I’ve had so many ideas for big blog posts this week, and written precisely none of them.

Surprisingly, I’ve also had a huge idea for a book that is now fully conceptualised in my head. I can’t stop thinking about it. You genuinely wouldn’t be able to guess what it’s about because it is nothing like anything I’ve ever written before. Just in case I actually do write it, I’ll only say this: it’s dystopian science fiction.

The problem hasn’t been the ideas. It’s been the execution. I’m still dealing with a really high level of fatigue that’s been completely wiping me out. Most of this week has been spent confined to the sofa, where every movement – or even the thought of doing something – has felt like dragging my body through tar. It’s such a strange feeling because mentally I want to do things. Physically, my body has other ideas.

Then yesterday I finally started to feel like myself again. Naturally, I responded by trying to do everything I’d been unable to do over the previous few days. Washing. Shopping. Life. You know… existing.

Today my body has decided that was an unacceptable decision and is loudly protesting. Despite all of that, it hasn’t actually been a bad week. There have been some genuinely lovely moments with my son. There was also the small matter of almost getting into a fight with a Sharon in Lidl, which wasn’t quite as wholesome.

Oh… and I even got the chance to wish on a shooting star that things would get better.

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Ma’am, This is a Lidl.

My son was out with a friend yesterday, and I was so excited for him. He loves spending time with this friend, and I also adore her. I’d even dyed his hair and cut it the night before, despite being an absolute mess with fatigue, so he’d look fresh and sharp for his day out. I knew he’d have a great time, so I just felt really happy for him.

It just had to be the day my son wasn’t here that I FINALLY woke up and felt like I had some energy. I’ve been feeling guilty for being so fatigued that we haven’t really done much together since he’s been off university. What energy I have had, I’ve tried to get back into doing my home strength training twice a week. I have felt so selfish for spending all of my spoons on it.

The thing is, it really helps my mood. It helps my joints, it helps with perimenopause, it helps with… well, everything. It’s also protecting my future as best I can. It’s been hard knowingly spending all of my spoons on it, though, because it makes my fatigue so much worse afterwards. I think I’m just in a chronic fatigue flare up at the moment, probably caused by the relentless assault of perimenopause hormones.

I decided to spend all the energy I’d magically woken up with sorting the GIANT washing basket and doing the dishes, when I suddenly remembered I had absolutely nothing for dinner. So I abandoned the cleaning halfway through and went to Lidl. I thought it would be a nice surprise for my son to come home to find I’d bought all his favourite food.

Everything was fine in Lidl until I got to the self checkouts. I was standing in the queue waiting for one of the checkouts on the left. They have more space for my GIANT mountains of salad. The right hand self checkouts are more basket sized, and I’ve tried using them before. My shopping simply does not fit, no matter how much of my Tetris playing experience I use.

A checkout on the left was becoming free, while all three checkouts on the right were already empty. Just as the person was leaving, a woman shoved me and my trolley out of the way. I legitimately almost went flying while she took the checkout I’d been waiting for. Then her husband, who’d been standing behind me in the queue, got shouted over as well.

She literally called him over to push past me too. They had four bottles. That’s it…. Four bottles. They could have used any of the three empty self checkouts on the right. The entire time she was standing there she kept giving me death glares and muttering under her breath.

Then she started hollering at the self checkout staff member because she couldn’t work the machine, before having a go at her for the absolute AUDACITY that she’d had to use a self checkout in the first place because the queue for the manned tills was too long. Well… considering she couldn’t even cope with one person standing in front of her in a queue, I suppose that makes sense.

She has entitlement issues. But in Lidl? Wow.

The whole time she was putting her shopping through she kept looking back at me with complete disgust. The self checkout worker looked over at me as if to say, “Did she just push in?” I just smiled and gave a little shake of my head to say, “Don’t worry about it.” I genuinely could not be bothered to deal with Sharon today.

My mother always did that kind of entitled crap. She genuinely believed retail staff and other customers were beneath her and expected red carpet treatment in Tesco. It used to drive me absolutely mad. I watched her upset nearly every service worker who ever had the misfortune of serving her.

So I did the one thing my mother always hated. I continually smiled at the lady scowling at me. Not a sarcastic smile. Just a genuine, “I really don’t care about your behaviour” smile. I was the personification of the 😀 emoji.
Push me again and I’ll probably just smile wider.
Ma’am… This is a Lidl.
If you want an air of privilege and entitlement, perhaps go to a Waitrose instead.
Enjoy your four bottles of cheap wine I hope it was worth the sheer level of entitlement you felt over buying them.

