Escape rooms and the wonder of Shithead
Finding meaning where you least expect
Not a Round Robin ❤️
As 2024 beckons, I started constructing an ‘end of year’ piece in my head, to talk about things of note in my life in the last year, accompanied with instagram reel and fabulously aligned music (to be selected)…but it suddenly felt slightly too ‘Christmas Round Robin’ letter for me. Also, I’ll be honest, I plain ran out of time. (Mostly because I wanted to find the right photos to accompany it, and with my obsessive photo taking that would have meant trawling through 80 000 pictures in the period I just wanted to be with my family, eating cheese, and playing board games - which we did in abundance).
The instagram reel will have to remain in my head.
[Interestingly, in that serendipitous way that the world works, as I came to that decision, and mulled upon my love/hate relationship with social media, this brilliant piece by popped into my consciousness - well worth a read].
So as we brace ourselves to enter January, I sit here with my tea on my lap (resisting comments on the size of my lap post-Christmas), and find myself reflecting on what really brought me meaning this year, with no instagram reel in sight.
I wasn’t going to post at all, as this may likely drown amidst the plethora of ‘end-of-year’ round-ups, but I believe that those who need to read it, will find it, even if that is just the members of my family - and that is more than enough.
Us four
We are very lucky in my little unit of four - me, Himself, Fiver & Taz - that we all get on very well, and there is not a lot of conflict in our house. We don’t quite live on Waltons Mountain (although Fiver and I did do a good couple of days of embroidery over Christmas - stay with me, reader…), but there is very little shouting in our house, for which I am truly grateful. There is plenty of bickering, snatches of sniping; there are groans and grumbles, teenage mumbles; the odd flounce and trounce and world record amounts of eye-rolling; but overridingly there is a lot of laughter, and a lot of love.
And we are at our best when we come together.
When we bounce off each other in passing, we can leave the abrasions of our distinctly different personalities, but when we come together - on holidays, or rare combined down times at home (he and I didn’t have Christmas off together for 11 years when we were both shift workers) - the abrasions soften, and we become part of a bigger whole. I am going to resist reassuring you that we have our tough times, our difficulties, our sadnesses, our mental and physical health complexities, because of course we do; but that is not what this piece is about, this is a reflection upon where things work, and where I find my own meaning within it.
A couple of activities have really highlighted for me what it is that works to unite us, as I ponder our ever-evolving whole - 3 girls and a boy, 2 adults and 2 teenagers, 4 humans with different neurodiversities…
1. Escape rooms
Over the last couple of weeks, amidst the turkey, cheese, insane amount of sausages, sherry and crisps, we have played a LOT of games, and having a particular love for escape rooms, we managed to break out of the Twixtmas fog, actually get dressed (real footwear and everything), and headed out to do an escape room for real. Whether we do them virtually, online, escape rooms in an envelope, or real ones, we all get involved in an extraordinary and unique way. We have found something that unlocks our collective magic, and that has made me ponder how and why it does.
Apologies for the unedited poor quality photos - #keepingitreal folks. There was no insta lighting kit to hand 🤣 (as if I actually have any).
When we first open the door to a room (virtual or actual), we all don certain facets of our personalities - the ones that sit on the surface, the obvious ones. I start by being slightly overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin, so I step back and oversee, whilst simultaneously absorbing everything and nothing. Holding the room, holding the individuals, finding my place. Himself goes into mechanical mode - safe opening, lock picking, code cracking, puzzle placing. Taz starts tugging at things, overturning things, searching, getting bored and moving on, and Fiver quietly finds something to settle her anxious mind on, noticing the small things that no-one else does. Gradually our four disparate ways of being come together. As time runs out and the tension ramps up, we don’t fragment, instead we unite, knowing we will only manage it as a collective (which is, after all, how the games are designed).
We share observations, reassure each other, admit individual defeat and pass a task on, we ask for help. We talk, we celebrate what each other has discovered, and through that process…
…we escape…in so many ways.
2. Shithead
The second thing that we have spent a lot of time doing this week, in fact this month, year, and lifetime, is playing cards.
Wherever we are in the world, we always, but always bring (and buy) a pack of cards - whether it’s ‘Thirty Ones’ as taught by our Scottish family, ‘Hearts’ passed down from my Irish mum’, ‘Go Fish’ when we haven’t got much brain capacity, or our beloved ‘Shithead’, we spend hours doing this together.
There is no game in the world like Shithead - trust me, look it up. The premise being you don’t want to be the last one left - the titular Shithead. It’s not about winning in this game, it’s about not losing. It’s funny, challenging, needs a blend of skill and luck, and really works from the ages of 9 to 90 - although when Taz & Fiver were little we did call it ‘Poohead’. We’re good parents like that.
Himself and I met for the first time in the smoking room of air traffic control college whilst playing ‘Shithead’ - a story so romantic it was relayed at our wedding. We have taught friends and relatives the game and we have played it all over the world. It’s one of those games that when you mention it, people’s eyes light up as they know it too!!
For us it brings out our mischievous sides: when to be kind, and when to be wicked. Who to stitch up and who to help…and then the tables turn. And turn they do. It’s fast, hilarious, addictive and smart. It’s something that when one of us suggests playing, everyone says yes - that NEVER happens with any other medium. Someone always won’t want to watch a film, or go for a walk, or do whatever is proposed, but play Shithead? - we are all in.
So what does it mean?
I notice how our ways of being are represented in micro when we play these games. How our allegiances chop and change during the ‘game’, how we feign dismay at being stitched up, but then re-form and dish out the same to another - whilst making sure it is evenly spread. How we navigate the human conditions of loyalty, betrayal, peril and hope. How at the heart of it, we are there for each other no matter what.
