The things we miss

My grandfather is dying. He has cancer, it's spread, and his doctors say we have to wait to give him palliative treatments because he doesn't feel enough pain yet. My twisted sense of humor loves that sentence. My mother is nursing him for a couple of days. I can go to London in November during my holiday, but who knows if he will still be living at home then?

Nice summer.

I feel like calling people up and boring them with my sadness, but instead I bore my sister who is contractually obligated to listen to my moans. I feel like not going to work this morning. Stay in bed and eat crackers. Except I am still running a fever so this could be stupid.

I don't experience a lot of homesickness here in Berlin. I miss people...But I love living here. Yet these past few days I realise that I want to help out my mother, who after losing her mother is watching her father deteriorate every day. Nothing I can do for the moment. Except listen to her.

I'm grieving for my grandmother too. It's a summer of loss, but also a summer of fun, of meeting people, of dancing and of happiness.

It's never black or white.

So it really has been a nice summer. As well. As well as being a horrible one.

And I seem to have no more crackers left.

Salsa makes everything better

"WHO CARES HOW BAD YOU ARE. Life is too short to watch the others shake their hips while you get drunk on the side because you're shy."

Our salsa teacher is wonderful.

And I totally agree. The most satisfying moments of my life came when I decided not to care how bad I was at something and just enjoyed how I felt, how I moved, how I danced.

Letting go

I still have bursts of anger. They come without warning. I'm enjoying a cup of tea, reading a book (today, a hilarious tome debunking homeotherapy) and I just get this ball of churning anger inside me. I get angry so rarely that it's always a (disagreable) surprise when it occurs. I want to punch a wall. I want to smash windows. I want to punish people who get away with being horrible to others. As you can imagine, reading the newspaper is not advisable when I'm in this state.

I have several theories on why I get so angry. My hatred of confrontation makes me repress a lot of feelings. I suffer from depression and when I crawl out of it, anger is usually my first emotion, maybe because it's the opposite of depressive lethargy.

None of this really matters, except that I never know how to let go. I've tried breaking things, but this is only a very short-term solution. I've tried getting angry in front of people, but usually burst into tears, undermining the whole effect. I've tried writing long, psychotic letters or mails I don't send, but their baleful presence in my Draft box makes me feel terrible: small blobs of quivering irrationality, there, reminding me that I have lost my temper.

Running works sometimes. I also talk loudly to my imaginary target. This can get weird. I have no long term solution.

ANGER. I get so angry sometimes; I dream that I am a vigilante superhero and that I can find people and scare the stuffing out of them. Pf course, in these dreams I also ride a dinosaur to work. We're talking heavy realism, here.

If I ever get my hands on a decent superhero outfit, I may well do just that.

Office meltdown

I like my Kolleagues but lack of sleep + rain-induced headache= irritation.

I am so tired of the baby talk. All the time. Between the moans that they will never be "a young mother" because they are 25, and that having kids at 30 means you are an old mother (thus depriving your child of precious time in your company), I am thoroughly bored.

THEY JUDGE ME. All the time. Because I get annoyed when they go on and on about how old parents are terrible. "If your father were younger he wouldn't be sick and burden you."
Hmmm...perceptive and kind comment!

Because I say having children isn't fun all the time:
"You are so negative." No. I just think we shouldn't idealise motherhood and say it is a bed of roses 24/7. And yes, I find newborns boring. No, I won't apologise.

They keep making comments like "careers are less important than children."
To whom? To you? To me? Can't we agree that everyone is different? You know what? Maybe if men pulled their weight, if governments made paternal leave compulsory, there wouldn't be any discrimination against women of child-bearing age in the workplace! Let's talk about that instead of moralising.

I know I'm tired and cranky. I shouldn't bite their noses off, because they are sweet and helpful and bear with me, thus deserving a medal.



Note that I bore them quite as much: today's book was a historical essay on code-breaking and the submarine battles during the Second World War. I talked and bored.

