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Blue Cosmo's Bit on the Side - It's Christmas Eve, and I've Had Enough Already

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Ah, Christmas. The one day of the year where everyone is supposed to be happy and together and get on and stuff their faces with dinner and open presents. Sounds great, right?

From the start I knew that Christmas wasn't going to be the same this year as it has been for a long time now. For starters, I'm not in the most... financially abundant family for one, and now there's not as much money in our family now (we lost some of our child benefit when my sister got an apprenticeship) so it hasn't been as easy as before, but that's not too big a problem I guess. It's mainly led to getting less of my parents and having to buy more stuff for myself (did I mention I'm one of the best off in my family?). On an unrelated note, I've started to buy other people presents and it kind of feels good, even though I can't wrap them to save my life. But I digress; not as many presents this year because no money.

What makes the whole situation even worse is the fact I probably won't see my mother or grandmother much this Christmas. You see, my grandma (we always just call her 'gran', so it feels weird using the full version) hasn't been very well for a while now. She's 84 or something (I forget) and this year she's had to have an oxygen system installed, after she's started having difficulty breathing (caused by an infection she got when she went to the hospital, after breaking her hip). Of course, my mother has to look after her (my grandma's refused to go into care and my mother is the only one of my parents who gets on with her), so she's there pretty much all day. This has been the case for a while now; sometimes when I get out of school early I go to see her and talk to her, just so she has someone to talk to really.

Fast forward to today. I woke up, feeling horrible. Should have taken that as a sign, really - almost immediately my father and my youngest sister (who's 13) get into a blazing argument. Oh boy. I should point out this isn't uncommon, and practically all of us (myself included, as well as my other younger sister, who's this one's twin) argue with him sometimes, but not as much as this one panned out. I'll save the details but it concluded with her taking a shoe to his arm and *almost* breaking his pinky finger. Which caused a lot of stress - I was awake at the time and heard the whole thing. Ironically I'd just thought "you know what, maybe we can just have a half-decent Christmas this year without smashing each other's faces in" but NOPE, that's not going to happen now. So yeah, that happened, and my sister felt it ENTIRELY necessary to phone my mother. Who was busy looking after my grandma.

Now I should explain at this point; as of late it's been very stressful for her. Basically my gran's breathing issues have become worse; to the point where it uses all her energy to even get up. She can't even go to the toilet, it's that much effort for her. As it stands, she's probably not going to live much longer (a month at most). It hasn't really gotten to me though, as I've known she doesn't have long for ages now. More on that later. But anyway, now my mother is constantly doing this, that, not even getting a second of rest while looking after her. She doesn't want to, but she has to. The last thing she'd want is a call from my sister saying that shit was going down at home. I didn't hear her on the other end but I can imagine she's pretty stressed right now, so then I'm starting to get upset and that's the last thing I want to do because it's CHRISTMAS for goodness' sake.

This whole saga went on right through breakfast (which was a bowl of banana Weetabix with some grated chocolate by the way), and as such I hardly enjoyed that either. It pretty much culminated with her being told Christmas was off for her, and of course that went down great. More arguing, shouting etc. Apparently it's all been solved now but I suspect my father's just saying that to make me feel better because Christmas is tomorrow. I know for sure though it WON'T be solved and it WILL drag on into tomorrow and the future.

How do I know? Well for starters my family isn't what you'd call... normal. In fact, screw it, you know what; I'm going to take this time to introduce myself properly before I talk about them.

My name's Joshua (but everyone always shortens it to Josh, no questions asked, except for my parents). I'm seventeen (eighteen in March) and I live near the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England. It's quite nice up here; I've always liked it. I prefer big cities rather than smaller places; I just live the lights, sounds, technology, all of it. Explains why I always want to go to places like Manchester, London, Leeds, but I can't because of course I can't because grandma ain't well, so Newcastle (or neighboring and rivals-in-the-football Sunderland) is the closest I usually get. I don't follow football myself actually; although I am a casual Newcastle supporter. I like all sort of stuff really - mostly involving automobiles and autosport, but my favourite actual sport that doesn't involve driving cars around is... darts, actually, I like watching it, and I did play for a while but stopped. I really should start again, actually. Given the chance I'd also like to learn to play snooker/pool/billiards or something like that. I also like some animes, but I've only really watched Sonic X and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. I've been meaning to get more into anime actually - I have one part of a graphic novel which inspired the Karin anime and I was thinking of getting back into watching the Pokémon anime (in Japanese of course) which I watched in English as a kid. I might just try some new animes too, if you can suggest any. ATM if I'm going to try any new ones it'll probably be Girls und Panzer (the idea of a high school with freakin' TANKS is awesome) or maybe something like Death Note. Actually, going back to Sonic X; I like Cosmo from that same anime. A LOT. (Although you probably knew that already.) I don't know why I love her so damn much; I think it's because she reminds me of... me, in a way.

