It’s a terrible thing to behold!
The original can be found here.
Courtesy of Voodoo Pad
And Pixelmator
Time marches on. Relentlessly. Preparing myself for the joys of Christmas shopping. Last minute burst of energy. The world feels unwieldy. I feel large and ungainly. And I am growing too big for the world. I am a big, clumsy rag doll. I do not think I will cope well with the ravages of old age. When my grandmother was my age she began to disintegrate. Her hair fell out, her teeth fell out, her system failed bit by bit like an old used car. And she was always so stoical. I never heard her complain. I never saw her eat although she was bordering on the obese. I am afraid that this is happening to me.. I’m falling apart, bit by bit. How can I halt my own inevitable, relentless, terminal decline. This is what I am facing and I must confess that I am paralysed by terror. I want to climb into my bed, pull the covers up over my head and never resurface.
Christmas and I am fatter than ever. I once when I was very young and immature said that I would rather take my own life than be fat.
And we were all like that at one time in our lives whether we admit it or not.
The temperature plummeted. I, rather foolishly, went walking in the rain. I didn’t notice how wet I was until I came indoors. I brace myself against the weather. Unlike everyone else, for me, winter has its charms.
My mind is offline. One thing I am terrified of is dementia. Early onset. It casts a permanent shadow over my life ever since my new consultant psychiatrist mentioned clear cognitive impairment in her assessment letter.
At this time of year and against my own will, my spirits are lifted. A magical feeling that evaded language or definition. A time when simply being alive, animated was sufficient. And we awaited blessings and gifts from above. When I was very little my brother used to wake me up at six in the morning. He would crawl into bed with me. We hugged each other in the dark, beneath the duvet. We whispered excitedly as they made our way downstairs, barefoot, avoiding the loose tread on the bottom step. Two Santa’s sacks lay beneath the Christmas tree overflowing with gold and silver packages. They always did.  Later we went to church. These were moments to savour.
 
I bought my mother an electronic photo frame for Christmas. She unearthed an avalanche of old photographs. The photo above depicts my brother and I, aged nine and three, in the garden of our grandparents’ council house.  The neighbourhood consisted of  ‘streets of ugly 1930s red-brick semis‘.  And no, it’s not in Dewsbury.  They were however similar to the house that my parents spent most of their working lives struggling to buy.  Oh, Mrs Thatcher, you never told us that in your utopia, in your ‘home owning democracy’, you would still be despised if you didn’t own the ‘right’ kind of house. Respectable working class people.  Respectable but most certainly never respected.  Thou shalt not suffer little chav brats to live.
Just an afterthought: the Catholic working classes deter their brats from promiscuity by telling them that God is watching and, if he sees them behaving inappropriately, they’ll roast in the fires of hell for eternity. Â Of course, in the long term, this tactic results in some seriously fucked up people but, in the short term, it is highly effective.
Say it loud and say it proud:Â ich bin ein untermensch.
Finally, oops there goes the neighbourhood.
P.S. Â The times they are a changing: illustrated here and here.
So Sick of Drowning 