Miracles Happen: I Survived Christmas-ho ho f***ing ho!

Ho ho f***ing ho indeed. Every Christmas is about as enjoyable as having root canal without any anesthetic. Am I being a grinch? No. It was just at Christmastime a few years ago that I decided to bail out of a miserable marriage-and marriage was a war zone, so I kept wishing I had sprinted for the exit years before. But I decided not to ruin his Christmas, and wait until the second of January to tell him it was over. Silly me-I didn't ruin his Christmas, but I did ruin mine, because I knew what was coming. And it wasn't Santa Claus.

Now every Christmas all the memories come flooding back. I've heard so many people say that I should just learn to let go of the past and live in the present. When I turn around and ask how they've managed to do that-and  they're so smug about it, too!- not a single person has given me a satisfactory answer. In fact, everyone has shrugged their shoulders and changed the subject. Maybe the answer is amnesia?

So I kept my head down this year-again-and did the Christmas card thing, and called everyone at home to wish everyone a good Christmas; my phone bill in January will probably give me enough palpitations to last until next Christmas...

I remember Christmases when I was a child, back in the Jurassic period. My house was filled with fights and cold silences-mostly fights, and, being the youngest (and smallest) I was the one who got the benefit of parental rage. I learned the hard way how to duck fast, and, when the situation arose (which was all the time), when to run and hide. Oh joy. And when I went to my friend's house for Christmas dinner one year, I discovered that not all families are the ones who put the capital "D" in dysfunction. I also learned that most families have an uncle like my friend's Uncle John: a drinker and a groper. The more he drank, the more people he groped. One year I was there and he groped his own daughter-and his wife, who was about the size of an airship, turned around and flattened him. All the kids cheered. The poor man could be seen for weeks afterwards with an eyepatch and dark glasses. What a world class shiner that was! She could have been a champion boxer.

The next Christmas, Uncle John had been to AA for some months; he was under threat of losing his family, so he decided to get help with his drinking problems. But he fell off the wagon during the year and tried to grope his dog, who promptly turned around and bit him. So he showed up for Christmas with a bandaged hand, having had seven stitches. That was one really pissed off dog. All the kids used to call Uncle John "Long John"-and we all bought him a stuffed parrot and another eye patch for Christmas. All he needed was a wooden leg. We didn't go that far, but we were tempted.

So now we are at the end of 2018, and I am so happy that I would be dancing-only my dancing days are over, since I wouldn't be dancing, I would be falling over. But I am struggling to "let go" of all the things that happened in the past year-and all the years before. It's a struggle, and I wonder how many other people are going through the same thing. I wonder. I suspect that a lot of people are facing the same dilemma on the brink of the new year.

Have I made any New Year's resolutions? Umm...why would I do that, when I end up breaking them almost immediately? But if I did bother to do that...

I was thinking about this last week, when I found myself on a bus, going through Hackney, which is one of the worst boroughs (crime-wise) in London. I noticed that the borough is redeveloping large parts of Hackney-personally I think they should just burn it down and start over. But no, they've decided to give it a facelift. What a waste of money. Hackney is a shit hole- once a shit hole, always a shit hole. There are people like that, too. We all know them.

I'm going to get moving and get out of my comfort zone, go to museums and the gym more often, keep up with the blog, and not be lazy about the fact that this is the only life I've got, and I've wasted enough of it.
No more stressing over things I can't control. And I'm only going to buy things I really need. So when one thing breaks down, I replace it, not before.

It's funny-I mean, funny as in odd, not as in humorous-that so many people go into hock at Christmas, buying things they don't need because they see a sale. I have to tell you: if someone broke into my flat with the intense desire to find anything of any value, they would be seriously disappointed. My television is a 21" tv that is about 15 years old. It's so old that it has a slot in the bottom which takes VHS tapes. Anyone reading this remember VHS tapes? Exactly. And the tape part doesn't work. If someone was stupid enough to try to carry it out, they'd get a hernia. Not only that, but all the wires to the television and the computer (newer at 12 years old, very temperamental, still on Windows XP), and the mini-stereo (ten years old and only the radio works. Sometimes.) are all jumbled together (I know. A fire hazard. Who gives a shit?), so they could start a fire, or fall and end up in hospital with a few fractures, and they'd have wasted their time taking a pile of junk. Like I said, nothing gets replaced until it breaks down and can't be fixed.

