Sometimes.. I hate being a girl.

To all the girls out there, do you get this too?

When mother nature gives you your monthly gift, do you feel this bad or even worse?

• So this morning, as I was in the shower, I almost passed out and had to sit on the floor for a little while, and as I was washing my hair, I had to stop and sit down with my bathroom door open to cool down.
• I then had to open my bedroom window and lay down in bed, before managing to put anything other than a towel on.
• I sleep, like all day. I physically cannot do anything more than microwave a previously cooked meal and just sit or lay down all day.
• Cramps put me off having children, if period cramps are this severe that I almost pass out, how will I give birth?
• I don't like taking medication much, so I try other ways to soothe myself.
• Eating is too strenuous. I have two bites of breakfast, drink some water then fall asleep.
• The furthest I can walk is from my bed to my door, luckily at university I have an en-suite.
• Going to the kitchen is a milestone I have to pass every few hours to re-fill a water bottle and have dinner.
• You know how cramps are always there, but sometimes they come on stronger suddenly? I breathe as if I am in labour because it hurts too much as I double over in pain.

All this makes me wish that I was back home just for this part of the month so that my mum can look after me and my dog will comfort me. The only revision I can manage today is to listen to the recordings of my lectures on repeat, even as I doze off.

Unconditional love,
Cazzie x

Family

Most people have someone in their family that they are close to, whether they live with them or not. For me, I'm close to my mum and my sister (In another blog she calls herself Iris, so I will use that name for her too). I never used to be, but now my sister and I realised that we have common interests, we go to various cities together on days out, and we sit and watch anime and japanese dramas together. My mother never used to be so understanding, but after I moved out (the first time) she realised that I wasn't going to take anymore shit from her, and she got extremely upset over it, but also noticed that I won't let people push me around. I am my own person, and nobody will stop me from being just that.

As you may or may not know, my family is a little... dysfunctional, shall we say? I had a foster sister who now lives somewhere in this country, away from us with her 'proper' family. My father left when I was two years old, long before Iris was born. I have an older half sister on my father's side living in a different country. My other older half brother and half sister live somewhere else in this town, so they weren't really around as I grew up. Then my youngest half sister lives in the south coast. That's about an hour drive away, so I only see her when she visits Dad. That's just my immediate family. I have an uncle that never spoke to my mum for the fist ten years of my life, and a little before that too. And her other brother doesn't really associate himself too often, so I now see my uncles on rare family get-togethers.

My cousins are a different story. I was really close to one of them as a young child, but she's a lot older than me, starting a family and I haven't seen her in about two years. Her two sisters barely ever spoke to me. Three cousins who I barely know anymore... Now the uncle that didn't speak to my mum for a long time? He also has two daughters, and I barely know them. All I do know is that they are pretty, have long term partners and have successful jobs. I don't see them either.

I only started thinking about this last night when a friend of mine was telling me how he and his little cousin are really close, and do almost everything together. He described them as 'like father and daughter' which I found strange and would say they are more like siblings. Then on Facebook just now, a picture came up on my timeline saying that cousins are our first childhood friends and that cousins will always be close. Unfortunately that's no the case for me. I seem to hate most of my family, and if I don't hate them, I don't feel anything for them. My uncles and cousins are more like acquaintances.

My mum has a cousin who lives to hours away from us. This is where things get positive :) She has a son and daughter, which makes us second cousins or something? Anyway, I'm pretty close to the two of them, and as we are similar in age, they only thing that stops us being so close is the distance. One of them is John, from another blog post, and in the magpie story, I named him Aaron. Even though we may not see each other regularly, when we do meet up, it's like we were never apart. Like a true family.

So as you can see, my family isn't exactly normal. But without them, I would probably be a different person.

So, this one time at Band Camp...

I remember when I was really little, it was around the time my little sister was being born. I must have been younger than three and it's one of my earliest memories.

I was at the hospital, either wandering around, on my way to see my mum, or a nurse had told me to follow her. Either way my 'vision' starts with me looking up at a nurse while she hands me a little reindeer. She says something about one being for me and another for my sister. I then run off really happy carrying two little soft toys.

That's it. That's all I remember. I think about this every year on my sister's birthday, which is not long before Christmas.