Look Over Your Shoulder Just In Case

I wonder what is wrong with my mother. This isn't something I should wonder. Oh no. It is dangerous territory, because every time I begin to wonder, I then wonder what is wrong with me. The scariest thing is that there is something seriously amiss and I am not aware of it. KF talked about sickness and unhappiness, and ZP and I looked at each other in sad recognition. There is an interesting history of women and illness (unrelated to my mother believe it or not) as there is an interesting history of women and starvation (is anorexia our new word for protest?). My mother is perpetually ill. I refuse to be ill or made ill, despite the efforts she went to when I was a child. KF said that her mother was pleased when she was sick because she was 'calm'. Again, I wonder if some people are 'too much', if there are people whose excess energy and joie de vivre enervates and angers other people. As I said to KF on Sunday, for me it is about the intensity and excitement of living - it is about an excessively sensory joie de vivre. There are these incredible people who are irrepressible, who fire up and create life for themselves when they could just as easily shut down and give up. KF is obviously one of those. I love that.

A list of things I plan to learn in a hurry:

moderation
patience
chilling the fuck out
balancing different things in my life
switching on and switching off
how to fully relinquish control
how to ask for what I want in a polite manner