Anchored

I was going to call this post ‘Becalmed’ but when I looked up the dictionary definition and it said something about ‘lack of wind’ I knew I couldn’t apply the word to the flatulent occupants of this house. Especially after the homemade Jalfrezi we had tonight.

So I continued paddling around sailing analogies and landed on ‘Anchored’ instead. 

After being washed overboard by the choppy waters of the last few months (yes, I am going to persist with this - just call me Captain Birdseye), we’ve navigated to calmer waters. We know where we are: moored up in a safe harbour.

Our daughter’s sleepless nights, rebellious behaviour, spaced-out hysteria, and previously unseen levels of anger have subsided. (See previous posts Maelstrom and Oink).

There are still nights when she looks like she’s about to bubble over, but we currently seem to be able to reason with her and talk her down before things escalate. She appears happier, calmer, more in control.  

She surprised me a few times with her awareness. At the height of The Troubles, I asked her if she wanted me to put some of her books back in her room (we’d been forced to remove them, as she was piling them up in her bed, throwing some of them around and reading others all through the night), and she thought about if for an age before she told me: “No, not yet Mummy. I think I’ll want to get up and read them.”

But gradually, with slow agreement and as a reward for good behaviour, we’ve returned the books and magazines and toys that were being strewn all over the place, and so far they’ve stayed put on the shelves. This may have something to do with me continuously ‘forgetting’ to replace the bulb in her main bedroom light (at first subconsciously, but then - look away Social Services - deliberately). The only light in her bedroom now comes from the soft, glow of the streetlamp outside, leaking dimly through her curtains. So she can see to pad to the bathroom if she needs to, but she can’t get up and constantly switch the big light on anymore while she rummages through her stuff, as she was doing. Judge me if you like, but it’s bloody well working, I tell you.

We’ve had the MRI scan and opthalmology exam and the results were all fine and dandy. There is nothing alarming going on inside her head, unless you count her inexplicable love for the criminally dire children’s show Me Too, which strikes me as VERY ALARMING INDEED.

It looks as if the tsunami of feelings was just a build-up of anxiety, mixed with emotional immaturity and a large helping of teenage hormones.

I’m sure it’s not over: she’ll be back to school after the Easter Holidays next week, where she’ll be steering around the rocky reefs of friendships and lessons and emotions and PE. She loves school, but it is the open sea and it may set her brain whizzing again. 

Then, next month, there’s the looming removal of four teeth and the addition of a brace, which I know has the potential for much whizzery and dizzery.

But that’s ahead of us. 

For now we’ve laid anchor.

Video is Ólafur Arnalds - Near Light