rotten

the c word

christmas is now officially over, thank goodness. i mean i loved it, but i'm exhausted. on 23rd i visited m and it was lovely; if you leave out the drive there, when i was sure i was gonna die. the amount of snow was INSANE and the blizzard seemed to be neverending. when i left it took me over 40 minutes to clean my car - i had to keep doing it over and over again, as it was snowing so much all the time. there was some sort of an accident pretty close to here, and after that the drive was just one suuuper slow queue. it was fine though, felt safer that way as the visibility was pretty much non-existent. i made it to my destination with some mcdonald's, and we had a nice time just chatting. i told m about the situation with L & p, and me possibly having a crush of some kind. she talked to me about her godchildren being sucked into some weird-ass fundamentalist christian movement and her L's insane thoughts about the ukraine war, russian propaganda and our own country's politics. so yeah, light subjects, lmao.

ok my step dad is watching the news again and it's fucking distracting. i really hate his habit of watching / listening to at least ten news broadcasts every day - all the news suck, the whole world is mad as rabbits, everyone's dying and everything is pure shit. why on earth do you need to hear about the details a hundred times a day?? it makes me sick. now there was talk about the right-wing parties wanting to join up to form the next government, and i swear... i'll either leave the country or straight up hang myself if someone lets PS into the government. it still baffles me that they're allowed to be an actual, official party, even if none of them have brains. i've almost accepted the fact that KOK will be the most voted for in this spring's election, but i'm still hoping for a miracle. i really, really, really don't wanna live in a country where KOK and PS have the most influence, it's already bad enough... there's also news about putin being putin and vietnam preparing for war, so. yay. also a prediction of a new refugee crisis in europe - apparently there's a lot of movement already (idk if it's just me here going "ummm when did the movement ever stop...?" but oh well). it's truly fucked up how differently everyone reacted to (mostly) white ukranians fleeing the war all of our countries still keep silently supporting vs. the refugees from the mideast. ughhhh i can't think about this now, not after being forced to listen to the news. i wonder if it's normal to be this ...sensitive? idk if that's the right word but my desperation and hatred for humankind always goes from 0 to 100 when i hear -- well, basically anything about the world. okay the story about panda bears playing in the snow was nice, but other than that... i simply don't wanna be here. 'here' being this planet, this life. please let me leave, okay?

anyway, on 23rd i visited m and it was lovely. i didn't die on my way there, she had prepared many of my favorite snacks which was really sweet, her parents were happy to see me and her dad didn't insist on praying for me or prophesying over me, so that was nice too. xmas eve was relaxed and nice, the least stress in YEARS. i think not having my sister involved really helped, lol. i don't mean to be mean, it's just that she always has to make such a fuss about everything, especially christmas. it's kinda sad too, really, since after our parents divorced she clearly took the role of kinda being the 'home-maker' of the family, or especially the christmas-maker, if that makes sense. each year she did her best so things would be exactly as they were in our childhood, she tried to do everything exactly like dad used to. i think she mostly did it for me - or at least that's what i think she told herself even if in reality it was all for her - and only having her own kid has made her realize that i'm an actual adult now, not her responsibility - and that i haven't really cared about christmas, or the details of it, since 2006. i'm glad she's had a to fuss over and about for some years now, but she still gets pretty bent over about the logistics and crap, and everyone else tends to get more stressed so she wouldn't. anyway, this year was a bliss compared to many others. i hadn't really put any thought into the whole christmas and somehow that made it feel more like christmas than it has in years, y'know, that magical "christmas feeling"? i slept okayish the night before and woke up in time to have the rice porridge ready before the declaration of christmas peace - which, again, i thought too much about. do other countries have anything similar? i can't be bothered to google it. ok i probs will at some point because unanswered questions make my brain itchy, but not rn... i watched 'the snowman' with my morning coffee and it made me ridiculously happy, as it does every single year. me and my mum cleaned the kitchen and put up some decorations, my step dad brought our tree from the church. mum had gone a bit coo-coo in the store and bought almost everything we usually have on christmas. she'd even bought a ham, which i of course felt bad about. too much piggy propaganda, i guess. or just enough, depends on how you look at it. we had salmon (both oven baked and cold smoked), potatoes, mushroom salad, peas, pickles, beets, sour cream, meatballs, cheeses, and all the casseroles; potato, carrot, sweade and sweet potato. the only things we didn't have that we usually do was rosolli, and... actually, i think that's it, lol. and some beverages; we only had red wine, kvass and vichy. usually we have white wine, coke, black apple soda and julmust too. anyway, it was still excessive and more than what was needed, yet obviously i loved it. we had no stress and everything was nice and peaceful. there were no gifts and no dessert, we just hung out and watched tv.

