You may, or may not have noticed that I haven't done a long entry for a while. That is for various reasons. 1. I don't have time to sit for an hour and tap away, sharing nonsense. 2. I don't read all of the long entries YOU do, so why should you read mine? 3. It has been a long time since I have been able to do a ramble elsewhere - I am out of practice.

I apologise in advance for the length of this one. S'my blog. And I didn't get much sleep last night.

Last week I sacrificed a precious work day to take Nanna (we all call her Nanna - it's easier that way!) to the hospital for radiotherapy. She has to go five times a week for either five or seven weeks - I can't remember. The check up itself took less than 20 minutes but as is the way of these things, it took a full day away from normal life to go and collect her, drive to the hospital, find a parking space, wait in the um waiting area and then do every thing in reverse when she was finished. Papa is doing his best to take her every day but he had his own hospital appointment that day and we didn't think it was fair to make him drive the double journey.

It wasn't an unpleasant experience to be honest. We get along very well usually and had plenty to talk about in the car and I had a magazine (Mac Format - of COURSE :P ) for when she wasn't beside me. For the most part I itched to take photos of the architecture and the (impressive) art work but felt it wasn't quite the right thing to do in the circumstances!

We have had it very easy with her "illness". Iain and I weren't involved with the earth-shattering-breaking-of-the-news like, maybe, Lesley was. By the time we were told about the cancer Nanna and Papa had dealt with it fairly well. Everyone was always very positive about it and although it shook us for a while it was easy to be up-beat about it. We kept saying phrases to reassure ourselves like "this is the best kind of cancer to have" and "very high success rate." There was never really any doubt in my mind that she was ever going to die because of this. Either that was because it was true or she was very good at putting a spin on things - who will ever know?

Back in the waiting room, it was filled with people with very much the same kind of get on with life attitude as us. There were granny's (I am indicating their age here - not that they had grand children around them), there were mummys (who DID have children with them, there were women and men. Thankfully I didn't get the impression there were any young people waiting - perhaps they have their own *day* or maybe even a completely different hospital.

There were partners waiting while their partner was in at the machines. There were whole families waiting for one member to be called. There were single people with no support, waiting on their own.

There were magazine readers, book readers, crossword puzzlers, into-space-starers and one very fine crocheter with the most gorgeous lacy baby shawl which was drawing a lot of admiration from the non-crocheters in the audience and much respect from the crocheters.

There was chat and animation. No one seemed upset. I suppose after five days a week for a couple of weeks, you tend to get used to the routine. Bearing in mind there are eight machines running side by side in this hospital, there were lots of people waiting. I was kind of glad at the atmosphere. Like, who wants to be around sick and moping people? The whole thing gave me a general wash-over of acceptance of cancer. There was no one wailing at their mis-fortune - so it can't be all bad huh? Perhaps they can work miracles in this place?

Part of the procedure is the person receiving the radiotherapy has to drink lots of water. There are water machines available but most people had their plastic bottles to sip from. Of course this means there has to be lots of toilets available and as we were leaving Nanna nipped in to a much smaller waiting room and used the single toilet there. As I waited I phoned Iain to let him know how she had been getting on and to inquire after his own surgery, he had been to have two teeth removed and was back at work complete with stitches and mouthfuls of blood.

We talked for the duration of the pee and I looked around the much smaller room with only three couples in it. The closest to me, with their backs to the reception area were a couple in their early 40s. They were sitting side by side holding hands between them in white-knuckle fashion. The lady was crying silent tears, tripping down her cheeks. The man was ashen faced. They stared ahead meeting no one else's gaze. I was able to observe them for a moment or two because they weren't aware of me - I was outside of their ken.

As I finished the call and sat down to wait for Nanna, the guy turned to his partner, clutched her hand even more tightly and said out loud "I love you." She didn't look up. She nodded twice and more tears fell.

All in all it was a dramatic thirty or so seconds for me. People WEREN'T coping. I had just been in the wrong waiting room.

This WAS a blog in itself. It was all written in my head ready on Wednesday night. But it never got typed out. Then a couple of things happened - one of them was someone else's blog. I have no idea what her name is but I know all about her life. I know her two boys' names, where she lives, what her job is, all about her landlords, her recent trip to London. She doesn't know I read her (in a "she doesn't know I exist" way), I can't remember where I picked her blog up. Sometimes it is riveting sometimes it is thought provoking. Sometimes it is as boring as my own life.

Last week she wrote about saying "I love you." She had done a little Google research about how many times people say this to each other. Some said 15 times per day. Some said they hadn't said it enough and now it was too late. She wondered if saying it too much diluted the real meaning.

She got me to thinking about how much I say it. Not as much as I ought to. Not as much as I would like to. Does it take a personal disaster to force you into saying it? What is it in us that makes it difficult to say this to another person? Who defines who you are ALLOWED to say it to? Why is it sociably unacceptable to say it to some people in your life? Why do we hide behind euphemisms and symbolism instead of saying outright? We refer to it in passing but don't tend to say it straight. Why can't we just say three words in a row without having to dress them down to something we think the other person can handle. Why do we *heart* people instead of *loving* them?

