In November I got muggle sick, that means I had what appeared to be Slapped Cheek Virus which is a regular non-chronic illness, my body is so busy fighting to keep functioning that there isn't a reserve tank of energy for fighting off bugs so it always hits me pretty hard. Anyway, I'm still sick with this virus in late January, I've tried all the elixirs and potions you can think of but it's still here.
At the end of November I flew to America to stay with friends for two and half weeks, while there I got even sicker which made the flight back horrendously painful for my poor blocked ears and bloody nose.
My husband was flown home from his Royal Navy deployment in the Falkland Islands the day after I landed back in the UK due to a back injury.
I spent the next two or three weeks trying to recover from my trip, care for him and keep the regular day to day chores at bay. I don't think I did a great job on any of those actually.
We took a trip to the North to visit family the next weekend, then a week later we rushed up both again after my grandmother-in-law was taken to hospital. It's a good 4-6 hour drive each way, the second weekend we spent 4 nights on a sofa. During both of those trips we ate mostly junk food because that was all that was available to us, I felt terrible.
Then came Christmas, which even though the day itself was wonderful is always a stressful time of year. We spent the holidays in our own home, just the two of us and a lot of Star Wars Lego.
Two days before Christmas I decided to open a business, great timing I know, that I'd wanted to bring to life for so long and I'm pleased to report is doing okay so far, I'll leave a link at the bottom for shameless self promotion. Opening a business, even a small hobby business in your spare bedroom is stressful and time consuming to say the least.
2017 started with me branching out via friends with editing work for historic/language/geographic fact checking and continuity, which is something I really enjoy doing but, had always been a favour to friends before.
Today my husband started the year long process of leaving the Royal Navy, it's been a long time coming and we'd been holding off for the opportunity to live abroad. When that opportunity was retracted we decided now was the time, it's been over 7 years when he leaves and in that time we've never spent more than 9 or 10 weeks together in one go. That's our whole relationship, we don't know what life will be like on the other side but we'll soon find out.
Oh, and it's winter so of course my body is flaring left, right and centre. And of course there's the usual modern stresses, politics, marriage, household chores...
What I'm trying to say is that I've dropped the ball on so many things since early November that I can't even count them all. And I truly and so very sorry if any of them hurt you when they fell, I have made promises to try harder a thousand times over these past months but it's time to admit that I simply don't have enough hands to keep juggling them all.
I've lost contact with friends that I hope I can regain, I don't even speak to my sister as much as I used to. I miss our daily phone calls and FaceTimes in which we made our dogs talk to each other while we set the world to rights.
I started a project last year to create a community centred on a daily scripture verse that reminded us to be fearless and brave, I made it 55 days before I dropped that ball. I loved, and still love that project but I've come to realise that I'm not the best person right now to keep it alive. I'm hoping somebody else can create my vision because I really think the world needs it right now.
Booktube and Bookstagram were communities and hobbies I loved being a part of that have fallen to the wayside too, these I hope to pick back up on a smaller scale. Even this blog has suffered.
I'm the Young Women's secretary in my ward, that means it's my job to organise the leaders and teen girls in my church, and I've let my duties drift too. My president, the boss, will vehemently say I haven't but it's obvious I have. I haven't even put a new calendar up yet and I don't think I've sent out the monthly newsletter since October. All I can do there is apologise, pray that you can forgive me and start over. Unfortunately that's not the only church related thing to suffer from my poor juggling, I missed basically all of my Temple prep classes so I can't fulfil the big plans everyone had for me, including my own, to enter the temple as soon as my year anniversary passed. It's still my dream, but it will take more time. Between travel and illness I've missed a lot of services too, I haven't taught for a long time and I'm behind on my visiting teaching assignments already. These balls are high on my list to pick back up.
I've been a pretty lousy wife too I reckon, my husband doesn't read this btw, I know it isn't my job to be Mrs.Domestic Goddess but I've still let my responsibilities in the house slide more than I should. I'm making headway with this one, less easy cook junk food and more easy cook real food. One day I might even win the ongoing battle of the laundry basket, how do two people have so many clothes? I'm considering trying the 333 challenge in an attempt to slay the dragon, the idea is to choose 33 items of clothing only for 3 months, after that you decide wether to keep your other clothes or get rid.
With my husband leaving the Navy we also lose our flat as we live in military housing, that means we need to find somewhere to live once the time draws near and to stay here, where we both have built a great network, will mean that I have to find work that won't set me back medically as living here is fairly expensive. He'll also need to find training courses and then eventually a new job while adjusting to life on civvy street. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Like I said earlier, the list goes on forever and I've probably forgotten more than one ball along the way. I'm not going to make empty promises to wake up tomorrow with everything perfectly balanced, that's simply not going to happen. I'm a perfectionist, I'm brutally hard on myself and I can't cope with failure so trust me, if I'm admitting defeat then there truly is no hope.
What I will do is apologise again and again to the people who I've hurt along the way these past few months and hope that we can repair any damage I caused.
No comments:
Post a Comment