house – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: house

  • Slob

    This is a story about mess…

    Kitten

    I realised I haven’t written about my adorable furry companion in a while. My phone contains nothing but pictures of cats; mainly my cat(s). My bengal seems to be lost forever, heartbreakingly – I suspect she was stolen, because there has been a spate of cat and dog thefts recently. My ragdoll, pictured above, is an amazing cat; she’s healed my broken heart.

    If you look carefully at the photo, and I really wish you wouldn’t, then you’ll see various bits of detritus – mostly crumbs and other bits of food; dirt. I’ve been a real slob for quite a long time.

    I’ve got a demanding job, plus lockdown has meant being under the same roof 24 x 7, for many months. Of course, we’re all in the same boat, but I’ve been struggling with my physical and mental health all year. I tried to kick the couch potato habit, but August has been incredibly punishing at work, and I’ve all but ceased doing anything besides working, sleeping and eating.

    The one happy constant in my life – the stable part – is my cat. Of course, I had the heartbreak of losing my last cat quite recently, but my new cat is delightful. It’s fantastic to have my fluffy friend to keep me company. Life would be intolerably miserable without a cat.

    A plumber came to fix something in my bathroom, which prompted me to quickly clean. I don’t really have many visitors, so why bother to keep my house clean and tidy? I hardly make any mess, except for a few dirty dishes, but I suppose the general dirt and grime builds up, which depresses me but not enough to do anything about it. The messiest thing is my cat, who regularly kicks her litter onto the floor. It sounds like she’s trying to dig to the centre of the earth sometimes.

    I guess I’ll probably hire a cleaner, once this pandemic is over. Seems lazy and wasteful, but it’s good for me, and it’s good for them – I get a clean house and they get paid, which seems like a win:win situation.

    My cat eats individually packaged pouches of cat food, which seems like a big waste of packaging, but she’s super fussy about her food going ‘stale’ in her bowl, so I can’t imagine she’d love food from a tin which has been open for days and days – she’s only got a tiny appetite. I eat gourmet soups, which also seems crazy when it seems relatively easy to make a big batch of soup and freeze it, but I want and need simplicity in my life. I can feed my cat and I in the blink of an eye, which is what’s needed when I’m working so hard.

    Living in a clean house, or eating a freshly cooked homemade meal are things I enjoy, but I’m not prepared to do the work, when I’m already working super hard. Seems profligate and lazy, but I don’t care – it’s allowing me to be functional and stable.

    Apologies for boring you with the rather domestic and uninteresting minutiae of my existence, but I wanted to try and write about something other than the agony of existence.

     

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  • Lockdown Improvements

    This is a story about the Coronavirus pandemic…

    Lighthouse

    Many people planned to come out of lockdown with new hobbies, fitter, healthier, happier and myriad other unachievable unrealistic things. I think that we have mostly come out of lockdown fatter, more unfit, poorer, more insecure, lonely, isolated, bored and generally worse off.

    I started the lockdown drinking very heavily and eating McDonald’s breakfast every morning. I decided that if we were going to be suffering the misery of being under house arrest, then I would treat myself. Quickly I realised that I was going to end up with clogged arteries and morbidly obese. I was eating takeaway several nights a week and not doing any exercise.

    I started the lockdown physically dependent on sleeping pills to get to sleep, and using two different tranquillising sedatives to cope with unbearable anxiety. I decided it was too much hassle to try to keep stocked up with the medications I needed during the lockdown, and I calculated that I have enough left to be able to taper myself off. I didn’t want to run out of medication suddenly in the middle of a pandemic.

    I started the lockdown working on my sofa, fully reclined. I realised that my posture and back would be ruined by working in such a position for 8 hours a day, followed by many more hours on the sofa after finishing work.

    Things had to change.

    I thought the lockdown would last a month or two, but I must admit that I didn’t think it would drag on beyond a quarter of the year. I tried my best to psychologically prepare myself for the lockdown lasting for months, but I was hopeful it’d be all over after 6 to 8 weeks.

    I bought a desk and an office chair.

    I weaned myself off the sleeping pills and tranquillisers.

    I cut down my drinking, and even went teetotal for 6 or 7 weeks.

    I started exercising. Not, like, exercising exercising. Just going for a 10km walk every day. Enough to keep me a little bit active, but nothing crazy.