the following night i got no sleep, and on christmas day my parents went to visit my stepdad's eldest son's family. i took an after-morning-coffee-nap with w and then we went for a walk. i watched some 'emily in paris', some youtuve videos, some tv, and feasted on the leftovers of last night's dinner. took w for another walk and made a nest on the couch. all in all, a lovely little day. in the evening i was about to take a shower and have a little something to eat when i just fell asleep - what a blessing it always is when that happens. i woke up very early in the morning though, but it was okay, i still got some sleep in. on 26th, the 'boxing day' as i believe it's called in english, we finally had our family christmas dinner. my sister still managed to make a little bit of a fuss with the food and what everyone was gonna bring, but all in all, everything went fine. me and my mum drove to my place to drop w off, stopped at CM for some last minute gifts, and then went to my brother's. our little L was a bit ill, maybe because of teething, and s was occupied with her the entire time. but it was okay - me and mum enjoyed busying ourselves in the kitchen. a and e got along really well and did their best when left on their own - they are so effing cute both of them, i love those kiddos. i got many hugs and kisses. we prepared everything while hanging out, had dinner, and after that i went to walk w. when i got back we opened some gifts. i got some candy from my mum, and snacks, a 1000 piece puzzle, a toilet bag and a soft-reflector-bag-charm-thingy from my sister. jo & s said they'd like to participate in something *more expensive* if there was something i needed but hesitated to get because of the money - that'll probably be new glasses, if i ever get around to buying them... and if i can get an extension on the KELA voucher. we'll see. anyway, it was really nice of them! that's it for christmas gifts this year, although i'll probably get something from my grandma when i visit her on the 29th. which, i now realize, is my step dad's birthday. hmmmm, should i bake him something? maybe i'll discuss it with mum tomorrow. i had planned on asking my godmother if she was home on the 29th so i could've visited her too, but perhaps next time. i think gran will expect me to spend the entire day there. she said my aunt and her man will be stopping by as well, so that's nice. all my favorite relatives, yay! i know that sounds sarcastic but i'm actually serious. at least from my dad's side, lmao. and while on the topic of my dad, he called me. on christmas eve i think it was. he was a bit drunk but not too much, the things he said mostly made sense. some of it was a bit mean and uncalled for, but i survived. his voice broke down in the end again, and he told me he had some health issues... i should really go down there to see him sometimes. i just hope i can get one of my siblings and their kid(s) with me so that he'll have a reason to be sober - i can't take the drunken complaining if it's happening live, and i have a feeling there's still some family secrets i don't want to hear either.

anyway. christmas is over. after we left my brother's, we stayed the night at my place. i slept for like 12 hours - it's a fucking christmas miracle! that's like a week's sleep in one night, holy fuuuuck. we drove my brother and e to e's doctors appointment, went to get coffee and look at some frames at an optician (didn't result to anything though, i was way too tired and we didn't have the time either). we drove them home and s made coffee for my mum - who took it to-go: she poured it into an empty (0%) christmas beer bottle with some oatmilk, lmao. it looked rather funny when she was sipping it behind the wheel on our way back. # just my mum things, definitely. i made an ig story about it and people found it amusing, hahah. ...talking about ig, k just messaged me implying something even worse has happened with L & p last night, but hasn't replied when i messaged her back. should i be frightened? i should, shouldn't i. their relationship is so toxic it makes me nauseous, especially when i think about their kids. but god darn it, what can i do? if they refuse to see it and there's nothing bad or substantial enough to report to like child protective services etc., i really don't know what i could do. i've tried talking to them, hasn't helped. maybe i'll try and brainstorm with k. ok, this took a bit of a dark turn, but i guess that's life. anyway, tomorrow i'm planning on doing absolutely nothing, and right now i'm gonna go to sleep, so. farewell for now.