Cool topic though.

Split identity

I'm reading a wonderful book for history nerds, called Masculinity and the middle-class Home in Victorian England. Part of why this book is so much fun is that the anxiety linked to the place of man in his family, his role as father and husband and his socio-economic rights is still very much a topic of thought and controversy.

I could quote the entire book, from the description of marital tasks, sexual mores and club culture in 19th century England, but this passage held particular meaning for me.

"The more alienating the employment, the greater the tendency to conduct life in separate compartments. The classic literary expression of this split comes in William Hale White's autobiographical novel, which draws on his own experience as a junior employee at Somerset House in the 1850s.

I cut off my office life from my life at home so completely that I was two selves. I was a great comfort to me to think the moment the clock struck seven that my second self died, and that my first self suffered nothing by having anything to do with it..."

Now that I have started working in a office, I understand this so completely. I feel like a split personality. It's the language thing as well. In German, I'm demure. I know no swear words. In French I am...different. Articulate. I love swearing in English. It doesn't feel real. So at the office I'm a slightly stupid, nice girl. At home I become me again.

I miss my family and friends most of all when I transition back to myself.

All in all, I wonder how many of us change drastically in the work place.

Done

I sent it this evening, while munching on some candy. I thought I would feel only relief, but instead I'm a bit sad. My paper is off to be judged and critiqued, and I put so much into it, so much energy and research and sleepless nights.
My poor little paper.


So...sleep. You know you're sleep-deprived when...

*you have the shakes and can't type anymore
*your boss asks you if you are ill and when you demur tells you that she knows a good family doctor. And then sends you his phone number by email. Twice.
*you fall asleep when you lean against a wall waiting for a bus.

Now onto some Berlin exploration!

I feel like I should celebrate, a bit, but I'll wait until my supervisor tells me it's shit. Or not.

In the meantime, this candy is really delicious.

My Playlist of Post-Work Bliss

In a few days I should be done. After not sleeping a lot for what seems like a couple of months. I want to see it all ship shape and done; and then I will reward myself handsomely.

Like writing acknowlegments, imagining what you will do after the writing-incarceration is the best part of it all.

The fact that I'm even writing this instead of a pithy paragraph all about Voltaire and his take on pre-revolutionary constitutionalism in the texts of Benezet GIBBERISH ALERT GIBBERISH proves I need a nap. But it's only ten in the evening and I have seven more hours of work ahead of me.

OK. SO...Here is my playlist of things I want to do:

*Read books not for work but for pleasure. I have some great German books to read, including all of Tucholsky's short stoires. I have some Murakami I'm dying to start. I have a Maria Callas bio I'm dying to finish. And now I have to read all Trapedo's work so I can catch up with my friend L's blog on women's lit.

*Sing. Sing a song. Sing it loud...sorry. I haven't had time to learn any new pieces since...six months? Frack the neighbours, I'm getting my Bach on.

*Enjoy my office job and not try to find places to nap. Note: it is impossible to find places to nap, but I'm still trying.

*Run; stop exclusively eating chocolate-covered things; brush my hair every evening, a hundred strokes, the way my grandmother did.

*Get lost on my bike in Berlin. Go to salsa classes. Meet new friends. Actually keep in touch with all my friends and answer postcards and mails with something other than SOSOBUSYTALKSOON.

*Enjoy the last days of summer. It's been raining so much here, I think it will stop as soon as I am done with this baby.

*Sleep. Sleep more. Sleep and then have brunch.

*Plan my wonderful November holiday.

I should get back to it...I have a few good reasons to finish it, as you can see...

What's on your playlist?

The Love-o-meter

My Kolleague is in a relationship that she just won't stop talking about.

It's pretty standard stuff: they met when she was eighteen, he was seventeen. They broke up a year ago, when he turned twenty-three.

