I know this is going to sound contrived but it’s not, I still didn’t quite manage that one job I had lined up for yesterday, a shower. As all to often happens the day moved on and suddenly it was too late, too late because there wasn’t enough time left for my hair to dry before I once again had to put my head on it’s favourite pillow and sleep. It’s been a long time since I last used the hair-dryer for many reasons, but one of the biggest is that my hair is now waist length and over dyed so many times, that I fear that the dryer will be too harsh and more will just snap off. Having said that I now also have the most common problem that women who die their hair have, major grey roots spoiling my perfectly purple head. I have lost track of the number of days that one has been just not done for now, probably better to say weeks rather than days. My beauty queen days are long gone so it isn’t really a huge problem any longer, mind you I was 11 when I last put on a bikini and strutted around a swimming pool. Now that’s a memory that got me into all kinds of trouble, I still don’t get what all the fuss was about, I entered the competition and won. It was just one of those small competitions that almost every swimming pool where there were large numbers of holiday-makers held once a month, I entered just because I was there at the time. I was delighted, but my parents went through the roof, I thought they would proud of me, but I hadn’t asked for their permission and that meant I was in trouble with them. Although it was during the summer holidays, it also got me into trouble at school, my picture was in the local news aper and my headmistress saw it and demanded to see my parents when term began. Apparently my behaviour was unseemly for someone attending that school and yet another black mark appeared on my records. Oh, how the world has changed since the beginning of the 1970’s, I think these days most parents would tell the school that it had nothing to do with them, well, at least, I know I would have. So much trouble and all I got was a prize of £5 and a the worst black eye I have ever had, just hours after winning I feel in the adventure playground and bounced my face off a log, I guess everyone including fate thought I was in the wrong, but I bet I was the first just crowned beauty queen with a black eye.

It’s strange how memories like that will reappear without asking them too, all to often I like most people I suppose, remember mostly when things went wrong, or when I was in trouble of some sort or other. I often wonder if I was even not in trouble, or not doing something that if my parents had known about, I would have been in trouble for. I am sure that I was happy at some point as a child, but those memories seem to have been over powered by everything else. I have tried scanning through my life in Aberdeen but it is so sketchy now and feels so far away that it is almost as thought it was a life that belonged to someone else. Even my first marriage has become just the same, other than moments connected to my children, the rest well it’s also slowly been wiped from my memory, just moments that connect and a lot of blanks and flashes of pain. Until I hit my 30’s my memories are so hazy that I can’t always get to grips when it comes to order or place, I just know what happened as a fact, but without detail or event location and timing. Maybe it is the same for everyone, I don’t know as I can’t see into others minds, but it feel personal and feels often wrong.

I didn’t set out to write about any of this today, but those who have read for a while will know that my post often contains sections of ramblings through my past, it took me a long time to work our why but the answer was so simple when I found it, that it seemed stupid that I didn’t see it straight away. I live so much in the past, as well let’s be honest, not much really happens in my daily life now, I know that that is why I hate talking on the phone, conversation when you have nothing to talk about, is rather dull and one sided, all I can do is listen. I only really have three things I can talk about, what’s in the news, how my health is at that second and the past, mix it with stutters, brain freezes and my latest trick of saying words in the wrong order and conversation is a minefield for me. For months now I have had a list of questions for my brother, but he hasn’t answered either my email or my letter, I could pick up the phone, but what and how do I say anything he will understand. By the time I had dialled his number, I know that I would be in a spin and my ability to make myself clearly understood will have diminished, I will be a stuttering mess and probably will forget, even if I write them down in advance, all the things I want to know about my mother.

We all take communication as a simple everyday thing, something most of us never have to think about, or even know we are doing it. My mind can deal with ease when it comes to writing, I can go over it and over it checking not just that it makes sense but it really says what is in my mind, ask me to talk the connection splits. Somewhere between thought and voice, it all goes horribly wrong. Adam is used to it, even if it is all muddled he knows what I mean, but he has been listening to it slowly changing from strong confident and to the point, into long silences, words missing, stutters and twisted words. But for someone like my brother who hasn’t spoken to me for ages, will he understand, will he be able to take time and listen to all of it not just the words, I doubt it. He isn’t known for being a quite composed person, he has a temper, a brain injury from birth that has left him with no patience and little ability to empathise. Talking with him takes more patience a control on my side, that I know I can’t handle any longer. I now find anything that has to be done over the phone so difficult that I avoid it, I “don’t do”, conversation even face to face is hard unless the person knows me, but even then I hit walls that drain me of energy and leaves me just wanting to send them away, as I can’t manage any more. Talking is a really strenuous thing to do and guaranteed to end with me in silence, unable to fill it in any way at all.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 26/02/12 – An MS balance? 

So let me think, not the lead to the most exciting blog you might think, well the only way to find out is to read on. I went on my memory trail earlier today, it’s something I do from time to time, it’s a great exercise for me and I expect for anyone else who has a slowly fading memory. I have a fear that the day…….