    I stopped getting takeaways. All those takeaways were costing quite a lot of money, when they were all added up. Sure, I felt like I could justify spending the money to enjoy some nice food, as compensation for the doom and gloom of the hundreds of thousands of people dying all over the world, and the restrictions to our freedom… but it wasn’t healthy and it was costing a packet.

    I paid off all my debt. This wasn’t so much a planned thing. It was something that just happened to co-incide with the lockdown. However, it feels pretty damn good to have some savings now. I have a net worth again, which feels good. I have some financial security, even if it is pretty negligible. It had been a very long time which I’d been struggling to get my finances sorted, and it’s a big relief to be back in the black.

    My life is extremely austere and simple. I have my house, my job, my cat, my car; that’s it. My health is probably OK. My weight is OK, although I am carrying some extra weight I’d like to shift, as a consequence of lockdown. My finances are OK. My job seems OK. My housing situation is sort of OK. My kitten is great, although my cat is lost… overall OK. My car has a big dent where an idiot crashed into it during lockdown, in a virtually empty car park, but there are more important things in life than having a shiny perfect car.

    All things considered, I think I’m one of the lockdown winners – I’m emerging in far better shape than I went into lockdown. Some people have lost their job, or are about to lose their job. Some people have struggled with alcohol and food. Some people have struggled with mental health. In almost every area of my life, things have improved; I look reasonably well positioned to weather a difficult autumn and winter.

    Although losing my cat was the worst thing that happened, it has forced me to connect with my neighbours and the wider community, so I have even managed to live a far less isolated and lonely existence under lockdown, than I was living before – I speak to far more people; I’m more connected and socially engaged.

    I thought that if I retreated inwards, living and communicating through my blog and social media, then I would find it impossible to get through the lockdown. It looks like a reasonably good decision, to have taken a break.

    It helps that it’s summer – of course – which lifts my mood and generally creates a more pleasant and favourable backdrop for life, but I feel hopeful that I’ve got a decent position of health and financial stability to fight through the autumn and winter. I just need to book some holidays now… I’ve worked non-stop since early January, when I was discharged from hospital.

     

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  • Nurture

    This is a story about caring for living things…

    Castor oil plant

    My beloved castor oil plant is not doing very well. Really, I should re-pot my houseplants. I need to purchase some plant food and feed my houseplants. Two of my plants have been attacked by my kitten, leaving them pretty much destroyed, and one of them was knocked off a shelf by my kitten, and perished soon afterwards due to having no pot anymore.

    My kitten is not eating her food. She had a different brand of cat food while I was on holiday and now she doesn’t want to go back to eating the cheap supermarket own-brand stuff. I’m not trying to save money – I kept her on the same food that the breeder was feeding the cats, and the breeder was trying to save money. It’s a bad idea to change your pet’s food, because it can upset their stomach. I guess I will have to go and get some premium brand stuff now my kitten is used to the fancy stuff.

    I’m not doing great in terms of diet, exercise and alcohol. I thought I would feel rejuvenated enough after my holiday that I would start taking better care of myself, but I’ve needed a bit of booze to take the edge off the shock to the system of going back to work. Work is stressful.

    Things look better regarding the major things that were stressing me out. My contract is likely to be extended by a couple of months and the organisation I work for is chasing my security clearance, which is good. I feel happier about things.

    I’m not going to write much today because I’m about to go out for dinner and to the cinema. Also, I’m trying to write less – little and often, instead of gigantic brain-dumps which are far too much for anybody to enjoy reading.

    I drank far more than I intended to this week, which makes me feel bad about possible weight gain and the general health implications of drinking too much, but I must admit that it’s helped ease me back into the daily grind. However, I could easily end up being overly dependent on alcohol and drinking far too regularly, so I’d like to get things under control before they get out of hand.

    My kitten has been very sweet and playful at times and I’m really pleased to have a companion animal – a pet – to keep me company when I’m home alone. I was worried that she was too wild and destructive, and that I wasn’t able to cope with such an intelligent cat, but I seem to have found strategies for her behaviour to stop her peeing on everything and destroying stuff. Not an ordinary domestic cat at all, but she’s got bags of personality and she’s great entertainment.

    Today I felt for a moment like things were going OK. My income is slightly more secure, I’m good at my job, I’m in a good relationship, I like my house and my cat, my car is OK, my finances are OK, my health is OK… things are alright. I don’t see too many ways in which everything’s going to fall apart at the moment. If everything goes ahead as it should, then I don’t have any horrible unpleasantness to face for a couple of months, which is good. Some challenges on the horizon for the autumn, including the usual horrible situation where I’ll be needing a holiday but my income won’t be secure – it really spoils a holiday having uncertainty about employment and money.