"He told me he had fallen out of love. But isn't that normal after six years? You don't feel as passionate as you did?"

Finally after a couple of months he came back and now they live together. But he keeps telling her the most passive aggressive stuff, telling her he doesn't fancy her anymore, that she is letting herself go etc. Once, tired and not feeling tactful, I asked her point-blank why she was staying with him. The way she tells it (obviously with her own bias) makes it feel like he is trying to get her to break up with him. She is planning the wedding and the kids.

"I will never love anyone in that way. That's why I know he's the One."

She nibbles on a cookie. She looks at me.

"Have you ever felt that way?"

I tried to explain that there is no love-o-meter. If you are in love that is. Each love is different. Each relationship too. I asked her if she measures the love she felt for her friends.

"I don't have that many friends. I feel love is more important than friendship."

Again with the Love-o-meter.

This woman fascinates me. She is the incarnation of old-fashioned ideals. She just wants kids. No career. For her, jobs are just for money. He takes all the decisions; he is the more intelligent. I met the guy once and found him nice enough, but I wonder if he wants to get married. If he wants kids in 3 years. If he feels imprisoned. Why he came back.

"I sometimes feel we met too young. We're perfect for each other but if he had a bit more experience maybe he would want to get married more."

So those are my office lunches.

Hard

It's hard to write. You have to be strong enough to own the fact that you consider your voice important enough to be heard. You have to be brave enough to acknowledge that you may well be writing utter rubbish. You have to delve, dig and dig some more.

I'm so angry. So sad. So happy. So depressed.

It's like therapy.

Even if you're writing a historical essay.

So a lot of stuff is coming up. I want to let all those emotions wash over me, but right now I'm too busy. I want to curl up against you, feel your calm and let it seep through my troubles.

I'm very tired. I sometimes get the feeling that everyone hates me at the office. Or that my friends don't like me anymore. That you are so far away, that you'll never come back. That my heart will be broken all over again. That everyone in my family is sick or dying.

It all comes back to the little things: my daily talk with my sister. The smell of curry sausages in the street. The way women here look so beautiful without any makeup. The color of the sky when it falls asleep, Brahms' quintets. Reading about your lives, your experiences, you.

It's not always hard.

The rain is pelting down tonight and I feel all my layers melding together, strong, weak, tall, so tiny I could fit in a pocket, angry at the unfairness of the world, disgusted by my failings, elated, up down up down.

There is always that moment-I want someone else to do it-I want to be oblivious-I want you to tell me it's all right, I'm here baby.

And here I go. I'm running towards the goal.

Thank you.

Question

...How do you manage to have an office job and a family and hobbies? When do you sleep?

I'm working a normal 8h30-18h30 schedule at the office and it is killing me. I have to write all evening afterwards. I need at least an hour to quit feeling stressed.

How do you do with a family on top of that?

The levels of exhaustion must be insane.

Cheating

One of my best friends in the world, A, has known me since I was 10. She is amazing and delightful.

She is convinced my boyfriend is cheating/will be cheating on me.

This is very confusing to me. I discussed it with my sister who not only agreed with me but gave me some needed perspective.

I don't think my boyfriend is cheating on me, for the record. I'm troubled by the fact she is so adamant. She doesn't know him well, or know anything particular that points in that direction. It's just that we are long-distance for a couple of months more; that he is travelling alone with his best friend who is his ex; that they will occasionally share a room to save money.

When X and I were together, he once slept over at Emilie's house, the girl who would ultimately be his rebound fuck; I did not like it because I felt she was attracted to him, but I trusted him. I didn't make a fuss. I didn't fight her.

When I am with someone, I trust them. Now my past experience tells me this is foolish, because my previous boyfriends have cheated on me. I think my friend is trying to protect me against similar disappointment.

But in the end, you have to trust your instincts. I pretended to be OK with X and Emilie's sleepover thing, but I wasn't.

I'm fine with AD travelling with his best friend.