darkness makes me fumble

I made the mistake of watching some of Eat, Pray, Love yesterday.  Oh, groan, gag, die, gag some more.  Die again.

Yup, I'm limping through half-term.  I've invested far too much money on one of those blue-light thingies, but I've only used it for a few days so it's hard to say if it's having any effect.  For the last four years, October-December has been really rough for me, and when I look at it objectively I can see no reason why this should be so apart from the season itself.  So in addition to exercising religiously I'm (skeptically) trying the light.  (It's not that I'm skeptical that SAD exists, it's just that I don't want to hope too much that this particular solution will work for me personally, if that makes sense.)

School holidays are always odd.  During term-time I'm writing and studying, and I store up all my Tthings What Need Doing for the school holidays.  So I have this big list of really uninteresting chores and errands, and I work through it, but it's all so dutiful and boring that I end up flaking off a lot, yet not in any way that is actually fun.  Then I feel guilty because I know the other mums are out there 'doing things' with their kids and having fun.  I've been thinking about the 'fun' issue since I had so much of it on Saturday.  Why is fun so bloody hard for me these days?

One reason is that a lot of what passes for fun with kids is actually organized in advance, and the person who would have to do that would be...me!  Which kind of kills the fun.  But I seem to have lost my spark for spontaneous fun, too.  I am out of work and I hate it.  I am a student with a long way to go before being employable.  For years I haven't been able to think about anything but digging my way out from under all that, and it makes the inside of my head a harsh place sometimes.  We're very lucky that Steve is so recourceful, but work is something he constantly chases.  Sometimes I feel like the stable life I'm attempting to provide for my kids is just an elaborate illusion.  I don't want them to know how shaky things really are--or how shaky I really am--but inevitably I can't maintain any sort of composure for long.

The interesting thing is that, for us, the hard times have gone on for a fair ten years.  I thought it would be getting better by now, but enter the recession(s) and the publishing crunch, and it's not.  I know this is awful, but sometimes I feel a sense of relief that my family is not alone in struggling.  I used to feel shame; now I feel lucky for what we do have going.  I grew up in an absurdly overpriviledged, entitled environment that made me weak in many ways, so that in my forties I'm still learning life skills that would be considered very basic in times and places other than suburban late-20th-century New Jersey--and I haven't managed to pick up on most of the new tech culture, either.  So I feel like a wanker from both ends!  Not to mention the whining.

I try to tell myself I'm showing my kids how to survive as an artist-type, if not gracefully, then with sanity and purpose intact.  Of course, I have no idea how to do that!  I have never seen it done.  Growing up in my family, everything was stable to a ludicrous degree.  The world seemed fixed and the renegade energy in it was me.  Now I'm creating a home environment for my kids that is much messier.  They are watching me stumble, fall, fail, and fuck up in my work on almost a daily basis.  I've no idea what they are taking from this.  A certain doggedness, I guess, but I wish I could show them what success looks like. 

Whatever is inside humans that makes us soar, that makes us play, that makes us bubble over with ideas and aspirations--my kids have that and I don't want them to lose touch with it.  Ever.  I feel I am perilously close to being cut off from mine, though.  If only for their sake, I want that connection back.  Imagination and hope are not only for the young.

It is clear I'm never going to be able to create the kind of sensible, solid household for my kids that some part of me thinks is necessary.  So I'm looking for the upside in the way we are living.  And you know what?  That takes a truckload of creativity.  The materialism thing has me in its teeth, bigtime.

Screw you, materialism thing!  Twenty lashes with this USB cable!