I find people unable to accept me saying it to them without making them think I need it said in return. I don't. I am just telling you how I feel. That isn't a prompt for you to tell me how YOU feel. I am not pushing you in to feeling the same way I do. It isn't necessarily an equal thing anyway - who says it has to be? Who cares if I love you more than you love me - WHO has the right to judge how much is 'too much"?

I probably already know you love me. If I needed you to tell me I would have asked for you to tell me it first. Sometimes I will do that. I am more than happy to say it to you and not hear it in return - in fact - I don't really believe it as much if you do reply quickly with it. When you say it, I am not looking for a response I am looking for a declaration.

I so totally understood it when Ryan said "Thank you" to Marissa's "I love you." That made total sense to me.

I see that it is difficult for people to hear. I see that it makes them uncomfortable. People just don't know how to accept love from someone else. Who says you have to be in the very close family structure for someone else to love you?

Personally, I do feel uncomfortable when it is said too much - I do feel too much dilutes it - but in the same vein as above - who am I to say how much is too much?

Getting back to family. I found to my great shock that it is AGES since I told my children I love them. When David was a baby I used to whisper it in his ear while he was sleeping for fear he (or anyone else) would hear me and think I was nuts. When he was a toddler he used to run into the room and throw his arms around me with such passion you knew I was the only person in his world he would ever love to that extreme, except Daddy. And Nanna. And Papa. Oh hell he loved everyone. He was such a lovey dovey child. He was an adorable child and we were incredibly close.

Jessica wasn't quite the same child. She didn't require the same from me. I think we kinda got out of the way of saying it to each other. A couple of weeks ago I broke the accidental radio silence on the subject with her and dealt her MY euphemism.

"I DO love you, you know."

She looked at me with that Jessica look. The one that you just know she has smelled bullshit and is going to call you on it.

"What? You mean you LOVE ME? Why don't you just say you love me?"

I considered it a second and returned with "I love you." It was actually suddenly very hard to say.

She nodded and said "Yea yea yea' and walked off on me - left standing there, feeling naked (and in the middle of a bad Beatles' video).

I am always aware and concerned that my blog portrays me in a bad light as a mother. Oh god - that is a whole other blog in itself - where would that one lead to? Perhaps I am a bad mother in your eyes. It doesn't matter what you think - I fiercely love my children.

I love the way David is so clever and Jessica so wise and straight to the point with things. I love that David has a normal boyish sense of humour and that Jessica is funny in a much more surprising way. I actually love the fact that they have the intelligence to wind me up. I love that they are getting older and more independent and able to form good friendships. I love that Jessica ALWAYS wants to hold my hand and love the feel of her folding my fingers round her hand more securely when I let the grip go a little. I love that David chooses when he wants to hold my hand - it is less acceptable to him now to be seen holding his mummy's hand. I love the look of them both when I go in to their rooms at night to make sure they are still breathing and see thumbs hanging out of mouths and bums in the air or books still in the grasp of a couple of fingers or music blaring out of earphones dangling from the side of the bed or Jessica having slipped on her bathing costume to sleep in. I never said I didn't have strange children.

That same girl wrote a while back that she considers herself to be a bad mother - she wasn't looking for validation - she was stating a fact. I don't think I am a particularly good mother - when I was a child ALL I wanted to do was grow up, get married and have children. But it is like looking at a rock star and wishing you had their
life - there are things they would say they don't like even though, in your eyes, they have the dream you always wanted. It is hard work being a mother. A lot harder than I ever imagined. I am not able to cope with some of it. I see myself very similar to my own mother more and more every day and if you have bothered reading this far you are probably aware of how THAT whole merry-go-round turned out and how scary that is for me to recognise.

I am not able to cope with the constant constant constant pushing of my limits. David is very hard work. What am I supposed to do - I can't smack him - for more than one reason. He is almost as tall as me - thankfully he will never be as heavy but even so, it is a long time since I was able to physically lift him up and remove him from the situation like you are told to. He knows which buttons to push to wind me up and does so with such relish. Both of my children have pointed out to me within recent weeks that they enjoy winding me up. Jessica went as far as to say it is her job. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I am getting back what I sowed. But I can't cope with it.

I have found the better parent in this relationship by far is Iain. He demands more respect than I ever received and gets it. The children do NOT play him up the way they do me. Is it not better to let him take over the role that I should have had. It is common knowledge that the children do not play me up as much when they are glad to see me. If I take myself off to do things on my own - they appreciate me more when I am with them. Is it not better to learn from my mother's mistakes, know when to accept defeat, keep the family together by changing roles and "living to fight another day" rather than everything going badly wrong?

That is my take on it. Hands up if you think I am a bad mother.

I'm still here - am I not?

Remember the poem about the swimmer? "He's not waving but drowning."

"She's not a bad mother, she's just doing her best."

And by the way - if you read THIS far - I am probably fairly fond of you. Technically.