It’s the middle of my night and I am lying awake, worrying that the people who have just bought my mother’s house won’t realise that in order to get hot water, you have to turn on the immersion switch upstairs and the one downstairs.
I spent yesterday with an empty feeling that felt like hunger, but I knew that eating something wouldn’t make me feel any better.
I told my good friend about it, and she emailed about her own experience - “the sale of my mother's house was uniquely upsetting and I wonder if that was when I really understood that she wasn't coming back.”
That may be it.
When I was little and I got in a tantrum my parents said I was “having a swee.” When they laughed about it later, they never mentioned my brothers and sisters having a swee, it was just Sue who had swees.
There is a three-year-old here – right here - and she is stamping her foot, and shouting:
I didn’t want to lose Pa in 2002!
I didn’t want to lose Ma in 2008!
And I don’t want to lose the house now! I don’t! I don’t!
Just like in olden times, my reasonable (and lovable) brothers and sisters are getting on with their lives, and being sensible, and I am having a swee.
And it’s hard to sleep when you’re having a swee.
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