Challenges met

Today, for the first time, I did not dwell on school (with all the associated guilt) throughout the day. Instead I managed to go and make decisions, choosing two new planters (one a trough for patio vegetables and the other a beautiful deep blue strawberry pot) and strawberries and pansies at a local garden centre. I planted up the strawberry pot and another pot with said strawberry plants and look forward to them cropping prolifically! I put some (by no means all!) of the pansies into four wall pots we own, which have stood empty of plants for some years. And I felt pleased with what I achieved - and dismayed, if I am honest, by the physical trembling which resulted.
Then I did the rather chaotic collection of children - made more chaotic by the fact that elder daughter was 40 minutes late back from her trip- and took both to school, where younger daughter was participating in the school play, Bugsy Malone. I managed to sit in the staff room and have fairly coherent conversations with only one really rocky moment where someone (completely unitentionally) put their foot in it). That did shake me, triggering as it did all my defectiveness feelings. But I survived. I also survived sitting in a hall full of parents and pupils and watching the play. True, that too was not without its decidedly dodgy moments, but I survived it. I escaped during the speeches, before all the children did, for which I was very thankful. I did it all without the aid of valium.
Now I am indulging in a glass of wine, and then to wrap E's birthday presents for tomorrow and go to bed.