THE Purple Fairy on Meandering through Memories

And a special welcome if you have just joined me to see whether I remember who I am.  I do.  Just.  I have given myself permission to remain ungrowedup for another day so that I can gather the memories laid down over the past five days and firmly affix them to the walls of my happy room in my head. 

I spend more and more time in my head these days on account of the fact that my resources for a romp through the external world are becoming fewer and fewer.  It hurts to walk;  I cannot entirely trust my limbs to do what they are being told to do and I would find it impossible to defend myself from attack.  Now all this sounds a little gloomy and a bit pity-me-ish but nothing could be further from the truth.  Right now I am such a happy little bunny basking in the warm glow of family love and this is my way of explaining that I have adapted to being an internal being rather than an external being.  If truth be told, I sometimes find the intrusion of the external world somewhat burdensome.

Something rather strange happens when my family come to stay.  There seems to be a shift in the space time continuum that affects my ability to tell the time; complete tasks in one hit and even to establish what day it is!  Their presence also temporarily cures me of my OCD tendencies and I care not that things are not where they should be; where they shouldn't be or indeed, where they actually are!  Other senses become heightened; tuning into to the possible distress noises not only of my Beloved Grandchildren but also those of Beloved Son and Heir and my Beautiful Daughter-in-Law, my need to nurture them and anticipate their every whim and well, just make them happy.  And yet as we talk and laugh together my own Dickensian childhood intrudes and I find myself sharing information I did not intend to share with them and I do not know why. 

Part of me wants to lay down loving memories for my grandchildren so that in turn they can tell their grandchildren of the japes and jollyiness they experienced when visiting me.  I replay incidents in my head to strengthen my own memory bank possibly as an insurance against my bad memories.  If I pack enough good stuff onto the shelf in my head then it may just result in some of the bad stuff falling off and disappearing forever.

Highlights for this Christmas: 

Being first up on Christmas Morning and finding Santa's footprints all over the sitting room, torn wrapping paper, pink tennis balls scattered across the floor and a huge pile of presents under the new black Christmas tree bought to mark our first real Christmas together for ten years.  I thought the paper represented Santa being in a hurry and the tennis balls Rudolph's droppings.  But in fact Coco had managed to seek out her Christmas present from the pile without disturbing anything else.  She and MaddyMoo spent the rest of the holiday challenging the hoomans' ability to securely hide them away.

My Bestest Boy Ben who couldn't stop the unbidden tears filling his eyes when he opened his main present from Mummy and Daddy;  My Pixie Princess, the last one up on Christmas Day, fetching herself downstairs and wishing us 'Merry Christmas!'.  Beloved Son and Heir taking over the cooking of Christmas Dinner - awesome! and then thrashing me at Scrabble.  Watching my darling daughter-in-law's face light up as her children rampaged through the presents taking as much, if not more, pleasure in their reactions as in her own gifts.  

I also made an interesting discovery during their stay.  The Tale Telling baton has been passed down the generations.  I used to be the storyteller, entertaining people with silly stories, dark deeds and the more pleasant memories of youth.  It was my job to make people laugh, to inform and to please.   (You don't have to be Freud to work that one out).  And I was successful too - a natural communicator, complete with actions and accents, a Gemini strength.  We were at my best friend's house and I suddenly became aware that my Beloved Son and Heir was taking the lead on the storytelling and I was content to let him do so.  I then realised that Bestest Boy Ben too had always been a dramatic teller of tales and my Pixie Princess shows the same talent.  I realised that I was pleased with this development:  I no longer have confidence in the way I look when I speak and prefer to communicate via the screen where no-one can see me.  So I am glad the Tale Telling baton is in safe hands.

I have had a wonderful Christmas, one I will never forget.  My soul is full and my grin muscle hurts.  I keep rewinding the video in my head replaying events and I will still be finding things in unexpected places throughout the new year.  It is true that I cried when they left:  it is harder and harder each time to let them go but meandering through my memories of our week together will sustain me during the endless grey days of January. 

May the Angels of hope and peace walk with us as we travel through the New Year.
Love and Peace
THE Purple Fairy xxx