Post holiday blues

Coming home is hard. I like it. And I loathe it.

I like it, because now I am not surrounded by other people's stuff. I am surrounded by my own stuff. I can walk about naked, scatter papers, pile up books into interesting skyscraper designs, and I can leave stuff on the arms of the sofa pretending I will clear it up later. I can make a mess, and I get to sit in it.

But I loathe coming home because there is everymess everywhere, and 90% of it is not mine.

And I really hate what happens when I put something down. Like a colander. When I go back looking for the colander, it is in the garden holding up a ton of soil and six plastic dinosaurs having a fight. That, I really hate.

Then there is all the other stuff I come back to, and I hate.

I hate being responsible. The home ed thing. Dates and times and meets and events. Who is going where? Who is doing what? What did I book? Where is the diary? Day after day after week after month. School is a great idea.

I hate the pointless boring work I do, even when I only do an hour a week. Typesetting for a client who never pays on time. Cleaning up for authors who write like shit. I wish I could be paid for doing stuff I like. Walking in fields. Reading history books. Drinking beer. Eating. Talking to the kids about life and art and storybooks and battlefields of Plantagenet England. Maybe I could earn money that way. I could write a book about home ed. Only no-one would want to buy the bastard. And everyone else does the home ed thing better than me. They display smiling, engaged, knowledgeable, bright kids, delighted to discover a new mathematical formula that explains the orbit of Planet Jupiter. I drag home three urban terrorists. With scars.

I hate being easily distracted. I wish I could stay on a project and complete it. I never accomplish anything.

I hate housework. It is pointless, futile, boring, never ending and why does no-one ever clear the laundry pile except me? I tried leaving it, to see what would happen. You can guess. We would rather wrap ourselves in duct tape and cereal boxes than take the pragmatic approach to switching on the Hotpoint.

I hate how time disappears. I hate that it feels like midday then I realise it is 5pm. I wish I could be in control of time. I would put extra hours everywhere. In the cupboards. Behind the sofa. There'd always be extra hours when I needed them.

I hate ill health. I hate thinking up several ways in which Dig is going to die. Then some more ways in which I am going to die. Slowly.

I hate dealing with money and remembering that I forgot to deal with money before we went away.

I hate bad news. Murderdeathkillfaminewar news. Why can't everyone just be nice.

I hate how the mailbox fills with 125 different messages that I have won a zillion pounds. I really hate that because it is a cruel miserly mean-spirited trick. If I had a zillion pounds I would hire someone to do the laundry.

I hate not having a husband. I really hate that. More than anything. My insides are filled with green bitter bile and snarling anguish and pain and loss and emptiness and misery. I just look like I'm laughing.