    Lots of work to do at the moment, which is what I want because I like to keep my mind occupied, but I do want to keep myself on a sustainable and healthy footing. I don’t want to burn myself out, or indeed make myself redundant. I often blaze through all my work and am left with nothing to do, feeling horribly bored and dreading having to look busy.

    So, I have the opportunity to work and to live, but I need to look after myself.

    I’m off to do leisure activities now, which is very nice.

     

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  • Not Enough Hours in the Day

    This is a story about domestic bliss…

    Red light

    I enjoy a certain degree of freedom in my daily routine. I can arrive at work at any time between 8am and 10am. I can leave work at any time between 3:30pm and 5pm. I can work from home. I can take a half-day or a whole day off. I can take as much holiday as I want. It seems like my life is very flexible and I’m very time rich, as well as being handsomely remunerated for my efforts.

    I’m somewhat obsessed with the project I’m working on. I know that the project has hard deadlines and I know that I’m playing an influential role in making sure that the project is delivered on-time. It might sound arrogant, but I know that there’s a lot of cheap talk and the number of people who are “doers” is far fewer than the number of people on the payroll, who like to talk about doing stuff, but aren’t driven and determined enough to carry anything through to completion. I need to stop short of outright criticism of my colleagues, because everyone plays their part, even if the project would go more quickly and the work would be higher quality without a handful of low-performing individuals: not my circus, not my monkeys.

    I’m completely besotted with my girlfriend. I have a limitless desire to spend time with her. I think she’s wonderful; the best.

    The running of my home – the laundry, the cleaning, stocking the fridge and cupboards, taking out the trash – is relatively easy but I am quite house proud and the novelty of my relatively new house has not yet worn off. I would very much like to continue to add furniture and decorative items to make it a more and more lovely place to call home.

    My kitten is amazing. Having a cute litte furry companion has exceeded my wildest expectations. My kitten plays “fetch” when she’s feeling active, or cuddles up when she wants a rest. She’s always entertaining, she’s so beautiful to look at and her fur is so soft to stroke. She does, however, urinate and defecate where she shouldn’t when I make a mistake like leaving her unattended with a laundry basket full of clean clothes for a few seconds, or not realising that her litter needed changing because it was clumpy beneath the surface. I’ve spent a lot of time washing duvets, bedding, clothes, and mopping the floor, as well as scooping up poop. I expected to have to make sure she was fed, entertained and had a clean litter tray to use, but there has been some extra stuff to deal with, like clearing my bedroom and dining room floor of anything she might urinate or defecate on.

    I was just about coping with a very simple life, where I was working, sleeping and eating. I was going to bed at 9pm. The highlight of my week consisted of a trip to the supermarket. My life was pretty barren and empty.

    Almost overnight, I have a girlfriend and a kitten. It made me feel very guilty that I got up and went to work at 7am and didn’t get home to see my kitten until almost 11pm, because my girlfriend and I had gone to the cinema after work and then eaten at a restaurant.

    FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF ANY DOUBT: MY KITTEN IS LOOKED AFTER DURING THE DAY EITHER BY ME, WORKING FROM HOME, OR BY MY GIRLFRIEND. MY KITTEN IS LEFT ALONE VERY INFREQUENTLY, AND ONLY FOR SHORT PERIODS OF TIME.

    I’m also having to re-adjust to a significantly reduced amount of sleep.

    I was sleeping from 9pm to 7am – 10 hours a night – and now I’m lucky if I get 6 hours a night on work-nights, which is a significant reduction. Assuming I needed just 8 hours sleep (but actually I need more) then I might lose as much as 6 hours total sleep during the working week. With only Saturday and Sunday available for catching up, and assuming that a 1am or 2am bedtime doesn’t seem unreasonable on a Friday and Saturday night, means I can catch up only as few as 4 hours, assuming that I went to bed at 2am and had a lie-in until midday (i.e. 10 hours sleep). Given that it takes 1.5 times as much sleep to catch up, I am running a major sleep deficit – I am never getting the chance to catch up on any sleep. It’s very simple mathematics to see that I am getting increasingly tired.

