I had a run in with another blogger last week. I don't know why, but I wanted to address something she was sharing every single day on her blog on a forum and had no way of communicating as I didn't have her email address so I thought I would comment on her blog.
She basically ripped into me and said I was ranting and why don't I share my opinions and beliefs on my own blog. Well I replied I already have two blogs would you like to see them? No reply.
Huh. Well seems like her blog seemed just a way of getting peoples attention then. It had the title 'I married my Dad' for starters. I did not understand why someone would be foolish enough to do that, but there are these types of people in the world who aren't willing to face reality that maybe, just maybe it's not a good idea to marry the first person who asks you. And if they are abusive, not only to is it dangerous to have them around your children and not do anything about it, like report their crimes to the Police you might have to face up to some responsibility in life rather than keep expecting your other half to change.
I thought maybe the people that would appear on Oprah and talk shows like Sally Jessy Raphael existed after all and weren't making these stories up. Perhaps I should have asked Judge Judy to get on to them for being stoopid?
My talk show title would be 'Mum drives me nuts' but then, I cannot do the shame and humiliation thing by confronting her on national television. But I can do the shame and humiliation thing by gardening. Because basically, since mum drives me nuts I have nowhere to go but outside in the garden where she can't yell or gaslight me lest the neighbours are disturbed and report me to CATT team again. What is the CATT team? I hear you ask. Well if you've never experienced mental illness than be blessed you will never have to know.
And if by chance you think you are going insane, well you heard it from this ranting bloggers mouth that I have found gardening is a way to keep your sanity. Even when your Mum thinks the front yard ought to be turned into a carpark for the car she doesn't have and never driven. I was horrified and told her maybe she ought to go back to Hong Kong and live in an apartment. Where the buildings are taller than the non existing trees so nothing will ever drop on her roof as they have no roofs. Or Australia where it is desert. But of course you can't tell your own mother things like this unless she is really driving you nuts.
On Waitangi Day as nobody had invited me to a bbq (hint hint) I could not escape Mum again on the warpath, this time she ripped into the coprosma, the mugwort, and harangued me into removing one helichyrsum petiolare. The furry plant had grown 2 metres high and spilled over the buxus threatening to engulf anyone passing by. She also said my garden was untidy and that she would rather have it all groundcover. But, on the good side she also got the back neighbours to remove their privet tree that hangs over the back of our fence with a chainsaw. (Mum, mercifully did not operate the chainsaw).
Thankfully I managed to get a reprieve by going back to work in other people's gardens the next day. See I can do something right, after all, except my boss thinks I should also weed at the same time as removing a green bin load of cineraria AND not get the concrete path dirty even when the ground is wet by the time he gets back to boss me around. Like I have six arms or something and am petrol driven.
However all is forgiven because I found a white abutilon chinese lantern and sedum 'Autumn Joy' at the Warehouse today and have planted them, and that makes me happy. And the empty buxus bed is now planted with extra swan plants, a sage, daisy, geranium and wormwood that I found around the garden. And thanks to gardening I never ever have to see a psychiatrist again. Besides, all they will tell you is to 'get a boyfriend' so you can have someone else to blame for your woes, I suspect. Or marry your dad. The last boyfriend I had ended up in rehab, so that didn't work out too well. Thank God for the Sallies. And Rotoroa Island.
Selina does not suffer any mental illness. She just gardens.
