TIME IS MY ENEMY, YET IS A HEALER

Time is what affects me. There’s never really enough of it to go round. I don’t even have a family or even any pets yet I still feel as though there are too many responsibilities in my life for me to do everything to a satisfactory standard and still have time left over to enjoy myself. Unfortunately I tend to make the time to enjoy myself and then feel exceptionally guilty for not carrying out my responsibilities to a satisfactory standard rather than the converse where I end up with no time to myself. I think if I didn’t take the time out then I’d stop altogether so it’s best this way.

So many things have happened recently. Firstly James and I got engaged which is in itself very fantastic. We started with the planning straight away because we always agreed that engagements should be just that, engaged to be married. The date’s all set and the venues, but now the arrangements need to be made and it’s bearing down on me like a big weight at the moment because other things are getting in the way whenever I try to attend to it.

The first thing to get in the way was the trouble going down in my job. For some reason my boss decided to turn on me one day and although he claims he “didn’t mean it that way” and I misinterpreted what he said, either way he was acting like a total freak so I decided it was time to find a new job and leave. It was the only thing to do really. Thankfully I got a decent job on my second interview but the whole process of sneaking time off work, swotting up for the interview, going through with it and the aptitude tests and then finally having the agonising wait to see whether you’ve got it or not is a bit of a nightmare. Thank goodness I only had to go through that twice. I have high hopes for my new job. It seems much more challenging than my old job (from what I’m saying now, whether that’s good or bad is another matter!). I seemed to thrive on this in my old job so I’m hoping I’ll get that back. It also pays a lot more which is an added bonus but I need to stress that that isn’t the reason I’m leaving my current job. I always think happiness in the workplace is much more important than getting highly paid, although I’m not saying I’d work for free! I start my new job the week of the 18th October. I have another 3 weeks at South West Water and then I have one week off.

In that week, James and I are moving house – the second thing to get in the way! About a month ago Leaman’s got in touch with me to tell me that our landlord was selling up and did we want to buy the house for £270 thousand. “UM let me think…… would you take an offer of £85 thousand? No? I thought not…then no.” They gave us 2 months to get out so house hunting was on…again. Last time it was SO easy – we just found another Leaman’s property and got it straight away. This time it wasn’t so easy. We viewed several different places that all minged somewhat. I spent entire days ringing letting and estate agents to book viewings and enquire. We got beaten to it on 3 different properties and finally we are now settling for one I haven’t even seen because the market is so fast that James had to say yes pretty much straight after he’d seen it. Then it was mega stressful because in true letting agency style, they can’t confirm whether you’ve got the place or not for over 10 working days so you don’t know whether you should be looking for somewhere else or not. Luckily we managed to get the work references in *just* before I handed in my notice at SWW. Phew. I got pretty damn stressed out about the finding a place. I can’t stand the thought of not having anywhere to live. We have great friends who I’m sure would help us out however we have SO MUCH STUFF. Where would it all go unless we had somewhere to move into straight away? Moving is such a faff as well. It’s a nightmare. Anyway that will all be taking place during that week in-between jobs that I have. So that’s at least fallen quite well!

Another thing, although I wouldn’t say that it “gets in the way” because it’s totally my choice…is the band. Now, I love doing it but I still feel guilty when I turn up at *another* practice having done no new stuff *again*. I always say “yeh I’ll look at that one” and then I come along to the next practice and I’ve not had time. I quite often pick up my bass and play for a few minutes at a time and the other day I was quite proud coz I did lots of practice but what I’d really like to do is actually work on some of the stuff that Reagan and Andi have put together. The stuff I’ve done recently has been squished together in the space of about 10 minutes and is pants. I admit that myself. I listen to it back and I think “wtf?!”. Still, new stuff aside, we have decent live demos now and Andi has sent them out. We are hoping to have gigs soon so that’s going to be another thing I need to think about. I’m excited though because I love singing so much so it’s a good thing I’ve decided not to do Japanese this year to make more time for this.

Last thing that has transpired in the last few days is my health. Not the usual mad-crazy-epilepsy that makes me so special this time, but screwed up hormones and shit. Truly messed up. They thought it was really bad and made me stay in hospital in case I lost too much blood and needed a transfusion! It wasn’t a very nice experience in hospital and it upset me a bit. I know they are professionals and stuff but it’s not the kind of thing you ever feel comfortable with around people you don’t know. At the moment I’m on a course of pills that will make my blood clot better because basically it’s not doing that at the moment and then they want me back in for more blood tests and discussions about monitoring me in the future. Great. Just what I needed right now but at least I haven’t started my new job yet and if they can sort it out now then that’s for the best. Today I’ve been off work just to make sure the pills are working and I think they pretty much are now. I will continue to take the 6 a day of these ones until I run out in addition to some pain killers, vitamins and obviously my usual epilepsy stuff. Bleh.

Anyway…we shall move, settle in, set everything in their rightful positions, and I WILL take control of everything again and I WILL make sure that everything in my life runs to MY plan and no other plan. My new job WILL be fantastic and I will do it to my best ability and I WILL get some decisions in place for the wedding. That is my resolution.