    My day should be quite easy to divide – 8 hours sleep, 8 hours leisure and 8 hours sleep, but that’s not possible if you have to get up and go to work at 7am, and you’re not able to go to sleep until past midnight on a work night. For those who are able to sleep as long as they want during the mornings, they can easily ensure that they don’t get too tired. For those who can have a nap during the day, they can catch up. I don’t have those luxuries, because I need to get up and go to work at 7am, even though I do have a lot of flexibility which I don’t use because of the demanding project I’m working on.

    Flexibility comes at a price.

    I’m dedicating myself to supporting my colleagues in delivering a very large and complicated project with a huge number of team members. It’s important that I’m able to get some work done in the morning – 8am to 9am – and in the evening – 4pm to 5pm – when there aren’t any meetings or interruptions.

    Sure, I’ve worked hard enough to be able to slack off a bit, but I really don’t want to decimate the reputation which has taken substantial effort to earn.

    I pretty much just need a holiday.

    Somehow I’m managing to stay functional and not lose my mind with exhaustion. Sleep deprivation will quickly erode your ability to think clearly, stay sane and be relaxed about life. Only those who have the luxury of being able to sleep as much as they want are able to not worry about bedtimes and the health and wellbeing consequences.

    I suppose I’ve worked hard enough and proven myself such that I could become an unreliable part-timer who nobody would rely upon, but I enjoy my role as somebody who’s been steady and dependable – ever-present – which is vitally important when you’re trying to help a large number of people to deliver a very complex set of objectives. Leadership could be seen as a job title which is awarded for long service, or help from your daddy, but most of the time leadership is a set of attitudes – qualities – which make your colleagues trust you and look to you for guidance; leadership is just something that some people can do when others aren’t interested, lack the aptitude, or lack the confidence and experience.

    In terms of eyes on the prize, I know that I will cut back on my hours in the office and give myself some days off, for the sake of my relationship, my mental health, my physical health and because there literally aren’t enough hours in the day. I have a pile of personal administrative tasks which I’ve ignored for a few months, costing me serious amounts of money.

    I’m desperate for a holiday.

    It’s been 6 months since I had a holiday.

    This is a recurring theme in my life: I work too hard and it makes me sick.

    I’m going to publish this now. As you might have been able to tell, my blogging has been an early casualty, as the demands on my time have increased and my waking day has stretched well beyond what I’m able to cope with, without losing more sleep than I’m possibly ever able to catch up on over the course of a weekend.

    It’s 8:30pm and I need to start thinking about getting ready for bed. I need to make sure my kitten has food, water and a clean litter tray. I need to make sure I have clean clothes for work tomorrow. I need to make sure the house is in good order, so my kitten can be left to her own devices while I’m at the office. It might sound unthinkable that my day has consisted of sleep, work, 10 minutes of TV and a short amount of writing, and now I’m about to start getting ready for bed, but when sleep gets borrowed it has to be paid back – I cannot go to bed at 1am on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night, without having to reclaim 1.5 times what was lost, which is impossible when I’m working on such a high-profile and intensive project.

    A holiday is the solution. I need a holiday.

     

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  • Domestic Bliss

    This is a story about basic human needs…

    Tiny kitten

    For a very long time I’ve been complaining about how slowly life has been progressing. It has been a source of immense boredom, frustration, annoyance, irritation, loneliness, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, exasperation, exhaustion and a general waste of my limited mortal lifespan, to have to sit around waiting for the hands of the clock to move; for the grains of sand in the hourglass to fall one-by-one through the narrow opening, at an agonisingly slow rate.

    I’ve viewed life’s core problems as fourfold: work, money, love and home. I can survive without a job, but I’m on borrowed time – eventually my savings and credit will be exhausted and I’ll become destitute. I can survive without money, provided some good Samaritan is kind enough to offer food and lodgings for free. I can survive without love, but without it life seems pointless and unpleasant; not worth living for. I can survive with quite primitive shelter, but it’s immensely damaging for my sense of wellbeing and self-esteem to be sleeping rough in Kensington Palace Gardens, for example.

    Getting a job is probably the easiest of all the problems to solve. I’ve always been very employable and I command a high rate of remuneration wherever I am. My skills can be put to good use almost anywhere, mercifully.

    Getting money follows as a natural consequence of getting a job. So long as I’m well enough to work, money will quickly follow. Mercifully, money flows in at a rapid rate, which can relatively quickly replenish my depleted savings and enable me to spend money on other things which are very cash-hungry, such as housing.

