I am not afraid.

Much.
It is 2 sleeps and then halloween, the excitement is so high it is making my bowels a bot wobbly. At church today there were too many people a bit giddy about the party. SO MANY! You know when you have a great idea and then it grows and its thrilling and suddenly. IT IS ALMOST HERE.
Last week not many school friends had RSVPd, numbers were lovely but fine for our house. The phone is of the hookish, people are calling and saying WHOOHOOO OOO we'll be there, Sophie even invited a little boy and his mum at the store the other day, she was weepingly touched, they are on holiday and were buying his outfit, she said that he was so excited but where should she take him...OUR HOUSE, come on Harry.....you're welcome. And he is.
I am thrilled with the response but afraid. Kind of. Most of the kids ( and I am too scared to actually count) are aged between 3 and 6. THREE AND SIX. If I let my shaky brain do a rough sort of quick estimate without making it bash itself against my skull in an effort to escape, I can tell you that probably there will be 40 forty under 7s. HELP ME.

I have loads for them to do and eat.....the doing stuff is messy, they will love that. The eating stuff is full of colouring and sugar, their parents will hate that. They will be here for an hour and a half , that's not long is it? Decorate cookies and cup cakes, eat ring doughnuts and marshmallows from string..go home. I can do it. I think. We will be very squished but that's ok because if they are squished they can't run and jump......maybe H's costume will terrify the noise out of them and they will all just stare in silence.
I think a lot of parents are staying, that's good.
We then have teenagers coming at 6.30, not so sure what to do with them, they will be carving pumpkins and they might actually think the doughnut thing is funny especially if we squirt the doughnuts with cream. HA HA. They will be in the black light room with Max's scarey music and noises.
I lost my camera on wednesday, one of those things that is so monumentally horrible that I daren't think about it until last night when at 1 am it seemed just the right time to walk up the road in my pyjamas to see if it had fallen out of my bag into the car. No. It hadn't.
I found it today though, a child had posted it behind my lamp table, wedged it right down the back.. but the thoroughly cleaning me is coming back to so when I pulled it all out to find what else had been posted ( cranberries, baby wipes and empty cereal bar wrappers, thankyou very much) there was my camera, so happy to see me, I think it smiled and told me it missed me , ( or that could be my brain farting telling me things that aren't true) and I gave it a polish and told it I was just as happy to see it and that it was in for a photographic treat on tuesday. Sigh of relief all 'round.
Since I stopped my medication, my poor brian ( I love it when I type Brian instead of brain, snorty kind of snigger every time I do it) is sort of farting, it's trying so hard to kick back into reality, it is thinking things and remembering feelings but getting it all so muddled. I lose my keys and then find them but lose 17 other things that I put down while trying to find the keys, I have no idea what anyone is called anymore, even my kids.
Quite touching that the thrill of actually caring that I lost something is so great that I spend almost all my days laughing at how stupid I am. Marvellous, am mad, but all on my own, no medication needed to make ME lose the plot, clever me, who'd have thought it possible?

Actually, I am able to see, again, just like I used to, that people like me. Isn't that great?
I can talk to people and let them touch me and hug me and not cringe and wish they would talk to that lady over there or even the dog over the road but not horrid me. I like myself and can truly see that other people do too. Better than a new car that is. My soul sings when someone wants to hug me, it really does. I don't even care if they feel my squishy belly because it's a nice belly and comfy.
I can go out ( even in the evening, heck) and can sit in a group and laugh, I even monopolised the room last week, took centre stage, LOOK AT ME!! LISTEN TO ME!! I AM HERE!!
I missed that, more than I can ever express, show off me, funny me, center stage Helen. Welcome back.
Its only 2 weeks til I go to London and see Marilyn and I can actually see that by the time I get there I will be ready to have some serious fun. I won't be afraid ..it will even be hysterical if ( when ) we get lost on the tube and end up in Clapham instead of Covent garden.
I sort of feel, that despite all the odds, the real me is still in there somewhere. The sadness squashed it for so long, then the medication squashed the sadness, everything squashed and pinned down, forgotten or subdued. How incredible that it didn't get destroyed though, it is right there, in all its splendid glory. The real me. Hooray.

So...bring it on. The lot of it, 40 kids under 7, a whole house full of other peoples' teenagers, the parents, the mess and the noise. Most of all bring on the fun, as much as it is possible to fit into this terraced old house and may the walls hold onto it because I am not afraid, not even a little bit.
Oh and guess what...WE HAVE A SMOKE MACHINE!! Oh yes we do.