The alarm goes off. The door to the bedroom has been left open. I get up, dress and go to greet the dogs. There is no need to be quiet although I like the sound of the silence that surrounds us, even if the dogs are making noise with their excitement, knowing the walk is due.
I am at home today. First I have had one removal firm come round and quote. I really wanted two different quotes. One for all our furniture (just in case) and one for the things I am taking. I ended up with one – for all our furniture. It is quite a lot of money. I can afford it but wish that it were cheaper.
So, there is some movement and I feel much more positive today – in general.
Before the Final Question can be answered, there needs to be some further dialogue – and dialogue without anger. We shall see. The email has been answered, ‘Re: Final Question’ as the title.
And now, due to work commitments, instead of Tuesday, I go to sign my contract for the perfect-flat-on-the-perfect-street next Wednesday. Hurrah!
This weekend, I will start to pack things up – the easier things, like books and things that are, obviously, mine. Maybe clear some crap out at the same time. Other than that, no specific plans although I may be out on Saturday night. Anyway, I must work on the website stuff and start the packing and, this week, take the dogs out a few times. They, too, have been suffering, as dogs do, with the all the things going on and deserve a good weekend. The weather has turned a little chilly anyway, quite suitable for walking the dogs.
Nothing very much, really.
Thanks for all your comments, I felt supported. And, Bianca, I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t write again, only that I couldn’t write any more that day.
I’m sorry, I lied. To you. Yesterday. I mean, the things I wrote were true and they were good things. But it wasn’t how I was really feeling.
One of the things about the blog writing that I like is that I can say what I want. And, I can use it as I want. Yesterday was, in fact, quite a bad day for several reasons. I use things to make me feel different than I really feel and one of those is to bury my head in the sand, a little, by not facing up to my fears (only sometimes and, I hope, under control). Another way is to think of only positive things.
Often these things work. Sometimes they don’t. I never know which way it will go.
As it happens, it got worse during the day.
It got better, though, that evening when, during a conversation with V, I realised that, perhaps, the light was beginning to dawn in his head and that he seemed to be trying to face up to his own responsibilities. Of course, this was mixed with the feeling of SO wanting to help, take him my arms and make everything all right for him again.
It’s a dangerous situation, I know. He has always been my wild, social side and I have always been his serious, logical side. Together, it worked for so long; apart, well……..
I guess that we know each other too well; know how to press the right buttons: know how to get what we want – apart from the things that we can’t control, like me giving in to the things (I mean physical things) he wants to purchase and him, maybe, giving in to a lifestyle that’s a little ‘older’ than he would really prefer.
Of course, as a result of last night we are on the way, possibly, to reconciliation although, given the seriousness of the problem, I really don’t know if it is possible or, even, desired. Is that terrible of me?
In any event, the reconciliation will be a long and, I suspect, painful process. The last time we went through something like this it took 10 months and for most of those months we never saw each other. This time, I suspect, it will be much longer and much more difficult.
Of course, it could be made longer/shorter by his need for help, which immediately presses my “HELP V” button. Bugger.
Yes, I know, Cecilieaux, you are probably screaming at the computer right now, as you read this ‘DON’T DO IT’. And, of course, you would be right. I know I should reject the calls for help, implied or explicit and I will certainly be struggling to ‘do the right thing’.
Anyway, I’m sorry that I lied to you yesterday but it did help me to remember the good bits and your comments about those good things were also helpful, so, thanks.
“I’ve got €7 to last me until pay day.”
I am, due to the impending move, being very careful. It doesn’t mean I can’t go out; buy cigarettes; buy stuff I need, but I am just being watchful knowing that, although I have another pay-check to come before I move and yet another before I have to pay the first rent, I will need cash for the movers (I cannot do it on my own); pay the deposit; and, almost certainly, buy stuff where we only had ‘one’ of something (for example, a table to eat off – although I have plans to make that not such a ‘big’ expenditure).
And I would understand if [of V] it were just the one month because, for instance, paying a deposit or having to pay car insurance or something. But this has been all three months of this year, so far.
But, considering we are only half-way to pay day, I am taken aback.
Of course, it’s no longer my responsibility, in any way, but I want to ask things like “What have you spent it all on?” but, then, I think I know some of the answers to that already. A party at which few of the friends attended because the invites were only made the day before or, even, that day; a new tattoo (I think but this is pure guess on my part); going out with colleagues.
What will happen when the rent becomes due every month (and the flat he chose was, in my view, too expensive, even for me!) and the bills, every two months? And, I know too, that there will borrowing ahead of the salary; borrowing to stay afloat meaning that the following month there will be less available; and so on and so on. A spiral of debt leading, almost inevitably, to a disaster. Oh, I hope not but I just know.