    Getting a nice house is a little bit trickier sometimes as I’m occasionally classified as “self employed” and expected to prove to an unreasonable degree that my earning potential is far in excess of my financial obligations. I’ve previously been asked to pay an entire year’s rent in advance, which is particularly unreasonable. To tie-up an entire year’s rent in a single lump-sum payment poses significant cashflow problem, even for a high earner, especially if there is furniture to purchase and other moving-related expenses. To furnish my house with just the basics has been expensive and exhausting, and my bedroom still lacks a wardrobe and a chest-of-drawers. There is a long way still to go with furnishing my house.

    Getting love seems like the final hurdle. I have very low self-esteem if I’m not working, earning, able to spend money and living somewhere lovely. So many people will ask “what have [I] got to offer anybody?” and tell me that I should be single, but those people are wrong. Sure, it might be a mistake to be in a bad relationship purely because of being too afraid of being alone, but it’s so often those who have been happily married for years, who have forgotten how truly awful it is to be lonely, who offer the unsolicited advice that being single must be brilliant fun. It’s not. I hate dating.

    There are two important things I need to write about.

    Firstly, I can settle for temporary relationships of convenience and turn a blind eye to red flags. I can make things work with a person who ultimately I can see I have no long-term future with. However, I never take my eyes off the prize. I know when I meet somebody very special – an incredibly rare event – and I know the difference between love, lust, temporary infatuation, and comfortable relationships which are only marginally better than being single. I’m quite capable of having a lovely time with somebody – something casual – but I have always maintained the hope of meeting somebody I’m really well matched with, who hopefully I can have a much more serious, loving relationship with. I have only been in love twice in my life, with a third time which was very promising but was never able to come to fruition – we’ll never know what might have been. I use the word “love” very carefully and sparingly. When I say “I love you” or suchlike, a lot of thought has gone into what I’m saying, and there are deep feelings behind those words; those words are not said cheaply or easily, without a great deal of thought and scrutiny of my emotions.

    Secondly, breakups do cause me a lot of distress, but I am not the kind of person who’s unable to handle a breakup without it threatening my safety. Indeed, I very actively avoid the situation where I feel as though my world would be destroyed, leaving me suicidal, if I lost the love of my life. It’s extremely unwise to over-invest in something so fragile as a human relationship, even if it appears to be fully reciprocated. I’ve been through divorce, so I know that even the most solemn of vows and binding of legal contracts, with the lengthy preceding relationship, is not enough to give any guarantees of security. I don’t like unpleasant sudden surprises which will cause my life quality to be massively adversely affected, hence why I was so shaken by the events of last week, but even somebody who I’m totally in love with is not duty-bound to stay with me, for fear of me committing suicide. I would never say “if you leave me I’ll kill myself” or commit suicide in direct response to a breakup.

    Last week, my job was going incredibly well, my finances were in great shape, my house was looking amazing and my romantic relationship was awesome. I had a long weekend planned, which was going to begin with getting a kitten, and be spent in a state of domestic bliss, with the girl of my dreams, in an amazing home, loads of money in the bank, brilliant job and with a cute little fur baby scampering around.

    Then, things looked like they were going to get ruined.

    It’s not that I was going to lose the relationship which was the sole reason why I went from on-top-of-the-world to suicidally depressed, but that the accompanying awfulness was too much to bear, as a sudden shock. Of course, I wouldn’t have lost my money, my house or my job, but the approaching weekend – which I had been looking forward to so much – had a completely different complexion, as a suddenly single man.

    What actually happened was that my girlfriend and I drove to pick up my little kitten, full of excitement and anticipation, drove the delightful little furball back to my amazing house, had delicious wine and Chinese takeaway and spend an amazing evening with my playful affectionate new pet. We woke up with a purring fur baby in bed with us. We spent the weekend on the sofa, eating delectable food, sharing our passion for similar cultural entertainment, and making a fuss over the cute little kitten… the most perfect weekend imaginable.

    The difference between what actually happened and what could have happened might not seem great enough to have prompted the decision to not get a kitten and to hang myself, but we must be aware that it has been a very long hard journey from sleeping in a bush in Kensington Palace Gardens – utterly destitute – to get to this point.

    Breakups have caused me a great deal of trauma in the past, with my divorce being the most extreme example, which tore through my life destroying nearly everything, myself included. However, I know what love is and I know what kind of life I want. I know the core elements that will make my life pleasant, liveable, sustainable and full of joy. I’m no fool: I know what I’ve got to do, and I’ve been patiently rebuilding my life, choosing very carefully.

