Bring change

I have blogged before, using a different name and exploring ideas and themes that lit the idealistic rage within.   I used to connect it with Twitter even.  I thought I was stroking the thwarted journalist within - that self-same media junkie who bowed out of the post graduate programme because I was sick of having no bloody money.  (And then, to douse irony with cliche, went in to PR.)

But I stopped.  It was partly to do with the spooky attention I attracted from various members of the dairy cow conversion lobby (for and against).  And partly to do with my own desperate attempts to stand up for something or hide behind nothing, which, let's face it, a non de plume blog with two followers (one of whom is family) is not.

Truth be told, 'free-ranged' is much the same.  It turns out my blog evolution is microscopic in two very pertinent ways: I'm still hiding; I'm still lounging.

I began 'free-ranged' because I thought that if I spent my evenings on the laptop too, it would ease the resentment of watching him tap away night after night. It doesn't.  Anymore.

Also, my summer read was Backwards in High Heels.  I enjoyed the writing 'voice' so much I Googled the authors and discovered Tania Kindersley's blog, which I liked very much and very much wanted to emulate in a muddled sort of a way.

Of course, the blindingly obvious problem is, I'm not her.  I'm me.

I haven't got anything to say that excites me or anyone else.  I've forgotten half the vocabulary I once knew and used fluently.    And if I reveal the real me, this blog will be even more bleak and self-indulgent than it has become since February.

I don't really do anything, and I day-dream my way through the rest - mothering my children, keeping house.  I know mothering your children is important, I just happen to be one of those people who gets a bit lost in the process, especially when there is no respite, especially when how unlikeable you have become is etched into the faces of the people you live with.

I saw my mother almost daily since she was first diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour four years ago, until she died last month.  (She lived with us for nearly a year.)  She needed me and I wanted to be there for her, but sometimes I was just so freakin' tired; so over being needed for anything.  And now, of course, my time with her has ended, and even though I knew it wasn't forever, I didn't always do my best by her.

I need to be able to put that somewhere, to process it, but my three children are like newly hatched starlings bobbing in the nest.  They want, want, want what I can't seem to give.

It's a recurring theme.

Recently, a supportive friend said, "But you have your blog."  But if this is my value-based redemption, I am in  serious trouble.  This pish-pash of trying to be engaging and interesting, while channelling someone with an extremely dull life, is worse than a diary because I cannot bring myself to say all the truly awful things that need to be said, on record.

How's that for ducking and weaving?  How's that for obfuscation?

When I dream of respite, I dream of being alone, and very, very still.

At other times, I picture myself driving a ridiculously expensive car far, far away from here, way too fast and listening to something like this, really LOUD.