It’s time. I might start a new blog, I haven’t quite decided. There are a couple of projects kicking around in my head and one of those might turn blogwards. I don’t know. But as of now, I’m leaving MFTS to gather internet dust.
Thanks to my readers. Always a privilege to get something down and have anyone take the time to read it.
Happy new year, y’all!
x
I’m taking the opportunity of all this unaccustomed time I have at the moment to try to learn some new habits. One of the activities my CBT coach got me to do when my anxiety was at its worst was to create a weekly timetable and then evaluate how I felt about what I did in each time slot. I rated from 0-10 for Achievement and from 0-10 for Enjoyment.
Probably unsurprisingly after so many years at work, where I was rated almost entirely on what I got done, I am very task focused. So with my weekly timetable, task after task was an achievement, but nothing was particularly enjoyable. If anyone is feeling that their life is a little, or a lot, off balance, I’d recommend trying that rating exercise, by the way.
Somewhere along the way I developed the attitude that anything enjoyable should be pushed to the fringes of life. Fine to do when the chores are done, but not stuff that can take priority. I am a tidy, organised, control freak anyway and I think my previously frenetic working life exacerbated these tendencies. Life really did become all work.
But the chores are never done and they never will be. I’m learning that that’s ok, and I’m deliberately trying to create more balance by forcing myself not to do things. One way to do that is to focus on just doing one thing at a time. So I started by just listening to a podcast. Then just listening to the radio. Like a lot of people, I think, I’ve tended to use the radio as background noise. But I can’t work or read with background noise, and now I’m not driving much I’m missing shows that I liked.
No one thinks it’s weird to sit down and watch TV for a couple of hours. But who these days sits down to give the radio their full attention? I started by settling myself in with a pot of coffee one Saturday morning and listening to Saturday Live on R4. To start with, it felt strange and twitchy. I had to keep reminding myself that this was what I was supposed to be doing with the time. I reached repeatedly for my phone, and then put it down again as I realised I was about to start multi-tasking. I made myself stay still, and I listened to the whole programme. Then I got on with my usual day, but feeling calmer and more grounded. I noticed that my entire day seemed to run more slowly and comfortably.
Mid-week and I listened to a podcast about Louis MacNeice’s Autumn Journal. It’s long been my favourite poem and this show included Samuel West reading parts of it aloud – absolute bliss. I dug out my copy of the poem to take to bed with me, and over the next couple of nights I read the whole thing aloud to myself. Sunday morning brought The Archers omnibus and ok, I did a bit of a Tweetalong as well. But that was less a distraction and more a shared experience. It’s not as if The Archers is always very interesting – there are whole storylines that are dull as blocked culvert water. So allowing myself to be bored for a couple of minutes becomes part of the experience as well.
I like this slowing down and paying attention. Everything that needs to happen still happens. But, taking one thing at a time smoothes the rhythm of the day and makes everything more enjoyable.
With a bit more time on my hands and a newly minted library card, I’ve been getting through a handful of novels a week lately. The downside of being dependent on the library is that I’m on the long, slow-moving list for the latest Galbraith, Rankin, Pat Barker, Sarah Perry and some others. I tried to add Tana French’s The Wych Elm but it’s not even published here yet, I think the US got it first. I’m simply steering clear of bookshops because my resolve will almost certainly crack.
But the positive is that I can take a punt on novels I’m not sure about or that are quite short. Full price, but c.300 page books are those that I’m least likely to buy, regardless of reviews, because they’ll be gone in an afternoon. If I can drop them back to the library a day or so later, then it doesn’t matter. Mostly, these experiments have worked out well.
In no particular order, here’s a bit of a round up,
Books I’ve loved
So Much Life Left Over – Louis de Bernieres. It’s the sequel to The Dust that Falls from Dreams, which I have on audio and could not get through. But, L de B was on Simon Mayo’s Books of the Year podcast and this sounded great so I grabbed it and tore through it. Now I’ve gone back to TDTFFD.
Priestdaddy – Patricia Lockwood. I remember seeing loads of reviews of this when it came out, but it never got as far as my TBR list. It’s a really entertaining narration of the year or so Patricia and her husband moved back in with her parents while they were saving money. Her father is a Catholic priest (who converted after he was already married with kids) and an extreme character who prefers to spend his time at home in as little clothing as possible, often playing loud electric guitar.
How to be a Woman – Caitlin Moran. Because the older I get, and the more pissed off I get, the more interested I get in feminism. Particularly as we seem to be moving backwards as all the poor, under-appreciated white men start to feel threatened by absolutely anything that suggests that society might move shift in the direction of equality, thereby curtailing their god-given right to behave however the fuck they want towards women at all times. Did I mention getting more pissed off?
