Calm

It is late evening on Boxing day. The fire is tickling away in the hearth and there is the soft hum of contented breathing as we slow our festive pace.
My head feels a little less content. I am fearful of tomorrow because it means real life, something these past three days have been an escape from. It means revision I don't want to do for exams I dread to sit for a future I don't want to happen.
Tomorrow morning I have to get up, put on clothes and do real things. I have to go into town and I have to laboriously write history notes and I have to tidy my room and get out of this fantasy of lethargic warmth I have been entranced by.
In my head, it means the end of total relaxation until the twenty-fourth of December, two thousand and seventeen.
Don't the dates look intimidating when written in that protracted fashion.
I can't allow myself to do nothing on any other day than the joyous festive period.
That's probably something I need to work on.

Here's three simple questions with three(?) simple answers.
Leave your answers too.

Something that makes you sad
Seeing the weighted bags under my beloved mother's eyes as she tries harder and harder to repel the demons that trick her mind
The way I don't allow my aching body time to rest, unless it is officially identified by an over commercialised, anonymous holiday
The end of cranberry sauce for another year

Something that makes you smile
My luck, privilege and fortune, the freedom and peace of an illuminated morning sky
New sweatshirts

Something you wish to achieve
More calm and more zen in my overdriving mind
An acceptance with who and what I am without the need to push harder and harder
Confidence about the future

*the questions came from here
**the pic above is the view I woke up to on Christmas day. I know.

Festive Decs

In between the MADNESS of the past few weeks, I have been trying to get festive. The main element of that was these super super adorable decorations I made. We have a massive branch in our backroom that has fairy lights woven through it and lil birds hanging off it and these clay emblems look great.
They were inspired by The Lovely Drawer.

SO here's how:
I used:
Das clay (it looks grey but dries white I promise)
Cookie letter imprints (I ordered these from Amazon, super cheap and work a dream, but keep them in a zip lock bag bc there are loads of small pieces)
Round cookie cutters
Rolling pin
Red twine

All I did was roll and cut out the clay, imprint the letters (it takes a lotta practise), make a hole and leave them to dry.
There are many lil tricks that make them look neater, most of which I haven't mastered but I think you have to press the letters a lot harder than you think and the smoother the clay the better.

I've hung some on the tree but also posted some to friends-I'm thinking of making labels for my presents out of them too-the possibilities are endless.

GAhhd, I'm feeling so festive-can't wait to get school over so I can read my book and watch Christmas films and wear my pjs all day.
Christmas holidays are always the busiest, with the actual day, the preparation, seeing family and revision (ew) but I'm trying my hardest to breathe.

enough

bruised bones, curled on a chair,
tapping relentlessly, senselessly,
battling the padded wall of doubt
to get my thoughts into words.

my mind, ripped in two
aching to drift across the sea to a foreign land
to discover the remedy that ignites the
dulling fire in my belly

but also anchored, grounded in fear
the paralysing fear of failure,
whispering a repulsive slur of
patriarchal stagnation soothingly into my ear

you are not enough
you will never be enough
and my mind dotingly laps it up


***
(the bruises are metaphorical for stress idk)