Opening Party - 14/03/20

Tonight there was a party at the Entertainment Complex at the Holiday Park. Obviously my children were very excited about this and were desperate to attend. My husband had arranged a get together at the house with some of his friends from his course as an end of placement/early birthday celebration. This meant that he was unable to come with me to the party. This has been a huge worry to me over the past week or so for a number of reasons.

My primary concern was that the children didn't miss out so I knew I had to face my fear of going out without R to support me. I also had the added pressure of feeling anxious about there being people I don't know in our house and having no control over what state the house is in. This caused a huge mix of emotions ranging from sadness around the reality of this separation meaning that the house is no longer my home and I therefore have no say in what happens in it, to frustration around the fact that R has low standards of cleanliness and almost no sense of pride in his home or understanding of the importance of this. I also felt hurt by the fact that he insisted he had cleaned and tidied for their arrival and is now keen to tackle the house as a priority. I can't help wondering why this wasn't a priority when I was insisting the state of the house was destroying our marriage?!

As with any social outing I also had many worries about how I would actually get through the evening, what would be required of me, how the children would behave, how long it would go on for, what it would cost, what I would wear and much more besides!

The good news is that my lovely friend T agreed to come with me despite having her own fears around social events. We agreed that it was a good chance for both of us to face our fears together and that we would set ourselves an hour as the minimum time we would stay for. It turned out that we stayed much longer than that, more like 2 and a half hours in all! What an achievement for us?! I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would and had liked having a chance to get dressed up and put makeup on. T was brilliant and survived the experience which made me so proud of her, particularly as this was something she went out of her comfort zone to do in order to help me which is such a lovely thing for her to do. I am so grateful for her kindness and friendship tonight.

The children enjoyed some singing and dancing and the hot buffet was great. I treated myself to a fruit cider which thankfully lasted me the whole night. I gave the children some one pound each for the 2p machines in the arcade which they loved. We didn't have any luck whatsoever with the raffle (which went on forever!) but it gave us all something to focus on and an obvious end point once it had finished. When we returned to the caravan after waving T off, the children and I took some selfies and it is clear to see that we all had a really good time!