Make it so!

My brain won't let me escape the things that are lacking in my life.  It either forces me to dream of things I wish I had or things I have already lost for good.  Last night it was more of a rubbing in my face of the things that maybe 50% of my friends/people I know have, but I haven't got anywhere near.  I know it's probably partly hormones kicking in at this point, trying to purposely make me feel worse, but nonetheless, it's there in the back of my mind like an old photograph sitting on a shelf depicting a prosperous time, while the photo frame itself resides in a messy, financially deprived kind of place.  

I'm building up a list of things that I not only want, but need and it's getting longer all the time, for the lack of funding to be able to re-buy things that wear out.  My main handbag has been falling apart at the seams for years now, though I have sewn up the bits that were sewable.  My wallet is doing the same thing.  I have of course seen delightful examples of wallets and bags (well just two in particular actually) that I very much wish I could afford to replace my old ones with, but I can't stretch to getting them at the moment.  And perhaps the bigger problem is it's me that's worn out.

I'm tired of burning the candle at both ends for work I neither enjoy nor provides me with enough money to truly live.  I am tired of having to have people come into my flat to have meetings that involve so much preparation.  I'm tired of not being able to have decent food available to sustain me from the local supermarket, because it's too small to stock the right things and because it's the Czech Republic and they DON'T DO 'healthy food'.  I'm tired of knowing I have to curtail my efforts in a relationship that will not give me back as much as I am capable of giving.  I'm tired of struggling and not enjoying my day-to-day existence.  I'm tired of having lots of things I can do, but not being able to do them because I don't get paid for them.

I read something on the lovely Belgian Waffling blog the other day that described how her children deal with these dark, miserable, tiring winter days and I wish I could be more like them.  Apparently, they:

"get home, put their pyjamas on, make themselves a selection of snacks and sit under a duvet on the sofa, refusing to do anything".

Hmm.  What a fantastic idea.  I want a day to do that.  A whole day.  When I don't have to do ANYTHING.  Not doing a pile of washing (a typical 'day off' cheat), not going to Tesco to get food, not accounting, not meeting anyone, not emailing anyone, not answering the phone, not dealing with admin issues, not trying to sort out internet banking nonsense, not plugging in to anything except my computer to watch DVDs on.  And not being woken up at 8.15am by builders drilling into the wall behind my head on a day when I unexpectedly had the opportunity for a lie-in.  

That last one would really help enormously.

I need to become Patrick Stewart and declare: "Make it so!" in a suitably convincing and authoritative way that makes things obey me.

Make it so!

Autumnal chills

I have realised, now that things in my flat actually work the way they are supposed to, that there is one remaining thing in my flat that does not work:  Me.  I used to be adept at getting work done even when the weather was bloody awful and I may have struggled but I still managed things.  The last few days of this miserable, cold and drizzly weather have sent me into a kind of semi-sleep.  I am tired and achy and my eyes are sore all the time.  It doesn't help that I have tried to retain some of my early morning meet-ees this week, while also packing in some boring work that had to be done.  So it's not entirely 'my' time and my time alone, as it was meant to have been.

In a desperate attempt to stay awake this afternoon, I took myself off to the bookshop cafe, in hope of writing something interesting fuelled by coffee and a bit of inspiration, but there was some kind of book launch on and it was incredibly busy and distracting as a result.  I did have a chance to wander around longingly, looking for a novel that might catch my eye, though in some ways I'm glad nothing did, because I do not have the budget for it.  I wish I could have a reading allowance from a rich aristocrat who would pay for my literary whims and would think it a noble thing to do, supporting a working class girl with middle class tastes to read more.  Wouldn't that be simply fantastic?!

Ah the idle dreams of the lone foreigner, who has just passed the one year mark of living abroad...I must be losing my mind.  (Or is it just waaayyyy too late for that?)  Yes, it has been over a year, and this time the transition from summer to autumn has hit harder (maybe because last year I was coming from a UK summer, which means of course, no sun or warmth at all to differentiate it from autumn or spring).  The distinct chill in the air today was a bit of a shock.  I woke up and had to force myself to get up quickly, and as I got out of bed to go and make some tea, I shivered, even though I had a long sleeved top on.  I had thought the pyjamas-like get-up would be enough, but no.  Woe betide the person who underestimates the chill of the 6 am October morning air.

Having said that, I am nonetheless basking in the glow of being liked, indeed loved, by the architect, since we hadn't seen each other for about two weeks and he had missed me.  He seemed full of affection all of a sudden, where normally the TV holds about equal, if not greater interest.  I would almost conclude that I should make myself unavailable more often.  But that would seem to be defeating the object, surely...