none of this was part of my life. For years my wife took the kids to school, picked them up and done all the things in between- the shows, parents night and all the rest. Now I am there to an extent and part of it and I see how much I have missed. Now I am taking the kids to school every day and going with my wife to pick them up and inbetween I am doing things.
Friday was something else at the school. Two hours in fact for the summer fete. I have to be honest and say I had no intention of staying that long because I felt shattered. I am though getting ahead of myself. It turned out to be quite a normal day. I like those. Maybe not so much at the time but afterwards I feel a little sense of achievement. Last week had been a long week and on Monday I felt shattered- expected it. Tuesday was my oldest daughter 12th birthday and on Thursday my wife and I decided to do something a little different.
Rather than walk to the school to pick up the kids we took the car to the David Livingstone centre and spent about half an hour there in the sun. We then walked from there to the school and picked up the kids and then walked them back to the centre again. Along the way see stopped at a shop and my wife bought them ice creams. Then when we returned there the kids had an hour or so to run about mad. They loved it. It sounds simple but the norm is to come home and that is us indoors even in hot weather. We don't have much of a garden, have no fence and its a bit of a thoroughfare so there is nothing appealing about it. But here the kids had a free run and did not have to worry about cars. It was so relaxing. And certainly something we will do agian.
It meant though yesterday I felt really tired and so tired in fact that althogh I took the kids to school I made it as short as possible. Of late I have been doing a 2 mile route through woodland but all I wanted to do was get it over with and get home. My wife had run me a bath before she left for work. I should point out that is not laziness on my part. Some time ago the hot tap on our bath stopped working. We got new ones but it proved impossible to fit. My wife has refused to pay for a plumber and somehow manages to get it to work and is the only one able to do so. That is why. So when I came home I had a long soak and then unusually for me I slept for half an hour on the couch. It may have been the wisest thing I have done of late.
So later as always a walk up to the school to get the kids with my wife, shopping and then finally home and as its Friday there is no homework. This was the day of the school fete but school finished at 15:00 and that is not until 18:00 so 3 hours to kill. I had never been to one before and usually would spend all that time mentally preparing for it but instead I took the youngest two down the park. The day before at the David Livingston centre my wife wife had bought frisbee and they had nowhere to throw it in that limbo time of boredom so I took them down there. How things changed. There was a time I could not even go near the park. There was one time my wife took a photo of my halfway down the park as proof I had been there and as soon as it was taken I scampered home while she stayed with our son in the play park. This was me though taking the kids out on my own and letting them play rather than the usual of letting them outside the door or over the road in a car park. Changed days.
But tiring. So bloody fatigued. It is not one thing. Its an accumulation of things. Last week was a long mentally tiring week and this week has gone the same way. In fact every week now is going the same way because it needs to. I have found cofidence to push on and stay out and while I have it I want to make the most of it. And the fatigue is something that I am not entirely sure of. Sometimes its so heavy that I get agitated to the point of panic and then shortly after I have a second wind from nowhere. Is it a state of mind? I really don't now but it feels real at least. The days though when I would use that as an excuse for not going out are by me now. It is imperative now more than ever to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone which is anywhere I feel uncomfortable going.
Because the fatigue was so heavy though I was having second thoughts about the school fete. The thought of walking up to the school for a third time, staying there for a period and then walking home was unappealing. At the same time I felt the need to go. Thankfully my wife agreed to drive and although I was happy at that I did not know just how happy I would be given what was to follow shortly after. It did not take long for panic to strike. We arrived about 5 minutes early and joined a queue which was just inside the front door of school 20 minutes later I was still standing there with the same people in front of my and about 40 or so new people behind me. Trapped. Panic was certain and I had to accept that. There was no way I was not going to panic just like last week trying to get out the church. It was important I stayed with it and I did but I also have to say it did not ease and I don't know how much more I could have taken. It only came down when finally we were allowed in and things started moving.
It took about 20 minutes to go around everything and once I had I was bored to be honest. There was still 90 minute to run. I just couldn't see it. I told my wife and she said I would be as well going. And so that was what I was going to do until I realised how selfish that was. Whenever I have been driven away from anywhere in the past it has been because of panic. I had got through the panic and now was allowing boredom to drive me home. More importantly though I was leaving my wife to look after the kids and she was no less bored than me. So I stayed. And once I accepted that I was a little less bored. Somehow the timed passed and the raffles were drawn and finally we were on our way home.
Something else to tick off the list and just in time given my oldest has less that two weeks of primary school left. Time has just disappeared too fast. I feel like I am jumping on a moving roundabout and trying to adjust to the pace. Slowly though I am. I think after the summer holidays are over I will either be over the finish line or never getting there. Its not that I am putting a time limit on it but so many things are now coming to a head that I have put off for so long and now cannot avoid. Its not something I am looking forward to but these are things I can no longer hide from.
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