As we continually expand and contract different parts of our beings, I consider what has happened in the past year for us as individuals:
Momentous life milestones for Fiver - passing GCSEs, falling in love, high school prom, going to college, getting a job, learning to drive. Delicately managing her growing maturity of thought and awareness of adult life with her unique blend of dreams, anticipation and terror.
Taz unleashing her own incredible force on the world at that delicate cusp of young adulthood - bearing the responsibility of expectation as she competes in Europe in gymnastics, feeling the pang of first heartbreak and the bittersweet wonder of teenage friendships. Travelling abroad without us for her sport, whilst still nervously navigating her first solo train ride into London. Precariously treading the line between beer and sweets.
Himself becoming ever more integral in the world of Search & Rescue - active at the Turkey Earthquakes where 11 were rescued, and the devastating floods in Malawi where hundreds were rescued in a story that didn’t even make the news because…?? Training all over the world to be ‘ready’ for conditions that may take him up mountains, into caves, through rubble, into searing heat or freezing cold, into flowing water, or the driest dust. About to go to the Arctic Circle where he’ll be sleeping in a ‘fox hole’ in just a sleeping bag. Living a parallel life that none of us will ever really comprehend, whilst simultaneously managing the impacts of ageing, and living in a way that requires shifts lasting days on end and existing on whatever food he can grab in a moment - and you can be sure it ain’t gonna be a vegetable. His calm demeanour belying unspoken worries about his fatigue, the cough he’s had for over ten years, the lack of exercise that comes with the lifestyle and varying levels of morale. All the while bringing into our home a feeling of safety and security that is beyond priceless.
And then there’s me. Curiously observing it all, in quiet awe. Managing the unseen behind the scenes, along with menopause and the rollercoaster of chronic illness - but not in a martyrly way I hasten to add - they all pull their weight. They have to - I cannot do it all.
Domestically, Taz is assigned ‘bathroom’ because she can put her headphones on and complete something very defined and contained without distraction. She is, however, completely shit at hoovering as she just faintly wafts the hoover over a central space without moving anything, and it interferes with her music listening. Fiver delights at surface cleaning and hoovering everything to within an inch of its life. Taking particular pleasure in ‘raking’ the sofa with her favourite attachment. Henry Hoover’s throaty rumble often heard in her own bedroom post 11pm at night lest any hairs have nestled on her fluffy rug. Himself - sorting, folding, emptying, making piles, clearing clutter. Compartmentalising, compartmentalising, compartmentalising…putting things in boxes and putting them away… (hmm, now there’s one to explore).
Life imitating life.
I take the overall picture, and fill in the gaps. Existing in macro and micro, in all my guises. Directing the process, assigning roles, trying to manage my uncontainable brain.
And when I have my moments where I feel ‘what do I add to this?’, ‘what have I done this year?’, ‘what is the point of me?’ - sometimes existentially, sometimes more literally (as we all do as we get older), I know that being this melding force behind it all is where my strength lies. Being here. Being present for the 4pm daily emotional download clinic, being reassuring when one of our unit is in a disaster zone, making crisp sandwiches when none of us can be arsed to cook, saying ‘fuck it’ when I know one of the girls needs a day off school to be in a blanket. Embedding the familiarity of comforting Sundays with a roast dinner. Continuing traditions and creating new ones. Booking an escape room when we need to escape from our individual scenes, and come back into our montage.
What’s in a year?
The end of year post that began in my head was going to reflect on the 3 things that are on paper my ‘achievements’, as having left my sharply defined air traffic career to enter the deeply nebulous world of writing, I felt the need to try and make something tangible of it - and came up with these:
finishing my first book
And whilst these things did all happen, and they are HUGE for me, and I am so deeply proud (I’m not going to pretend I’m not), they are things that have been enabled for me by the way that we live our lives at home. By the way we mould around each other. By how we ebb and flow, and by their belief in me, in equal measures to mine in them.
This is about how I get to go away to a residential library and write chapters a couple of times a year, and how I come home to manage his integration in and out of the household - gently balancing their tears over a lost mascara alongside his undoubted suppressed PTSD of working in disaster zones. How he makes me dinner every night he’s home and wraps me in a blanket when I’m unwell; and how I listen, and love, and keep us all on track.
How Fiver sits me down when I’m panicking and paralysed with overwhelm and softly gets me to write a list, and just do one thing on it; and how I make her tea and hold her without questioning ‘what have you got to be anxious about?’, when her eyes are the size of dinner plates as her fear of the world threatens to consume her. How we roll our eyes in synch as we ‘co-parent’ the other two who generally act like five-year-olds when together.
How Taz stops me in my tracks, hugs me with all her strength, tells me things will be ok and gives me a foot rub; and how we talk and I really listen in the endless car journeys to and from the gym, absorbing her hot tears of frustration at life, herself, and everything. How we sometimes have sleepovers where we lie there giggling like teenagers for no discernible reason, sharing the sweets we both love.
How we make tea.
How we make each other laugh, so so much.
How we believe in each other - no matter what each of us decides to do.
As I reflect on my year, and wonder what 2024 will bring, it is in the the curled up, weathered and yellowed edges of our montage that I find my peace.
I wish you a very Happy New Year, and may your 2024 bring you everything you hope for. Be kind to yourself when things don’t go to plan, and every now and then stop to consider what really brings you meaning and contentment. You may be surprised what you find.
Love & lemons 💕🍋
Em xx
Shit head is absolutely our go to card game as a family!
What a beautiful rumination on togetherness, separateness and love, Emma. I enjoyed every word. x