Sleep was limited last night as a poorly child woke screaming with pains (ear infection, I think) during the night. My fears were escalated by information that a classmate’s sister has meningitis, so when I turned on the light to check his ear and he reacted like a vampire exposed to the sun, my paranoia alarms went full-on “aroooOOoo-ga”.

He eventually slept, but it took a bit longer before I left go of my vigilant watchfulness and slipped off to dreamland myself. I find myself surprised that I’m not dragging with exhaustion this morning, but I am tired. Child got actual sick this morning, so we’re off to the doctor as soon as it opens.

In other ailment news, I’ve a lot of pain in my right shoulder-arm-elbow-wrist-hand area that I’m describing as RSI. I think a lot of board work, coupled with a bit too much Bejewelled on the iPad has done the damage. I’ve taken ibuprofen and I’m hoping a little yoga later may help relieve some of the symptoms. I guess I have an external reminder not to waste time on the iPad now.

Despite all of this, I pretty much feel the opposite of overwhelmed. Not underwhelmed, just calm and okay with everything that’s going on. I was feeling vigilant last night, but it was more of an “in case” than a panic. I think. Was I more obsessive than your standard parent would be? This time two years ago I used to check in on them about 5 times a night. And that was on top of any waking they did themselves. That had become so much part of what I just did that it had felt normal at the time. I don’t like the feeling of no control that comes with …. I was going to say with having children, but I guess – I don’t like the no-control feeling that comes with life! With caring for people. With the knowledge that we’re all going to die in the end, and there’s just nothing we can do to stop that.

Anyway. I guess I’m going to try to stop hiding myself from that constant fear, but it’s not something that I can really keep feeling constantly and sustain a normal life. So, I’m just going to leave it go for now.

Work will finally start to wind down in the next week now. There’s a Summer Party coming up on the last day, and I’ve been wondering if I should sign up for it. It feels a bit anti-social not to go, but at the same time, it’s really not attractive to me. To me it feels like work and obligation that I actually have to pay for the privilege of. I sometimes struggle with social situations – and that’s even with people who I more naturally get along with. Workmates in the school are in the main very pleasant, even interesting people. But I do feel fairly obliged to stay masked. I’m not saying that I feel entitled to “let my freak flag fly” in all interactions. But spending half a day of my holidays playing human when I don’t have to just really doesn’t seem like fun.

And yeah, alcohol will be front and centre. I don’t expect to be tempted by it, but explanations will be expected, and while I have a ready excuse lined up (the upcoming marathon relay on the Sunday following), I just don’t want to have to.

I sometimes feel guilty about stuff like this. Like, that I’m being judgemental and dismissive of vast swathes of people. Maybe everyone finds it hard work and a little bit boring to interact in these situations. It’s not like it will be actively unpleasant as such.

I don’t know. I haven’t fully decided whether I will go or not.

The temptation of alcohol raised its head for a few minutes yesterday evening; the end of a long work week, hungry, parenting without husband for the evening. All of it really just a historical reaction. Habit-memory. I wasn’t anywhere close to reacting in the “old” way to these feelings, but I want to write about it here as a reminder to myself not to get complacent. It is going to take a long time before those types of habitual internal reactions start to fade. Things have been going so well for a long time now – coming up on the five week mark – that it’s easy to forget that there’s years of past habit to break, and that I do have to be watchful for emotions that might come from nowhere to side-swipe me.

But for today, mostly I’ll be taking care of a sick little boy.