Hmmm...maybe I should advertise for someone to turn over my flat, now there's an idea. It does look like someone has already done that; in fact, it looks like a crime scene. Another resolution...they just keep coming,don't they?

Well, Happy New Year. That is something I will celebrate. 2018 was supposed to be a good year-after last year's surgery trauma-and it turned out to be one of the shittiest years of all time. But I survived it, and now I'm ready to do better in 2019.

I wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2019.  Having said that, I'm off to Starbucks. Where else would I be going:?

Hoist by One's Own Petard

I've lived here long enough to pick up a lot of the slang-God knows why, but I'm still here! And this means-basically-hung by one's own rope. Or, some vindictiveness backfires and smacks the person who planned it right in the face. Or-what goes around, comes around. Karma? What karma?

It hasn't escaped me that, since the things you think, say and do come back to bite you in the ass. I'll just take that for granted and say that I paid my dues for whatever it is I did to get to this point-and that's that. You can bet that if someone did the dirty on you, they'll pay dearly-unfortunately, payback seems to take a terribly long time...

I also love the advice that I got from my grandparents-you all know this one-always wear clean underwear, you never know when you're going to get hit by a car. And then there's: give people enough rope and they will hang themselves with it. And the best of all time-well, for the moment, anyway: set boundaries, let people know where the line is. Always. If they cross the line once, tell them off, and -only if you like them enough-let them screw it up a second time. Cross the line twice? They're idiots. A parting shot across the bow is called for. Cross the line a third time-then you're the idiot if you don't sprint for the exit.

I so wish I had taken all those pieces of advice to heart years ago, I could have saved myself so much grief. But no, I learned the hard way, repeating the mistakes over and over again. You know the definition of insanity: doing the same thing in the same way over and over again and expecting different results. Duh.

I told you the Florence (cleverly masquerading as Lil. What the hell, I'm using real names and if they find out they can sue me) story. I told you the Rob, Tara and Sandra story. And the Terry the Tosser story. So you're pretty much up to date on a few of the weirdos who live in my area. But now I've decided that my boundaries have been set-and crossed. So I say hello if I see the neighbors, but I pretty much keep to myself. That is the way of peace and quiet.

I'm changing the way I look at things, and changing the way I do things. It's been pouring over the last couple of days-so bad that (just for fun) I turned to Professor Google to see how many entries there are for building an ark. Holy crap! There are pages of ark building directions. Who knew? And I went out and walked anyway. Rain, darkness, dusk, cold weather, traffic, uneven roads-all these are warning signs for someone who has no balance system. So, of course, I decided this morning to treat this as a challenge. It was dark, pouring with rain, windy, headlights shining in my face, really uneven roads and pavements-and I just went out anyway. Either brave or stupid, whatever. But I walked for an hour and I was fine. Now I have to be not quite fine enough to be smug, because that's when I'll fall and damage something.

The bottom line is that, after more than eight and a half years, I'm still improving. There's nothing like a catastrophe to increase patience. And there's nothing like a catastrophe to show you just how strong you really are.

There's also Kettle Chips. And Starbucks. I'm starting to wish that I had bought stock in both companies years ago. Oops-missed the boat.

Now I need to start going back to the gym, and start back in Tai Chi class. And start living, because, after all, I'm not getting any younger. And-no more falling over, if that's possible.

In less than a week there will be a vote on Brexit. It still sounds like a disease, doesn't it? I'm avoiding hearing anything about it now, it's just boring, repetitive, and annoying as Hell. People ask my how I feel about it, and I'm reluctant to give an opinion (and you know by now that I have an opinion on just about everything)-because we've got a misogynist, racist, disgustingly orange halfwit in the White House, so what am I supposed to say?

I'm off to Starbucks. See you later.