At home, I made a CATASTROPHIC ERROR. I’d posted a picture of my kale mountain at the self-checkout on my Instagram story. About an hour later my son texted me:
“Thanks for getting me my squash and coffee.”
I was incredibly confused. This was supposed to be a surprise. But by this point I’d completely forgotten I’d posted the photo to my story, and I’d also forgotten, while posting it, that he would obviously see it. My first thought was that he’d somehow come home. I actually checked the flat thinking,
“Wait… are you home?”
Then I remembered. So I messaged him:
“That was supposed to be a surprise, but I forgot I’d posted it to my Instagram story. I thought you could actually see me or something.”
He laughed. To be fair, so did I.
My memory has been absolute hot garbage recently, but at least we both got a laugh out of it.

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I’m Commander Shepard, and This is My Favourite Gift on the Citadel.

My son came home from his day out in Cardiff absolutely buzzing. He’d had a brilliant time with his friend, taken loads of photos, and had also completely destroyed his legs in the process. He’d walked 18,000 steps. Considering he has hypermobility, every muscle in his body was filing formal complaints.

He asked me to treat him like a Pharaoh. I told him the best I could do was Victorian plague victim. He required Capri Sun, which I had to convince him wasn’t “wasting it” by drinking one, and migraine tablets. While lying on the sofa like a Victorian fainting painting he came bearing gifts.

A little while ago we’d been in Cardiff together when I’d spotted a Female Shepard figurine in the window of a shop. I loved it, but it was a little more expensive than I wanted to spend, so I left it there. Later I tried finding it online, only to discover it was somehow even more expensive.

Mass Effect is one of my favourite game series of all time. In fact, until I played Cyberpunk 2077, it was my favourite for years. It’s become intertwined with my life in a way only certain stories do. Mass Effect 3 came out while I was recovering from my eating disorder for the first time. I still remember spending hours in that world when everything else in my life felt difficult. Looking back, I don’t think I realised just how much comfort it was giving me at the time.

Well… My son saw Shepard in the same shop. She was on sale. So he bought her for me. Before he got home, he’d been sending me mysterious texts saying,
“I’ve bought something for you, but I don’t know if you’ll like it.”
and
“You might have to make space for it.”

I had absolutely no idea what that meant. The funny thing is, whenever he says, “I don’t know if you’ll like it,” it’s usually followed by a gift I absolutely adore, so I didn’t even consider he might just be winding me up. When he reached into his bag to reveal it was Shepard. I hugged the box. I was just so incredibly grateful. This is honestly one of the best presents I’ve ever received.

Now I definitely need to make space for her. She deserves a proper display just like my Cyberpunk 2077 figures. I’ve even started thinking about putting a shelf behind my TV with some lights and maybe an N7 lamp. I think she’d approve.

Afterwards, I ended up starting Mass Effect 3 again.

And somehow… That felt a bit like coming home too.

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The Wish

I can’t even remember what day it was now, but there was one day this week where I was just really upset about how tired I’ve been. I actually wrote a blog post that day. Then I hated it. It was just me being upset about being so tired, so I binned it and decided to go to bed instead. I’d done almost nothing all day, and the one thing I had managed to do – write a blog post – I deleted.

I wasn’t upset in a productivity sense. It was more that I’m just… sick of being so tired that some days all I manage to do is survive. I don’t really feel like myself if I’m not making something, learning something, writing something or getting absorbed in an idea. But that day I was simply too exhausted. So I admitted defeat.

As I was closing the windows before bed, I ended up just leaning out of one of them for a while, staring up at the stars instead. That’s when I saw a meteor streak across the sky. I think it might have been an early Perseid because it came from roughly the right area of the sky. I’d gone from quietly staring at the stars in the melancholy of another day spent surviving to suddenly feeling ridiculously excited at seeing this beautiful meteor.

It completely changed my mood. I laughed to myself and thought, “Maybe I should make a wish.”
I’m not actually convinced wishing on meteors works. I’ve had meteor showers saved as recurring events in my phone for years, and I’ve wished on many of them.

But if there was one thing I’d wish for, it would simply be to feel more like myself again. I suppose wishing on a meteor is about as scientifically sound as all those people who insist diet and exercise are a cure for everything. I’ve done both. I’m still a mess.

Realistically, with the amount of kale I consume, I should probably be immortal by now. Apparently all the resistance training, creatine and science backed health advice on Instagram should have fixed my anxiety and depression too.
Strangely, it didn’t. Still, I made the wish anyway.
In much the same way I still eat well and exercise.
Not because I think any of those things are magic.
Just because sometimes hope is worth practising, even when you know it isn’t a cure.

Here’s a song for my son. I put it on one of my pigeon videos and fell in love with it and now it makes me think of him instead of my pigeons:-