How to be a Woman is a collection of essays that interposes Moran’s tales of her own growing up with the current state of play, and what she learned along the way. And it is very fair, and very reasonable and entirely full of common sense. E.g. being pressured into make up or heels or fashionable clothing is all nonsense; of course women do not have to children to validate their existence. When I have got some money again, I will buy my own copy and carry it around with me at all times. And whenever things are bad I will open it at random and reflect on the wisdom within. It can be my personal tool for bibliomancy.
Uncommon Type – Tom Hanks. Which is his collection of short stories that you will already know about unless you’ve been under a rock, because they were rave reviewed everywhere. And justifiably so. Elegiac, touching, funny, sad, deftly written gems of stories. Plus lovely pictures of old typewriters.
Books that were meh
The Roanoke Girls – Amy Engel. Very much in the ‘give it a go’ category to start with, because I am so over these pseudo-thrillers with the twist or surprise ending. There wasn’t any surprise with this one and I feel as though I had read all its different elements about a dozen times before. Family mystery, missing girl, black sheep returns to home town to figure it all out and reconnects with old boyfriend who never got over her. See what I mean?
Fatal Inheritance – Rachel Rhys. So, to start with the title, the inheritance is not fatal. But I suppose Slightly Threatening Inheritance wasn’t as dramatic. Secondly, I can’t stand unbearably naive heroines who create problems for themselves by failing to say or do something any normal person would say or do. Thirdly, the fact that characters keep arguing as evidence of thinly disguised sexual tension only works if there is the slightest reason for one of them to fancy the other in the first place. Which is something else I also struggle with in respect to unbearably naive heroines.
Anyway, woman mysteriously inherits part share in house in south of France and escapes overbearing, dull husband to visit and try to find out why. Meets fellow inheritors and faithful family retainer, continues to dress badly and be unable to hold her drink but blossoms in sunshine etc. Dull, overbearing husband arrives to take her home (because she hasn’t bothered to communicate with him, so obvs.) and also to underline difference between grim home life in suburbs and glory of independent life in southern France. Mystery resolved.
Books that I abandoned/would have thrown across the room if it was my own copy
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock – Imogen Hermes Gowar. What an awesome name the author has. So this I just abandoned, can’t tell you how far in because I couldn’t be bothered to check. After Mr Hancock has got his mermaid back from the brothel, having been shocked by explicit goings on. I think he’d just sold it and decided to build houses in London with the money. Abandoned because I realised that at best I didn’t care about any of the characters, at worst I disliked them. And I’m not hugely interested in the details of the C19th whoring scene.
Honeymoon – Tina Seskis. Full on shoddy thriller territory, this one. Cuts back and forth in time, between a woman on her honeymoon on which her husband has gone missing, and her earlier dating life. What drives me nuts in this type of literature is the artificiality of the attempted suspense, created by really obviously hiding some information. In this instance, it’s the name of the husband that is dodged, which means that all the dialogue, including the internal dialogue, avoids mentioning his name. Clunk. This is in order to protect the part-way through reveal that the husband is, in fact, the brother of the guy she was dating! Gasp! Or rather, snore, because you can’t deliberately avoid a character’s name for that long without it being a massive red flag that you’re trying to fuck with the reader’s expectations.
Dunno what happened. Don’t care.
Way back when I first put the offer in on this house, before life proper blew up around me, I wrote about what I’d do when I lived on my own. So I thought I’d go back and see if I realised any of that particular fantasy.
But the main difference I’m seeing is not the living on my own, it’s the unexpected change of not working and therefore having so much more time. My dears, it is glorious. I can’t remember the last time I felt this relaxed and it may well be never, given that I’ve been working full time since 1994. It makes the fact that I’ll never be able to retire even more poignant, now that I’ve had a taste of what life could be like.
Of course, I am putting in a good few hours on my own business, but that is currently very flexible. At the moment, I prefer to start later, as a counterpoint to all those early mornings of the last few years. But I spend my time reading or baking or getting other chores done. I also find that I don’t mind working in the evening. I take a break from about 4pm – 7pm, so that I can go for a run, cook dinner, feed the cats and watch Strictly It Takes Two (yes, I am organising my life around Strictly. Because I can.) But then I don’t mind fitting in another couple of hours, particularly if it’s writing work.
Unfortunately, with all that extra time comes less money. But even that has an upside: necessity means that I’m cooking so much more and fortunately, I love a veggie casserole at this time of year. I’m baking my own bread or cakes too, so my grocery bill has plummeted. Over all, I’d say I’m eating less (the workday boredom doesn’t kick in and drive me to snack), but more healthily and for cheaper. I am driven not to waste the fresh ingredients I do have, and that pushes me to be more creative in what I’m cooking. It’s a matter of ‘What can I do with what I’ve got that needs using?’, but I enjoy that, and the knowledge that I’m being less wasteful.
