So on Monday I turned 38….. one year older than Trenton was when he died. He was always a year older than me….. and now he isn’t anymore. I didn’t quite know how I would feel this birthday… there have been a lot of changes since last year when I escaped Melbourne with the kids to spend it in far North QLD. Another year has passed. Another notch in the belt. I feel another 365 days further away from my husband…. and it’s a fucking tough gig. I often hear people whinging about their age, and now I find my fists clenched when I witness it. I was never one to “not” be proud of my age…. I actually never complained that I was getting older, because I liked getting older. In fact I didn’t like to be looked upon as being “young” as I saw this as being looked at as semi ignorant. But even I didn’t realise what a privilege it was to “get” older. How lucky we are to turn a new age each year, to share it with friends and family and reflect upon the year that was….. This year during my reflecting, I have found my flaming temper. I am pretty sure (and correct me if I’m wrong old friends….) but I think I have mostly had a decent old fuse in my life so far. I know I have been famous for calling it as I see it (which I agree isn’t always the right thing to do) but to the people that love me for who I am, it’s not been a major issue…. Possibly until now. This year after the two year anniversary of Trenton’s death, my fuse suddenly shortened. To almost nothing. And it took me a bit to realise it. Okay, so getting off a tablet that I’d been taking for seven years right at this particular point may have not been the wisest move, but I had a lot of reasons to try and live without them…… and I thought it worthy of a try. I still don’t regret that as I want to do it “al naturale…..” I hadn’t however taken into account that withdrawing from this tablet would turn me into a mega arsehole….. and that I’d end up even hating my own company after a bit. But once you are a few weeks in, there is no going back. So nearly eight weeks later I’m starting to regain the control I never really had to start with in my household. During that time however I did and said some unforgivable things….. hence the reason that I attached that quote above, and why it is so symbolic to me today. The words I used around the kids were by no means positive, the behaviour I presented them with was not positive, the response I was getting back to my not so cool words and behaviours was definitely not positive…… and the whole lot just almost became a dirty habit…… of which I will not allow it to become. It is easy to slip into shitty ways, but it takes a certain kind of strength to stop it from recurring. I am currently on the “change my crappy ways” bandwagon, and don’t plan to stop until I can breathe a sigh of relief. Monkey say, Monkey do. With my kids it’s almost instantaneous….. you show em’….. they’ll mimic it. I also approached a few people that I love dearly this year, with some home truths….. that they probably didn’t need to hear. But they did hear them anyway….. “the wrath of Emma.” At the time, I swear it almost always seems like a well thought out plan. Nope. Not. Well. Thought. Out. I have also had a few home truths exposed to me by people I adore, and it hurts like hell to be told something you know is true, but that you don’t want to be told! Ouch……. But you know what? I can look back on that, and even if I didn’t react in exactly the right way in the beginning…. I can honestly say that being told that you’re not being awesome is a good thing in the long run. I don’t want to be seen that way…. I want to be liked, and loved. Especially by my kids. So I will take that feedback, and I will bloody work hard to change it. You can always be a better person if you ask me. Always. So its onwards and upwards from here. It has to be….. I can’t keep living in this stagnant hole. Life is for living, and dammit, I want to live. Bring on Disneyland, cause if you can’t be happy in the happiest place on Earth….. well quite frankly I think you’re fucked!
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