Ten Things of Thankful #82

Sometimes the house is empty, and usually I decide that’s a great time to get some blogging done (translated: play on Facebook and chat with friends, and write nothing at all). Last night the house was empty and I tried to play, but Bad Things were zipping around and finding their way under my skin like poison arrows. I slogged on. Then like the proverbial can, which you open and the worms go everywhere, I allowed myself the indulgence of peeking under the lid.

Never. Open. The lid.

The worms flew out – gigantic, monstrous, with eyes of burning fire and teeth like daggers. They wrapped themselves around me, biting their way through my mind and crawling into my eyes until all I could see was their writhing awfulness. They kept going until they’d riddled my spirit with their poison.

I hurt.

I despaired.

I ugly-cried.

I sat alone in my flat and fell completely to pieces. Fortunately I had a very dear friend at hand (in my phone), who was going through a lot of the same Feels for a lot of the same reasons. We talked and cried together and somehow got ourselves to a place where the world was marginally less awful and we were both a tiny bit more able to cope with life (9′).

I hung laundry. I trudged on. And then I wrote (watch this space) and got all of it out of me and into something which I HOPE will be important. It felt important. And I’m so thankful that I have the capability to take the depth and expanse of my feelings, and put them into words (13), which will hopefully resonate with others and create connections, thereby redeeming (a tiny bit) the Awful, which inspired the writing in the first place.

It has been a week of ups and downs; hard bits and awful bits and wonderful bits and a few, shining bits of beautiful. Because this is the TToT, I’m going to do my utmost to focus on the bright and shiny side, rather than the tough stuff, but the week has truly been a mixture.

At an undisclosed location, elsewhere in the world, a glitterbomb arrived from me, bringing excitement and happiness (and you KNOW I’m all about that, whenever possible) and it delighted me to the core to see it work its magic (20). The level of *twinklysparklygoodness* was raised by the inclusion of a beautiful print of some jellyfish girls by my friend and artist TJ Lubrano, whose whimsical, wonderful pictures show just how much beauty can be created when someone pours their imagination through a paintbrush. I was so excited when I won TJ’s Inktober giveaway, and I decided on the spot that my Squishy and I would have a set of the jellies, just for fun.

I had my mind BLOWN at the beginning of the week (8), by an incredible piece of spoken word poetry by Samara. I’d never before liked spoken word, as the pieces which I’d come across all seemed to be very desperate, incredibly earnest, and projected in an insistent, constrictive tone, which left me feeling unable to breathe properly. Samara’s piece was the absolute opposite. It told an amazing story, it made me giggle, it made me outraged, it made me draw my breath in shock…it made me fall a little bit in love with her voice, and wish I could crawl through the internet and lick her brain. It. Is. Incredible. And if you want to hear it (so you know just how very, very good it is, feel free to do that right now).

Of course, in the way that good poetry often does, it inspired some to fall into (and then out of) my mind, and I wrote. Then, tentatively, very anxiously, I had a go at reading it out loud. And all both people I read it to, LOVED it (which was very sweet and encouraging of them (1)) and I have promised that at least ONE of the pieces will be shared very soon. Which is exciting and also terrifying.

At pilates, I made my teacher laugh (14) when, halfway through an exercise in which she instructed us to ‘find our inner dancer’, I muttered (just loud enough to be heard, and in suitably surly tones) “My inner dancer is a brick. With Tourette’s”. She decided she wants a meme made of precisely that (still working on it!) and is going to share it wherever she can. The following also happened:

Husby and I got to play host to a wonderful friend of ours last weekend, and this friend and I are both fans of Youtube cooking channels. We decided we’d have a go at making a Nutella star brioche (which I ruined, I think by using yeast which was a bit old) and it was great fun, we giggled a lot, and the end result looked (and tasted) INCREDIBLE (11). If you are what you eat, then I’m lemon-zested, Nutella-layered, sugar-coated AWESOME! (recipe courtesy of The Bread Kitchen).

There were late night chats and big thinks and a lot of fun. Then in the week, a pizza, cake and games evening for another good friend, whose birthday it was, heralded another night of laughter and giggling and being silly, which is always good (6). And there was a lot of ‘delicious’ about the whole shebang.

Not that I’d ever brag about having hit the jackpot, hardwired-friends-wise, but really and truly, if you are ever fortunate enough to snag yourself a BlogWife, I can only hope that she’s half as wonderful as mine (21). If she is, you’ll be absolutely flying. I’m learning that this is a friendship which seems to be getting better with time, and from something which started off a bit giggly and silly and one of those spur-of-the-moment Writer-things, a genuine bond has developed, and within that, incredible levels of (mutual) support, encouragement and helpfulness, particularly with regard to writing blogging coping with life everything.

Last but by very no means least, I have to list cuddles from Husby when I’ve been feeling down, and that he’s been cooking the dinner (in the kitchen he cleaned today) as I’ve written this, allowing me to make the deadline. He also chopped his thumb, poor chap, but he soldiered on, and we’re going to have a delicious veggie curry soon-soon. All that’s left for me to do is make some spicy flatbreads to accompany it. Now THAT’S what I call a great end to the (difficult bit of the) week (12).

LONG LIVE THE WEEKEND!

LONG LIVE THE TToT!

(and some kind of prize for whomsoever figures out my listing method)
IT HAS BEEN FIGURED! Romi got it 😀 (she also realised that I’d mixed up my letters! Annnnyway (edits it better)) WELL DONE ROMI! I gave each letter of the alphabet a value corresponding to its position IN the alphabet (a=1, b=2 etc) and then wrote I’M THANKFUL with the numbers. BOOM! Romi gets a MASSIVE shout-out here for figuring it out. Go over and see her Ten Things and congratulate her for being so awesome.

 

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