Baby's back

Well, yesterday, Oisin returned after university. After 3 long but short years. He has returned triumphant, with a full life, with a suitcase of memories and a first class degree in Finance and Business Management. We chatted and discussed everything on the ferry, my son is a wonderful conversationalist. He is filled with excitement, determination and trepidation of the future. I remember thinking, what now? After university. I don't know what's next, except that I did, in the end. After university, the civil service. 

We laughed and joked, and we reminisced and discussed everything. I had gone from Belfast to Norwich and back again in the space of 48 hours. I had helped to clean and cart, feed and in the end, I was there to say goodbye. Endings are harder than beginnings. It is easy to start something. To end it with finesse and dignity and honour. That is difficult. And I helped Oisin end this. I did. 

Then we got into the car at 3 am and began driving. Around Sleaford, Oisin said he was going to bed. He hadn't slept now for 48 hours. I said, go ahead, and turned on the radio. The sun was starting to come up over the fields of wheat that stretched on either side, and the song which came on was Ordinary World by Duran Duran. And everything, my gorgeous son here, completed his university with such great valour, the beautiful light, my life and everything within it, even my car, my trusty, faithful car which has taken me all these years down the roads I have traveled. I was overcome by gratitude. And something in me melted. Something I hadn't even noticed was a block within. The need to prove myself, that was over. As the sun rose, that strange spectre faded. I have nothing to show anyone anymore. I am done, I am complete. That element, that part of myself, dissolved and I was left with the world as I saw it. 

Thank you, thank you, I said - to no one, to every thing. To the entire cosmos which had brought me here. This transcendent moment. Simon le Bon's voice trembled 

Papers in the roadside

Tell of suffering and greed

Fear today, forgot tomorrow

Ooh, here besides the news

Of holy war and holy need

Ours is just a little sorrowed talk

And I don't cry for yesterday

There's an ordinary world

Somehow I have to find

And as I try to make my way

To the ordinary world

I will learn to survive

And everything is as it should be. All the effort I put into everything - I have acquit myself responsibly. The line has been drawn and my son has returned. I carried this one over the line safely. We were talking about paths chosen. As we looked out of the magnificent window of the Stena line, Oisin said, it is like a sci-fi film. This planet of water. I said, really, how blessed are we? And people still want to go to MARS??? They can go. I said, do you know that William Shatner, Captain Kirk went into Space with Space X. He thought that he would be excited to be in the stars. Instead he felt so sad. He saw the little blue ball, our planet, teeming with life, and he said I did not expect space to feel so alone and our planet so fragile. It was then I realised I had made a huge mistake. We had not looked after the Earth. We had destroyed it. 

Imagine being so idiotic that you need to go to space to see that?

I said, I think this planet is doomed Oisin, but for me the important thing is that I know I really... what is my favourite phrase? I tried my best. I tried my best to make sure that i did what I could when I could. I fought on the side of the angels. Even if I did lose. I did what I could.

Yes of course, I have made mistakes, but in the long run, if you tally things up, I did good. I was not a selfish piece of shite. Unlike other idiots up the road. The idiot who gambles with the lives of others. The way he tried to gamble with mine and I refused every step of the way. And I also refused to allow him to do so with the children. No, you will not do that for as long as I can help it.

Oisin told me, I am a bit worried that we are taking such a long trip and the baby might arrive when we are there. Nothing changes. Nothing changes. The only thing that has changed is that my SON, the 22-year old, is more mature and more thoughtful than this man-child. Plus, he said, there is too much travelling. Once again a pissing contest - needless one. Especially given the return to Norwich for the graduation... it was insane. But of course,.. well.. typical. And travelling by air at this time of the year? Idiotic. But that's the the way it is. The way of things.

However, none of that matters. My first parcel, carried safely across this chapter of his life. Now for the next one. 

Right cleaning today...

Hoover house : 1.5 hours, maybe less.

Clean toilets: 2 hours, maybe less

Clean kitchen: 1 hour, maybe more

Tomorrow, all the admin things for the house. Yes. and maybe some school moving.