THE GALLERY Me, Then and Now

Sorry for my usual "slow on the uptake" (she says imagining the mass of shaking heads agreeing that I am indeed a lazy cow), but Tara at Sticky Fingers has been asking the Blogsphere to submit pictures for a widespread gallery, and each week its a different topic. 

This weeks is Me, so here's mine.

Meet Claire, aged 18. She's on her way to her sisters actual 15th birthday party, but due to the club its being held in being for over 18s, her party is for her 19th. Making her a year older than me, but three years younger. 

This is quite a tame look for Claire, her Dad refused to take a photo of her in the full outfit of wings and wand, and silly shoes with 8 inch wedge heels.

Later that evening she will get in a trolley with her mates, and ride it down a steep, busy roaded hill. She, unlike two of her mates, will not fall out on the way down, but will feel more alive than she ever has as she makes it down in one piece. But in true tradition of her disbraxia, she will catch aforementioned wedge heel in the trolley seat and fall out, chipping her tooth on the pavement, and wake up at 4pm the same day with a mouth that looks like its been spanked by Mike Tyson. Nothing unusual, so her other friends, the real ones, wont ask. They've learned not to, so they wont worry even more than they already do.

Two weeks later, her life changed for ever, but she didn't know it at the time.

Meet Claire, with the reason why her life changed, or the root cause of it anyway. She may not dress quite as outrageously as she once did. She also can no longer drink silly amounts of alcohol, but on the odd time she manages to drink 3 glasses of wine, she does still engage in silly activities such as jumping on a trampette in a maxi dress, before going indoors to change the song and forgetting the trampette is right by the back door in the dark, and falling over it.

Here she is just before she nearly lost everything. She has been feeling pretty down for a while, but wont admit it. She makes silly decisions that affect everyone around her. But she works out, finally, what is important to her, and does everything to claw it all back. 

Meet Claire, the Mummy with her two reasons for being here and sorting her life out finally. For admitting that sometimes she does need help, and its not a disgraceful thing to admit it. She is happy, not perhaps 100%, more like 97%, but its getting there, and its stuff she can control. She will tell people who matter how she feels if she's not happy, and if there is something bugging her, she wont just let it stew, she will discuss it with those involved. She loves her children very much, and sometimes can't believe she is a Mummy, surely she is not responsible enough? But nope, she is, and she's cool.