The Family Playlist.

I listen to The Guardian Family Podcast, and each week they get this person (almost always a Guardian Newspaper contributer) to talk about 3 songs that mean something to them about family. So I shall do that now.

1) Frank Sinatra - My Way.
My Dad used to play Frank all the time, since I can remember. It's his voice that is car journey's of my childhood and it makes me feel safe. My Dad can't sing at all but he always tries and gets all the notes wrong, but we're always word perfect. And Frank Sinatra is, like, the bomb. This song in particular is my favourite.

2) Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places.
Well, first off, this is probably the best song ever. And Garth Brooks can sing. This is also a song that reminds me of my mum and playing so loud in her car that the speakers broke. It's just one of those songs that makes me feel close to her because we just laugh all the time when we're singing it as loudly as possible, especially when we get to the low bit you can't really sing without testicles. She's passed on her love of country music to me and it kind of culminates in this song.

3) Gordon Haskell - Harry's Bar.
His album always used to be playing when my parents had dinner parties when I was a little girl. So I associate it with sitting on the top of the stairs looking through the bannisters at my slightly tipsy parents and their friends. It's a cliched memory but it's true. And his voice... you can tell he means what he's singing.

Why I Hate Being an Only Child.

Let's get this out of the way straight away: If you are not an only child then you will not understand.
End of. It's like, if you're a man you can't experiance anti-female sexism. If you're old you cannot experience anti-youth ageism. It's just not possible. And therefore, I can try as hard as I like to explain it to you, but you will never understand quite how it feels.
It feels really crap. Quite often it feels lonely. It leaves you as an insular child who is sometimes precocious (often described as being 'comfortable in the company of adults' by those parents who have only one child), difficult to form lasting relationships with and is hideously self-absorbed. I am 16 years old and I still feel entitled to everything because I always had everything. I had all my parents time and all my parents love and all my parents attention and I have had to learn the (very) hard way that I cannot have that from everybody else. In all fairness to me, I never had horriffic tantrums - that wasn't my style - but I was bloody used to getting my own way and if I didn't get it I would sulk. I still sulk today, any of my friends will tell you. And before someone points it out, I know not every only child is like this - but a fair few are.
Secondly, it can be really fucking lonely. Sometimes it hits me even today. Yesterday, my friend was telling a story about being introduced as their 'little sister' and yet again I have to acknowledge the fact that I will never have a sister, and nor will I ever be one. I will never know what it is like to grow up with someone and to share your nightmares and your holidays and your illnesses and your arguments with them. When my parents die they will not live on in anyone but me, and I will not be comforted at the graveside by anyone who knows exactly how I feel. I will never have any relationship more than a friend or a lover. I will never be bonded to anyone by blood and DNA. I am cursed to have an absense, eternally.
I struggle with forming deep friendships. I struggled with other children. I still do feel more comfortable with adults, which makes me uncomfortable among large groups of my peers.
Again, I am an extreme case. I feel that I have actually greived the loss of flesh and blood in my time. I have cried myself to sleep over it and it will be a wedge between my parents and I - because yet again they are more people who don't understand. Although, the benifits include the fact that we have a very close relationship.
And, if I hadn't been born an only, I may not have been a writer at all. My 'let's pretend' games where I created alternate families where I had older brothers and younger sisters and pets grew into stories, laboriously recorded in little notebooks that I still have somewhere. I got used to my own company - a benifit and a drawback - and I have grown to be able to detatch myself from emotions when necessary. Clearly there are the benifits, including my parents complete and total love, which I will be ever-grateful for. But, I still wouldn't choose it.

[This is poorly written, but I am sad and I am not at my best.]

I Love My Mum.

Happy Mothers Day!

I haven't posted in so long, I'm sorry. I have a lot of things going on right now and I wish I could post more but I feel consistently knackered.

Anyway, my Mum.

She's great. She cooks the best food, she loves me to bits and pieces, even when I get annoyed with her I know she only wants the best for me. We argue a lot too. A LOT. She also knows when to give me a really big hug. I just love her.

Mitchell the Vampire I Fancy The Pants Off You.

What comes next has nothing to do with the delectable Mitchell/Aidan Turner. I feel it is important to declare my longing for him though. :)

I found this on Facebook and I rather liked it.
10 things you wish you could say to 10 different people right now:
1) I really quite fancy you, and I'd quite like you to reciprocate that.
2) I know it's not your fault he likes you and not me, and I'm sorry that when I see you I can't help but think 'BITCH' in my head.
3) I really want to be here for you now. And I think you're doing a lot better. And you're still one of my very faveourite people.
4) Blow your nose, please.
5) If I had to pick, you'd probably be my very faveourite. Thankyou for being so wondeful to me. I'm sorry I was horrible when we were 13. I don't know if I'll ever properly forgive myself.
6) I'm ever so sorry that I couldn't be there for you when I should have been.
7) I love you very much, but sometimes I have no idea how we can be related.
8) Sometimes I get scared you're slipping away from me, but then you hug me and I know that you're not. You give the best hugs.
9) You're not as pretty as you think you are.
10) I'm sorry I havn't spoken to you since you were diagnosed. I just don't know what to say to you. I'm really, really scared that by the time I grow up enough to phone, it will be too late.

In any other world, You could tell the difference.

I suspect that this has been one of those weeks where I'll look back and think: "Yep, that was a decider."

It has been a tough week. Most nights I've been too exhausted to cry myself to sleep, even though that's what I've wanted too do.

School is hard. And I was really, really considering quitting and going for this job at my Dad's old company. £13,000 a year and my Mum said she'd get me a flat if I took it. Tempting. Horribly, horribly, tempting...

So yesterday I had totally hit this brick wall, and I just thought: "I cannot do this for two years." this being homework, being living for the weekends and merely suviving Monday thru Thursday, being tired all the time. Then, I reconsidered.

I am not a quitter. I really am not. I don't have a history of giving things up because they're too hard. It's not how I was raised. It doesn't conform with my "What Would [insert current faevourite book character here] Do?" way of thinking.

So I'm not gonna quit because I have a bit too much work.

Then, I had bad news about a family member. That knocked me for six, and I'm not hugely ready to deal with it all yet.

But, on the upside, I'm going to Russia. Real Russia. The Russia of my imaginings. The Russia of my childhood dreams. In March, with my school.

So.

Stress, sadness and joy. It has been a tiring week.