Appointment and my sister

The cold and sore throat are getting worse - just what I didn't want! Woke up feeling very croaky, and have had a streaming nose all day. Also had a splitting headache, I think as a result of congestion. Distinctly unimpressed with this situation. I am just hoping that as it is only Tuesday it will all have cleared up and I will be absolutely fine by the weekend. I don't want to make an idiot out of myself in front of lots of people. Must steam every day. Didn't today - that was naughty. I don't really like doing it, so I tend to put it off, but I think it helps so I must. Ditto the nasty throat lozenges. I have a show rehearsal tomorrow but I am planning to tell them that I can't sing. Which means it is pretty pointless me going really as it is primarily a singing rehearsal, but never mind. It looks better to turn up, even if I can't sing. And I have to be in town anyway because I have ballet as well. It is another one of those crazy nights where I am supposed to be two places at once. In fact, that is every Wednesday from now on. I always have ballet from 7:30 until 8:30, but I now also have rehearsals from now until March from 7:30 until 10. Since I sadly don't have a time turner a la Harry Potter stylee, this means missing one, and since I am the lead in the show, it is going to be rare that I can get out of rehearsal. I am going to have to tell my ballet teacher that I will only be able to do Monday classes after Christmas until the end of March, which she will not be impressed about, as I was supposed to be doing an exam at Easter. But there is nothing I can do about it. I will go to ballet when I can on a Wednesday, but I don't think that will be very often - strangely enough production teams tend to like their leading ladies to be at rehearsals. I also have an appointment with my GP tomorrow, just to make things even trickier time wise. I have no idea why I booked it for a Wednesday - that was a very daft idea.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I went to see the new film this evening with my mum. It was good. Better than the other films. Although there is a possibility I just think that because I have read Deathly Hallows less times than the other books, and therefore didn't notice any changes as much, but I did think it was better than the other films. I think splitting it into two was a good move - the film of Half Blood Prince was crazy, because you just cannot fit a 600 page book into a 2 and a half hour film and expect it to work. If I hadn't read the book I think I would have been utterly confused throughout that film. At one point tonight I had to really fight back the tears - they were in my eyes, but I knew that if I started crying it would be completely uncontrollable sobbing, in the way that it was when I watched Charlotte's Web a couple of months ago, and I kind of wanted to avoid hysterics in the cinema. Why is it that people dying in films doesn't upset me, but animals or creatures of some description dying can make me inconsolable? That seems to be the wrong way round really....

I saw L earlier. It went ok. I think we had cleared up quite a lot of things already via email, so it didn't really feel awkward. We talked a bit about what had happened, although we didn't dwell on it too much, as I think that would have been fairly pointless. I think the basic conclusion was that yes, she did let me down somewhat, as she didn't react in the way that she ordinarily would, but I know there were reasons behind it, and I can understand why she wasn't available for me in the usual way under the circumstances. And I think it is actually quite important for me to realise that a) nobody is perfect, and people always will let me down, however much I think of them and rely on them, and b) that relationships can be repaired - even if you are really upset about something and have been really hurt, that doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be the end of that relationship. You can work through things. I suppose it has kind of been a lesson in black and white thinking - people aren't either amazing or useless with nothing in between, and one thing going wrong doesn't have to signify the end of an entire relationship. And I think they are important things to try and remember. Not that I will remember them of course - the next time someone lets me down I will be distraught and never want to speak to them again. But hopefully over time I can learn.

My sister is unrelenting in her hatred for me. She really is very immature. Obviously there was the deleting me from Facebook incident. She hasn't been to our house since it all happened, apart from when I haven't been here. She hasn't phoned the house - she has only phoned my mum on her mobile. Then she blanked me when I did see her the other day. Then today I sent her a text saying 'What would the boys like for Christmas? Is there anything in particular that they want/need?' and got a reply saying 'No thankyou. Don't bother.' I replied saying 'Well I will obviously bother. I just wondered if they wanted anything in particular' but I didn't get a reply to that. And this is all because I found it too much to look after my nephew an afternoon a week. Whilst I can see that inconvenienced her, I still don't feel like I was being unreasonable, and I did do it for half a term, with only two days warning at the start - it wasn't like it was something I had offered or been asked to do in advance, and had agreed to. It was thrust upon me at the last minute when other arrangements didn't work out, and I was never once asked if I was ok with doing it - it was just expected that I would because he was my nephew. I do love my nephews, but at the same time I don't really like children much, and I find being around them for too long difficult, and I find having responsibility for them very hard. I can do it when I am not feeling too bad, but when I am not doing well it is well beyond me. I have repeatedly said that I wouldn't mind doing it occasionally if there were problems with the usual arrangements, but that I just cannot commit to doing it every week. Last week for example, I was in a complete and utter state on Thursday - I was feeling very suicidal, I had cancelled my appointment with L and was then regretting it immensely, I felt ill from taking too many tablets overnight on Wednesday, I was crying uncontrollably, and I was just a complete mess. There is no way I was in a fit state to look after a 5 year old boy. And that happens sometimes. And what am I supposed to do if he gets dropped off here and I am in that position? I could not look after him. I wouldn't feel safe being in charge of him. I wouldn't want him left with anyone who was in the kind of place emotionally that I was last week - I would absolutely not leave him with someone who I didn't think was in a fit state to look after him, and it is no different if it is me looking after him. It would have been irresponsible of me to try and look after an energetic 5 year old boy when I was feeling like that. I do get quite out of control when I am that distressed, and I wouldn't have been able to cover it up, and he shouldn't have to go through that. But that is besides the point really. I just think my sister should be mature enough to accept that I don't feel able to commit to looking after him every week and move on from that - not hold a grudge like this and refuse to speak to me.