    As I write this, I have my little kitten peacefully napping on my chest, as I’m lying on my chaise-longue in a parquet-floored period home, with huge high ceilings and massive bay windows. I’ve had a great day at work and I’ve earned a lot of money. I have a beautiful girlfriend who I think is amazing, who will be coming to see me later. My life is exceptionally awesome.

    How will I react if the relationship ends? Who can say? What I can say with certainty though, is that I’ve dealt with exceptional adversity in my life and survived, and of course I am incredibly unlikely to hurt myself while I still have the energy to keep fighting and patiently battling to achieve a decent quality of life.

    Given some medical emergencies which have nearly claimed my life, and becoming totally destroyed by my divorce, perhaps I should be happy to live in a dumpster, in rags, with no love at all; perhaps I should just be happy that I’m not dead. No. I’m not content to merely be alive. I want it all: love, money, job and house… and a little kitten.

    I hope that things work out with my girlfriend and I. I think she’s amazing and I think we’re really well matched, but who knows how things are going to pan out in future. Of course, I hope that she’s “the one” but it’s early days. If things don’t work out, that’s life – I still get to keep my great job, my great house and I still have the love of my little kitten.

    This might sound quite different from how I sounded last week, but you have to understand the massive disappointment that I was facing. I would be disappointed if things didn’t pan out with my girlfriend, but it doesn’t have to be so devastating and shocking and sudden. Life is usually a little more stable and predictable.

    Anyway, I had a great weekend of domestic bliss.

     

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  • Home Improvements

    This is a story about nurturing…

    Houseplants

    My lounge is a place of contrast. I hate the style of the fireplace, but I love having a log fire. I love the parquet floor but it’s completely different from the parquet in the rest of the house. The room is cold, but I wanted this room to be cosy – I spend a lot of time under a blanket, when the fire’s not lit. My big sofas are super comfy, but I find all my furniture a little bland and generic; functional and practical. I hate the curtains: they’re revolting and need replacing, but I do like to close the curtains and feel like I have good privacy.

    Getting some houseplants has transformed how I feel about my lounge. Having some greenery really makes me feel many times happier about this particular room of my house.

    The shelves were looking a little bare, as I lost a lot of my books during my divorce and many subsequent house moves. The weight of books that I was lugging around didn’t seem to be worth it after I had moved for the millionth time, so the only books I have on my shelves are ones I’ve recently bought and read, or been lent.

    I feel like it’s a bit of a crazy idea to start accumulating more and more material possessions, including bulky items like furniture, and delicate things like houseplants, which can’t be simply thrown into a box if I needed to put my stuff into storage.

    However, I needed to put down some roots. I needed to feel settled and at home somewhere, at long last.

    Did I mention I’m getting a kitten?

    I’ve had enough of being young, free and single. I want to be comfortable and content. I want to be settled and secure.

    This doesn’t mean that I’m in some desperate hurry to find the woman of my dreams, marry her and start a family. I’m just enjoying simple domestic pleasures. I’m enjoying ordinary life. I like loading and unloading the dishwasher. I like doing my laundry. I like buying houseplants and other things to make my house look nice. I like mowing the lawn. I get plenty of novelty and pleasure from pottering around the house. That’s not to say that I don’t very much enjoy going on lovely dates, eating in amazing restaurants and watching arty movies, but I derive an unusual amount of satisfaction from making my house into a home.

    It seems like I’m doing everything all at once: moving to a new city, getting a house, settling in, getting a pet, going on dates. Perhaps it seems like I have an end-goal that I’m rushing towards, like so many people do: either rushing towards having children, rushing towards their retirement and death, or both. I’m pretty content to have things settle down for a while. I really want to savour the next few years – I’m hoping that I can keep things steady and routine, enjoying the pleasure of foreign holidays, mini-breaks and fine dining. It might seem like I’m constantly yearning and striving, but as my quality of life improves, the pace at which I live my life is calming down.

    Entering into an exclusive relationship might seem like I’m desperate to move my love-life forwards, but it felt like a very natural part of winding down from my rather frenetic period of activity, and was something I was overjoyed about given how crazy I’ve been about one particular special somebody.

    All the things I’m really pleased about sound really ordinary and mundane, in a way: a slowly developing relationship, a steady working routine, minor home improvements. Getting a kitten sounds exciting, which it is, but I want the kitten to feel settled at home with me, and to become part of my day-to-day existence. I eagerly anticipate feeding the cat and watering the plants, as well as cooking ordinary meals for the object of my affections when she comes to visit; watching movies on TV, curled up on the sofa with the cat.