And, even if it is not my responsibility, I still feel responsible. How crazy is that? Worse, if I had the money, almost certainly, I would be offering (yes, you read rightly – offering) to help! But it would be help for ever.
This is what it must be like when you have kids who go out into the world but never really cut the apron strings.
In any event, over the next two weeks, I shall be buying the coffee, the milk, the wine, the food – in addition to my own expenses.
I don’t mind and I do mind – all at the same time. I can’t NOT do it. I wish I could. Does it make me stupid? Some kind of fool? Yes, I guess so. But I am unable to do anything else.
And, when we are in separate flats, what then? Will I be tapped for a few Euro here, a free meal there, coffee at my house because he doesn’t have any? Or worse, “Can you just lend me a few hundred to pay the electric bill; the rent; the loan?”.
And the answer will almost certainly be ‘yes’, even if it means postponing certain purchases I want. There’s just no planning; no thought of anything other than the “now”.
I can’t live like that and yet, through him, I still do!
Now things have become more difficult. I went to see a flat last night. It is, more or less, the same price as the perfect-flat-on-the-perfect-street (or can be, according to the guy showing me round). It has good and bad points. On the plus side is the following:
On the minus side are the following things:
All very difficult. Of course, FfI, who lives in Isola (hence FfI – Friend from Isola) is quite keen for me to live there and the terrace appeals to her (for sunbathing, bar-b-ques, etc.). She is going to see it today.
On the other hand, I go to see the woman who owns the perfect-flat-on-the-perfect-street on Friday evening, after I have seen the flat-with-the-terrace (so I can see it in the daylight). Decisions must be made.
Opportunities occur in your life from time to time. Things that happen where choices must be made. As I have said before, I have been lucky in my life. But, with that luck, comes the taking of opportunities when they arise. One cannot sit there with one’s thumb in one’s mouth just waiting. Sure, things may happen and come one’s way unexpectedly – good or bad – but you still have to do something.
I remember, when I was a buyer for an Engineering company in Dursley, There was a sales guy that, over the phone, I used to get on with really well. Over a period of a year or so, we built up quite a good relationship – more than just the work thing.
In my head he looked a certain way. He was tall, blond-haired, good looking, etc. His voice sounded that way.
After about 18 months, I left the company and, as I was leaving, we promised to meet up. A few weeks later, we did. He was short, fat, dark-haired and a bit goofy. And, face-to-face he did not have the same personality as on the phone. I guess he felt the same way as neither of us touched base after that. Face to face it was all wrong, somehow.
Then, there’re books versus films. I read Lord of the Rings, a long time before any of the films came out. I pictured the whole thing in my head. The characters had real faces, were dressed in certain ways. The film of course has now erased those characters as they were in my head. The only one I remember that was totally wrong was Gandalf – although I can’t remember why now. It still sort-of annoys me when I watch the film for, although I can’t remember my original, I know the film depiction isn’t quite right. However, Frodo was much better than I had pictured so it sort-of balances itself out, I guess.
And then there’re songs. Take ‘Puppy Love’ by Donny Osmond. When it was released I remember thinking it was a girl singing it. When I saw him on Top of the Pops – I still thought it was a girl. And the name ‘Donny’ was American and it was the first time I had heard it so I was still convinced it was a girl. Of course, when I found out it was a boy I kept it all to myself – after all, it was only my parents that couldn’t recognise the difference between boys and girls – all because of their long hair! How stupid were they!!!!
And then there’s Gail. Gail has been commenting on my blog for a while now and, recently, she pointed out that she had put a picture on her profile on her blog and that I should take a look.
Before you go and look, I should tell you that Gail, in my head, already looked a certain way. Even though we have not spoken (therefore, I could not be swayed by the sound of her voice) we have emailed and commented and, weirdly, I have to build up how she would look. So Gail was blond with shortish hair, slightly curly or permed or maybe wavy. She wasn’t tall and not skinny but neither short nor obese. She had a rather round face with a perfect nose and rather nice brown or hazel eyes. Even when she just got up in the morning, her hair and make-up would be done and be “just right”. She had a way of shaking her head so that the curls of her hair would bob up and down and she would do this for effect.
She was a grandmother but quite a grand grandmother, with a style that was all her own.
To be honest, she is, probably, all these things. However, when I saw the picture the hair was so different I was shocked. Now, isn’t that really stupid! If I had met her before the online relationship she would just be Gail. But now she is a different Gail! That’s not to say that she is not attractive or fun or any of the things that I pictured but it’s the hair! It just doesn’t fit.
Gail, I’m sorry but you need to have a haircut, a wave put in and go blond! 
There’s a thing about cabbage. I love eating it (especially when V does it) but the smell of cooked cabbage, when it’s not yours, seems to pervade every corner of every room in the whole apartment block.