Christmas Stress II

The next day I woke up much too early, but on the uncomfortable sofa-bed of my Mum I couldn’t sleep well. She was already awake and in the kitchen, and prepared a small breakfast for me. She was happy because I would pass the whole day and half of the next day with her, so she wanted to do some things. At first, I had to help her with her laptop, as usual – she could use it for reading the news or chatting in Facebook, but anyway, there were so many things she didn’t even understand when I tried to explain them to her. So I preferred to take her computer and do those things by myself, because it was to exhausting to explain everything and to have to do it by myself anyway. So she was cleaning the kitchen while I was cleaning her laptop, and when we had both finished we planned for the rest of the day. She wasn’t living far away from the city centre, so I had a shower and got ready for leaving the house. It had become even colder outside than the days before, but fortunately I had returned to my apartment and gotten some warmer clothes. Even if the way to the city centre was short, it would be cold anyway. We finally left the house and it took us about 20 minutes to reach the shopping zone of the village. It isn’t a very famous place and there are no fancy shops like Victoria’s Secret for example, but H&M and some other nice stores where you can find cheap clothes, especially during Sales. So we spent a lot of time looking for some nice winter clothes, books and other “very important” things, before we finally returned to my Mum’s house. As I hadn’t slept a lot since I had arrived in Germany, I took a nap in the living room while my Mum started to prepare my favourite dish as lunch – lasagne. I woke up from the smell of the almost-ready Italian dish and watched a bit German TV. Even if during the five months I had gotten use to Spanish TV, I was very happy to see something I understood at 100% and without subtitles. Furthermore, in the time between Christmas and New Year there were quite good movies at television. Blockbusters and nice animated movies (not just for children!) that remind me of my childhood – I had always loved to watch funny children’s movies with my Dad because he liked them, too, and we laughed a lot together. But at the moment I had to watch them alone, so it was only half that funny, but still okay. Finally, lunch was ready and I enjoyed it so much! I had never tried to cook the lasagne with the recipe of my Mum, because I knew that it would not taste like hers, and so it was nonsense to try. But from time to time one of my friends visits me and we cook things like lasagne or other pasta dishes together. They are not like my Mum’s, but still good and a bit different.

So after lunch there wasn’t a lot to do and the weather had changed – it was raining and snowing now and really ugly outside. We shortly went to the supermarket and I helped my Mum buying things for the next days. It was better to do it this day than the New Year’s Eve because the grocery shops usually closed at 14:00 that day and everybody was in panic and afraid to starve during the 36 hours without a possibility to buy things to eat and drink. In order to avoid that chaos, we went the day before where most of the other people still had to work and couldn’t go shopping in the early afternoon. After having brought all the things upstairs to the third floor, I did some updates for my laptop (it was urgent already, because I couldn’t do it in Tenerife and it was 5 months ago that I had done any update) and organised my things. I would go to my Dad the next day because we would visit that New Year’s Gala together, so I had to see what I would need and what I could leave at my Mum’s place until the 2nd of January. I didn’t like that I always had to plan so much and to think of what to bring and what to leave and I was looking forward to February when I would return to Germany and have my own apartment again. But for the moment I tried to enjoy all the time with my friends and my family, and – even more, I was looking forward to that New Year’s Gala. I didn’t dress up very often, but as it was long time ago that I had done that, I was really looking forward to wear that beautiful long dress and high heels, and let my hair be done by Dad’s girlfriend. So I had packed almost all the important things and went back to the living room, to pass the rest of the day with my Mum in front of the TV. When she finally had to do something else I watched some episodes of the Big Bang Theory via DVD before we decided to go out for dinner. We got ready and went back to the city centre (this time by car, because after sunset it was really, really cold) to a nice Greek restaurant. I had already been there once, and we had chosen this one, because I couldn’t see any more Italian or Spanish food. We had a great dinner and I could hardly move when I tried to drive the car back to my Mum’s place. We watched some more TV before we went to bed, and I was looking forward to the next day, even if time was passing by so quickly, and I didn’t know if my Mum would make any problems regarding my New Year’s Gala that I would attend with my Dad and not with her – she would spend the evening at the house of the new neighbours and with her boyfriend, and I didn’t know them, so I had preferred to go with my Dad. Furthermore, he had already bought a ticket for me, and it was 43 euros. So even if my Mum would have a problem with my absence that evening, I would not change my plans. Not even thinking of the dress I bought just for this special event.

So the following day – I finally could sleep a bit better, I woke up and went to the kitchen to have breakfast. My Mum was behaving a bit weird, but I was tired and I just ignored it. I went to the living room to watch some TV and she asked me what I wanted to have for lunch. I told her that she could cook whatever she wanted, so she finally decided to simply warm up the rest of the lasagne. After lunch I told her that I would leave soon to get to my Dad and that I would come back to her the next day in the late afternoon. She was a bit sad and started to discuss with me that I should actually spend New Year’s Eve with her and not with my Dad which was absolutely nonsense, as I had spent that night with her for almost my whole life, and not with my Dad for about 4 years now. As always, she didn’t see the point why I was right, so she just started to cry a bit in order to let me think that I was the bad one. But I knew that game already, so I just packed all my things and left. I know that that sounds quite hard and cold by me, but there’s no other solution when my Mum is behaving like that. I drove the 10 minutes way to my Dad and could finally relax a bit. We had a coffee and talked about outfit and plans for the evening. After one hour of TV, my Dad’s girlfriend told me that we should start to get ready now – I was shocked, there were still more than four hours until we would have to go to the Gala! But she wanted to curl my hair, so I took a chair, went with her to the bathroom and let her do my hair. She had worked as coiffeur before, so she was really talented in relation to hair and style, and I would have never achieved a hairstyle like the one she did for me in only about one hour. Even if I didn’t wear any dress or makeup yet I couldn’t stop taking pictures and looking into the mirror. I was very curious to see how it would look like later on when I had finished dressing and makeup and everything. But I didn’t want to put on everything right now because there was still some time until we had to get ready. So I just sat down at the sofa next to my Dad, watching TV and eating some small snacks, while Dad’s girlfriend was getting ready, too.

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