    Have I lost my adventurous side? Of course not. I had a rough time when I lived a chaotic adrenaline-filled life without any structure or routine. I’m managing to gradually restore myself to sustainable health, wealth and prosperity. I’m bound to start doing lots of really exciting things – it’s in my nature – but I’m going to be smart and keep my love life, my work life and my home life settled, secure, scheduled and sensible.

    Future planned purchase: a watering can and some plant food. That pretty much sums up my attitude to life at the moment.

     

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  • I’m Impatient

    This is a story about being in a hurry…

    Wrigglebottom

    Wanting a girlfriend, a kitten and a house could hardly be said to be whimsical decisions that have I suddenly made with little thought put into them. I’ve wanted a girlfriend, a cat and a house for my whole adult life, and probably a lot of my adolescence too. My wants and needs are pretty basic; fundamental.

    The amount of elapsed time it’s taken me to get a house, furnish it, start dating, meet some prospective love interests and find a kitten, has not taken me very long at all… by most normal people’s standards. According to my perceptions, time has been almost at a standstill: like watching a 3 hour long movie in ultra slow-motion, or perhaps having each of the 24 frames per second shown by a slide projector, one every minute. The last three months of my life have lasted 72 months, according to my warped perception of time.

    I by no means want to make a hurried decision about important things such as embarking upon a serious relationship, but equally I am not a person who wishes to spend a vast amount of time, effort and money, eternally dating and never thinking about making a more earnest commitment.

    My life feels quite incomplete without a feline friend. I find it improves my life immeasurably to have a furry face to greet me when I come home, and I never seem to get bored of playing with cats, and stroking them when they’re in the mood for human company – the sensation of a cat’s fur is instantly calming, soothing and stress relieving.

    UK house prices are insanely overvalued, so I must temporarily console myself with a house owned by a bank – with a mortgage – or beholden to some other form of landlord who gets rich at my expense. However, at least I have some say over how I furnish and decorate my home, and I have the right to reasonably refuse entrance to anybody I want and feel safe behind my front door.

    I might seem like a very impatient person, but you have to understand that I thought I had my life sorted at a surprisingly young age, but there were bumps in the road and I’m finding myself starting over – clean slate – in a new city and without much to show for all the struggle and effort I put in up until now. That’s why I’m so impatient: I very much know what I want and I know how to get it, because I already got what I wanted once already.

    I have to wait a while to pick up my kitten because bengal breeders are pretty strict about when people are allowed to have them. The waiting is agonising. I have loads of photos and I get to go back for visits, but I hate waiting. I want to start bonding with my kitten right away.

    I have my future life pictured very clearly and I can easily see the steps of how to get where I want to be. I never thought “I wish I didn’t get a kitten” or “I wish I didn’t buy a house” previously. I’m usually pretty good at knowing what’s going to make me feel like a happy, fulfilled, contented person. I’m usually pretty good at knowing what’s missing from my life.

    It takes time to get everything we want and need, and the waiting is horrible, but I suppose I’ll get there in the end.

     

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  • The Demise of The Floordrobe

    This is a story about domestication…

    Messy bedroom

    I’m starting to win the battle against having stuff spread all over the floor in every room of my house. I’m starting to hide things away. I’ve even managed to build a wardrobe and chest-of-drawers – with some assistance – but those are for guests. I’ll get some furniture for my bedroom after I next get paid… I’m trying to pace myself a little, financially.

    Coming home to a tidy house is great. I’m finding it easier to stay on top of things.

    It’s a big change from only a month or so ago, when I felt like I was getting swamped – my todo list was growing faster than I could possibly cope with, so it was impossible to deal with things immediately, because I was already so overwhelmed.

    I have a list of fairly boring purchases to make, such as home insurance and car breakdown cover. I’m also going to be getting identical furniture to what’s in my guest bedroom, for my own bedroom, so there’s nothing particularly exciting about that purchase.

    What is very nice is that I’m enjoying a lot of the purchases I made in a short space of time. I have some great new clothes to choose from. There are some little touches to my home which are making me feel really happy that I went through the stress and the effort, and risked a huge amount of money, hoping that I’ll somehow be able to remain stable and maintain my healthy good routines.

    It feels like slow progress to me, but I guess for most people they’d never try to do so much all at once. I’m really pleased that I’m managing to improve so many areas of my life all at once.

