Am I Still Ill?

My name’s Ezra, and tho’ I don’t really like being referred to her as her ‘latest squeeze’ I am sure she has some good reason for doing so.

I respect the fact that she is older with greater life experience, so I don’t try to control her too much, except when I think she could benefit.

Meeting her Mum on Sunday was her idea, and I went along and didn’t resist because she hasn’t led me wrong so far. I am an arrogant and confident person by nature, so I don’t suffer too much with self-doubt and lack of confidence, so I felt OK about the prospect. Obviously I took some care over how I presented myself that morning, dressing in clothes that would make me appear least threatening or strange to a la middle class white lady in her eighties.

Louise (who you know as Zoe) sat me down to look at her family photo album with her so I would feel a bit more prepared. That was interesting. I didn’t know these people and I didn’t know the places where they lived and which they frequented, anymore than Louise would know about Gambia (where my dad has lived for many years), Jamaica, Dominica or anything much about the culture in which I grew up.

Me and Louise’s Mum hit it off pretty well. I genuinely enjoyed talking to her, we had a few laughs and I felt pretty relaxed. Louise’s son even phoned up in the course of the proceedings and spoke to both his mum and grandmother, and his input seemed pretty helpful  and to be uplifting for them both.

Louise told me it would be an adventure, and she does enjoy adventures…she isn’t really cut out for a predictable routine. Well, haha, she was right about that! We had a few extremely bizarre and unusual incidents in the course of the day. I don’t feel like going into too much detail right now but it will certainly give me some stories to tell the grandkids lol.

Even though the journey on public transport was pretty stressful for Louise in her currently somewhat hyper state and the day was not without its challenges, I felt we did the right thing going and it was a successful day. It yielded some good results, the most important of which was that we were able to set Louise’s mum’s mind at rest about the kind of person who was now sharing her life.

Amicable relations and at least some level of trust are now reestablished between Louise and her Mum and we all stand to benefit from that as they have historically been very close and are a big part of each other’s lives. The fact that her son also reestablished contact after several months of remaining incommunicado, was a real bonus. Louise’s mum unselfishly prepared us a delicious meal even though she herself didn’t feel like eating.

We arrived back home in one piece finally and felt we had achieved a lot in the course of a day. Louise has good instincts when it comes to people especially her near and dear ones, and they proved to be spot on on this occasion I must admit. It felt good to be tentatively accepted by the family generally…well put it this way, at least they were not exactly hostile.

Her Mum was less hard on me than she was on Louise actually tell the truth. She seemed pretty convinced that I, unlike some of Louise’s previous ‘squeezes’, am of fairly sound mind and have a reasonably good understanding of her needs. I am also genuinely qualified to supply at least most of the basic ones. I even studied Health and Social Care to Level 3 quite recently!

So that’s Louise’s assessment of my experience….no I didn’t write this…Louise is bored of talking about herself all the time and thought she would have a go at getting inside someone else’s head lol. It’s all good.