Enough talk about me and anime though; back to my family. In my immediate family there's six of us - me, my three sisters (fun fact; Three Sisters is the name of a racetrack in Wigan, England), my mom and my dad. Out of us all my mom is the most normal, but she likes things to be VERY organised (like OCD but not OCD). I've got Asperger's syndrome (a form of autism, which I hardly tell anyone about and especially on the 'net because I think you know why already), and my oldest sister (who's going on twenty years old I think) is on the autistic spectrum as well. My two twin sisters both show ASD traits but have never been formally diagnosed, and it's likely my father has it too (how else would I have it?). So yeah, we argue A LOT. It doesn't affect school life for me too much, although I get a bit help here and there which is extremely useful. It does affect my handwriting a lot though, which is why I'm allowed extra time in exams and get to use a computer, which is a HUGE aid. Seriously, I swear I'd fail all my exams if I didn't get a PC because the examiners wouldn't be able to read my writing. (Even though I got two A*s (both in English), eight As and a B in my GCSEs.)

But yeah, I know Christmas isn't gonna be all that good this year. The most exciting bit will probably be today, going down to my friend's house and giving him his presents. And that'll last all of a minute (unless he or his mother answers the door, they usually invite me in for a bit then). So yeah, not really looking forward to the 25th as much as I would like this year. But... I'm not actually all that bothered by it.

You see, about my grandma; I've known for all too long now she's going to kick it sooner rather than later. I've even specifically asked my mother not to tell me when she does as I'll be able to judge based on the rest of my family's reaction. It'll probably come as a shock to me, but I more than likely won't get upset. She's being cremated rather than buried and only my mom and my uncle are going to that ceremony anyway. But yeah; I've known for a while that it's gonna happen. But I feel that's only half of the reason the troubles of the world get me so much. The other half is... well, I'm too engrossed in fantasy-land to let it bother me.

I do read the Blog section of YC sometimes; and reading through t00lishness's blog the other day, I think he hit the figurative nail on the head. To me personally, the bottom line of rule is, and always has been: "life's a bitch and then you die". If you can immerse yourself in something that makes it that little bit less of a bitch, it makes the things that do go wrong not quite as bad. And life feels better as a result. I suppose that's why I've never really ventured outside of the Forum Games section of YouChew (and the RP thread). The fact I haven't made a YTP in ages is part of it, but I digress. Again. Seriously, why do I go off-topic so much?

Anyway, back on topic. I like to think that I have a good imagination, probably brought on by my Asperger's. If I can find something to think of that makes my troubles less, it's only a good thing in my eyes. Maybe that's why I'm always in the RP thread. I like RPing, or at least I think I do now I'm in my first proper one. Granted, I've screwed up a few times but I've learned from that. I think... as t00lish said, being able to imagine a better future, or things to look forward to, in an entirely fictional world with fictional characters, that helps me a lot. When I do post in the RP thread, it's like I'm making a story that I know will never happen but I like doing nonetheless; dealing with things that I more than likely won't get to or don't want to experience in real life. Hell, my current character is very loosely based on me.

So yeah... I guess that sums it up. RPs and the like help me get away from the troubles of life. Strange, really. Something that doesn't exist can help me cope with things that do. It's a strange life, eh? I hope you all have a happy Christmas this year. As for me; well, 2015 can only be better. I suppose I'll see more of my mother, and maybe we'll have more money. Who knows? As they say: "Only time will tell."

Except time can't tell. We can tell time, but time can't tell us. Or can it? I don't know. Or at least, I don't yet. Maybe I will one day. Maybe I won't. Maybe I've dragged this on for WAY too long and I really ought to stop now. Yes, I like that. That sounds like an idea. Damn, my first proper blog post and it's two thousand and sixty four words long. That's about the same size as my average school essay. How do I know it's that long? I used a word count of course. I also know the last word in this post will be "apple." How do I know that? I just do.



Apple.

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