Life, at the risk of sounding self indulgent and more than a little self pitying can best be described in the title above. At least for the time being and that’s ok with me. Comfortably numb sits comfortably.
I have loved this amazing song for many years but, you will forgive me if I defer to the Scissor Sisters version and the soothing warbles of Jake Shears than the sanctimonious, anti-Zionist (read anti-Semitic no matter what he may say) Roger Waters opus.
It’s a song I have sang along and danced to in the past. Briefly thinking on the lyrics only in so far as much as trying to remember them for appalling, impromptu karaoke.
But of late, they are strangely soothing and a fitting discourse of this time in our lives.
Urban Dictionary’s top definition: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Comfortably%20Numb
Doesn’t that describe the perfect “safe” place? Removed from the sharp stabs of real life, set apart from the disappointments, the difficulties, the knocks and the scrapes. And if that is so, then comparibly the edges dulled off the fun, frivolity, light and laughter?
Does this make me melancholy? I do not think so. Does it make me less able to participate, share, enjoy? Perhaps. Nonetheless I will gladly settle for this numbness. There is little that can surprise me or scare me in this half life. It allows me to maintain a sense of glass half full.
I realised on our journey to hospital this morning that my benchmark for stress, nerves and worry is very different to what it once was.
Not to take away from any parent/carer watching their loved ones suffer or go through scary, frightening procedures but this is our norm. Different child, different hospital but largely the same.
Did I appear to the nursing staff cold, unfeeling? The soft “are you alright Mum?” after the anaesthetic had been administered and my not so little boy’s head gently laid back upon the bed, a kiss on his still baby-soft skin , barely registered. I was dry-eyed and calm. I have walked this walk, talked this talk more times than I can recall. Is that admission in itself shameful? Should I know, unbidden, which child, what number anaesthetic? Why?
I find myself waiting, pausing for a beat, attuned for updates. News of medical tests, results, tribunals, social care, and so forth; the envelopes received with post-marks from various hospitals, the no caller ID flashing up on my mobile, the ping of an email: I am both strangely alert – a cat on hot bricks and yet not really surprised by the lack of information. I’m a bit bored of it all. Blanketed by ennui.
So for now I will embrace the numbness, float along. The bumps are smoothed out. Temperate but equally obdurate. 
Definitely Not The Walton's.... 