Part two

The thing is, and I must reiterate that delusion is my specialty; he seemed like such a sweet kid when I first met him. He and his dad had this groovy life in the country, but weren’t the Beverley hillbilly’s (I was a life-long city rat...). They hung out together and did cool boy things like ride motorbikes and build jumps and tree huts and a dog kennel for my pampered urban pooch. One of the cutest things I had ever heard was when he asked his Dad to turn the music up because he couldn’t get to sleep...how modern and well-adapted is that?! I delighted in this child’s ability to hold an engaging conversation, and his phenomenally pronounced lissssssssssp was so endearing...

Fast forward a month or two...I am booking in to see a counsellor – always a risky move in a small town. I am having alternating homicidal/suicidal thoughts. My eardrums are perforated, my nervous system is on Mars, the incessant chatter is rattling my bones and I am ready to safety-pin a certain small person’s tongue to his lower jaw. I wake up most mornings and wonder where on earth I am, and who the hell these people are. Suffice to say the local wine shop was recording record profits, and my anonymity was blown.

Most people probably wouldn’t list patience as one of my strong points, however I have never bashed anyone...well there was an incident with a large Mag-Lite when my son was 14...but I have never taken a baseball bat to a window or boiled a bunny. However, this present situation was forcing me to access my primal hind-brain in a way never utilised before...this was survival in its rawest from. My sweet counsellor guided me through the divine Buddhist meditation technique known as Mindfulness. And indeed this is probably what preserved the minuscule bit of sanity I still had intact. I bought an angel plaque to place in the garden for meditation purposes, I rented a dinky orange caravan (...enter the Bitch Box) in order to have ‘a room of one’s own’, and I set about cowboying the fuck up, as my partner so lovingly put it.

So here I am. Writing a blog in order to make some sense of it all...and hopefully inspire and amuse a few people along the way. Do share your step-parenting moments with me...you know misery loves company! Got to go and do some real work now. Back tomorrow...