Karen’s Journal: Seeing my mama on my birthday was the best present I could have wished for

Karen – a familiar face here at The New Futures Project – started keeping a diary late last year having agreed to share it with us, our supporters and the wider community.

Karen – not her real name – is 44 and in poor but improving health, chiefly as a result of drug and alcohol use.

She loves dropping into the project to catch up with friends and, more recently, has become a committed and enthusiastic volunteer here.

Here, with characteristic humour and candour, she looks back over the past few weeks, the highlight of which was hosting her mum for a long-awaited birthday visit.

July 2024 (part 2):

So, I’ve been poorly for the past week.

I didn’t get out of bed Sunday and Monday and only got up on Tuesday because I was volunteering at The New Futures Project again.

The way I looked at it was ‘I’m going to feel ill if I’m at home or at the project – and I don’t want to let them down!’.

Then I went straight home to bed.

It was G’s birthday, (Ed: G is Karen’s close friend), and I got him the best present ever. A present money can’t buy – Covid.

How nice am I? 

Well, they say ‘caring is sharing’. I don’t think he’s seeing the funny side of it though.

So, it’s the middle of July now and I’m having a road trip to go and pick up my mama – it’s 110 miles each way.

She’s coming up to stay for a couple of weeks. I can’t wait.

I took her with me to New Futures for the first time today. She had a load of clothes to donate to the project’s clothing bank too.

It was so nice showing her round and introducing her to everyone. 

I asked my mum what she thought about New Futures and her exact words were: ‘It’s like a family’.

For my mama to say that after just a few hours at the project shows just how much the caring atmosphere here shows.

So, it’s a few days later now and I realised something about myself today – I am a horrible person sometimes.

I was supposed to take my dad out but instead I had him at mine. You might not know it, but preparing your house for someone with dementia is crazy.

You have to move everything. It’s like having a toddler in the house.

To make matters worse, we got up late, so it was a mad dash to tidy up and I am a horrible stress-head.

I don’t know why I do what I do. I get nasty. I shout and bite people’s heads off – and I shouldn’t!

What is wrong with me? I will work on it.

So, it’s my birthday. 44 years young.

It was amazing. I got woken by my mama with a card and present.

Just the fact that she was there was the greatest present I could ask for.

I’ve always been a mama’s girl and she lives more than 100 miles away – so I don’t get to spend much time with her these days.

I say she lives 100 miles away but it was me who decided to move 100 miles away from my home town 10 years ago.

But guess what…..well that’s another story. Ha ha ha.

So back to my birthday. 

Me and mum went into town and had a look around the shops, had a McDonalds and then spent the evening watching a film and playing games.

It was great, the most I’d laughed in years.

I found the old board game Guess Who?.

You have a board with 20 people (10 men and 10 women) and you pick out a person each at the start and have to guess by process of elimination who the other person has picked.

So you take turns guessing, asking questions like ‘is your person male?’. If that’s correct then all the women characters are flipped down. 

Do they all wear glasses? If yes then all the ones not wearing glasses go too. 

Have they got earrings etc?… You get my drift.

Each time my mum couldn’t grasp the concept we both laughed and laughed.

I eliminated all of the people apart from one who, if all had gone to plan, should have been the person my mum had picked at the beginning.

Well, it wasn’t.

I looked and her person had blonde hair, so I said: ‘Mum. I asked you if they had blonde hair and you said they didn’t’.

She said: ‘Oh, I thought it was brown.’

OMG! What fun though. Then she said ‘Do you want to play another game?’.

No!

We watched the movie The Green Mile. Great film.

So, another year older. It’s now two days later and today is my daughter’s 6th birthday. (Ed: Karen has a daughter with whom she hopes to be reunited one day)

I know she is having an amazing day. I miss her so much, but it is one year closer to us being reunited.

I dream about the day we are back together again.

I am not letting situations affect me in a negative way now – as in the past.

I was so depressed and my health was very bad. With all the people taking advantage of me I was in a bad place and saw everything as negative.

So now I’m putting out positive vibes because positivity attracts positivity and the same thing is true with negativity.

One step at a time.

So that’s July. Stay tuned for August.

Contact The New Futures Project on 0116 251 0803 or send us a message at: info@new-futures.org.uk

You can find us at 71 London Road, Leicester, LE2 0PE.

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