And finally, it’s an absolute joy to spend so much time with the cats. In the seven years I’ve had them, I’ve always been away most of the time. They are older and calmer these days, and spend most of their days sleeping. But they come and find me several times a day, and Belle in particular likes to be nearby. Previously, it seemed that just when they wanted attention, I had to head out the door. Now, I can always stop and make time for them, so I do.
These halcyon days can’t last, because I must earn some money. I am gathering all the rosebuds I can right now.
Going from a salary of around £50k to around £0 is a bit of a shock to the system. Especially when you do that immediately after buying a house – not that my mortgage is any more expensive than rent was. I am fortunate in that I can afford to tide myself over for a few months, so I’m not really down-to-my-last-dime broke. But, I very really could be. Oddly, this situation is still a whole lot less anxiety-provoking than my last job was. As time goes on, I’m still unpacking how very damaging that was for me.
I have started my own business offering business coaching to small businesses and for a couple of weeks in, I think it’s ok? Some interest, anyway and I will keep pursuing that. But, I’m also still applying for jobs – full time, part time, anything I can get. Some money is better than no money and fortunately, I never thought I had a career in the first place so it’s not like I’m wedded to anything in particular.
And, inevitably, I have a budget and am suddenly very aware of where my money goes. I don’t have disposable income any more, so unavoidable costs like parking have to come out of money allocated for something else. Probably food, as that’s the one area really under my control that I can whittle down even further.
Other than the fact that having to sense check every purchase adds a lot more decision making to my days, it’s all ok. The luxuries just go, and I don’t really mind. I’m cooking and baking more, which I enjoy. Now that it’s Asda and Lidl rather than Sainsbos and Waitrose, why buy their crappy bread (and it is crappy) when I can bake a better loaf at home?
The interesting thing is with job applications, though. I’m used to being able to drive everywhere and not consider distance. But for a minimum wage part time job, I do have to take that into consideration because I could easily wipe out a most of a week’s earnings in petrol and parking. Or parking and bus fares. Or parking and train fares. So although part of me is thinking apply, apply, apply, that’s not actually realistic. Argh.
Well, all I can do is to keep chipping away at the problem. I won’t say ‘and hope something comes up’ because it’ll take more than wishful thinking!
It is safe to say that 2018 is not going down as one of my favourite years. But, I am mostly through all the stressful stuff and safely on the other side, and it’s a very different place to where I was in the first six months of the year. So I’m in retrospective mode, because you might as well learn when you get the chance.
The sit rep is that I finally moved into my own house nearly three weeks ago. I’ve got the cats back and they have settled in here more easily than I’ve known them settle anywhere. If anything, they’ve been more affectionate since I got them back, and Charlie is already back to his one mouse a day diet.
Today, I’m going to a business networking event to introduce myself as a ‘business coach and accountability partner’ (the LinkedIn version), which basically means ‘helping people get the right shit properly done’. I’ve done a couple of planning and prioritisation sessions with a business owner who is prepared to pay me for my time, mostly because the first session contributed directly to a big uptick in revenue for her business. I spy a case study! A few more of those and I’ve got an income…
I turned 47 last week, which seems a weird number to apply to myself but, ok. I still think, overall, this is a good time in my life.
So, what have I learned?
And, here we go. Into the last quarter of the year with a whole lot working in my favour. Maybe 2018 will redeem itself yet.
Well, shudder. Offer me London in the heat to join a huge crowd of people and I’d usually hide in a dark corner. But at the moment, if you’re a sane and normal person who doesn’t hate basically everyone who isn’t a Nazi or a dictator, then Trump is a lightning rod. One giant orange symbol standing for anti-climate change, anti-refugees, anti-immigration, Islamophobia, racism, sexism, lies, violence, bigotry of every stripe, misogyny… The list goes on and on, even longer than the march.
So, I was there. Not part of a Corbyn ‘rent a mob’ as the right wing gutter press will have it. No one offered to pay me and Corbyn is fucking useless. Just an individual, joining up with a lot of other individuals, because we’re really angry now and we’ve had enough.
People, and women in particular, are not supposed to be angry. Anger is so negative, so uncontrollable. But what, then are we allowed to feel? What is considered appropriate? Because I am angry about Brexit. I am angry about Trump. I am angry that May simpers at Trump (and for the love of all the gods, woman, find either a dress that fits or a fucking tailor. Michelle Obama could probably help if you ask nicely.) I am angry that we have no political leadership or opposition in this country, rendering me disenfranchised. I am angry that I wrote ‘we’ve had enough’, knowing full well that there is more to come and little to be done about it.
So I marched. Because, despite the rage and the fury, I’m not the sort of person who breaks windows or chains themselves to railings.
Yet.