    Not living out of suitcases anymore is a brilliant improvement to my life.

     

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  • Summer’s Here

    This is a story about unseasonably good weather…

    Sun tan lotion

    While my colleagues have been enjoying Easter holidays, it’s been 4 months since I took some time off work. Having the long 4-day Easter weekend was very pleasant, and there are two more long weekends in May. The Easter bank holiday weekend was particularly nice because it was sunny and warm.

    A friend asked if I’d like to join him and his family for a picnic in the park, which I thought was madness, given that we’re still in April and the nights can be decidedly cold. However, it was very pleasantly warm, even as the sun started to go down.

    During the daytime over the Easter weekend, it felt most summery indeed. My skin is pretty tolerant of the UK sun, so I didn’t really need sun tan lotion, but I was able to wear flip-flops and sunglasses, with short sleeves, and it felt like summer.

    Summer is my favourite time of year.

    There are a number of juggling balls I’ve got midair at the moment. Work, house, relationships, friendships, money, car, bills and admin… the usual crap that almost everybody has to worry about. Somehow, I’m managing to keep all the plates spinning reasonably well at the moment, which bodes very well for having a good summer.

    Last year, a catastrophic chain of events screwed up my job, my relationships, some friendships, and put my whole situation – regarding housing and finances – into jeopardy. I got very sick and I was worried I was going to lose everything: my life is fragile.

    This year, my approach has been exactly the same: I’m working hard on an important IT project, I have a place to live which I like, dating is going well, I’m starting to make friends, my finances are in good shape – things are looking extremely promising, but I know how quickly everything can crumble.

    Last year, I ended up snatching a couple of days away with a good friend – a boy’s trip away – which was amazing, but my life had been destabilised and my future was uncertain. By the time the summer arrived, I didn’t feel in a position to enjoy it at all, and in fact I hardly saw the sunshine at all. When a new job came along, I took it immediately and worked all summer, including the day of my birthday.

    Although I have had a very good run of luck, including a fantastic holiday over the Christmas and New Year period, I feel like I would like to celebrate my achievements and hard work by going away on holiday for my birthday. It’s a little extravagant and it’s an avoidable expense, but I feel like it would be great to have a summer break, to recharge the batteries ready for the long slog through to the autumn.

    Perhaps it’s not necessary to go abroad. A staycation can be just as great as going overseas. In fact, the UK is fantastic if you’re lucky with the weather. Certainly, the Easter bank holiday weekend felt like being on holiday in a country with a much better climate than our own fair shores.

    I guess it’s something to aim for; something a little bit more exciting than domestic purchases of boring things for around the house. It feels like a way of psychologically declaring 2019 to be “a good year” which is important to me, given the number of “bad years” I’ve had. It hasn’t been since 2016 that things were going smoothly in my life, when I went away for a lovely holiday to celebrate my birthday.

    There’s something really nice about having a holiday when things are going well – to be settled at home, in a relationship, work going well, financially secure, social interaction and other things which make life bearable – is important if you’re going to be able to relax and enjoy yourself.

    My life is becoming increasingly good, especially considering how much I was struggling with stress and anxiety very recently. I was overwhelmed and too exhausted, depressed and anxious to think about doing nice things, but now the landscape is starting to look very different.

     

    Of course, I must say that I’m very fortunate to be in the position that I’m in, and I’m trying not to feel “entitled” to things, but it’s no accident that I’m in the situation I’m in – there has been hard work, struggle and suffering to endure, so I don’t feel too guilty about planning a nice holiday for myself, to celebrate my birthday in July.

     

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  • Mount Cardboard

    This is a story about packaging…

    Cardboard pile

    My house has high ceilings but I’ve still managed to reach the ceiling with my mountain of cardboard packaging, mostly from all the Ikea furniture I’ve bought. Arguably, I’m getting by with the bare minimum amount of furniture. What’s the minimum amount of furniture that you could have, and lead a fairly normal life?

    I lived out of suitcases and holdalls for a long time, so it seems reasonable to want a wardrobe – for hanging garments – and a chest of drawers for my other clothes. I’m sick of rummaging in bags to find the clothes I want.

    I have a guest bed. It might seem like a real luxury to have a guest bedroom at all, but what was the point of working so hard for so long, if I’m not able to accomodate guests in my own home? Sure, I could rent a room in a shared house, share a kitchen, share a bathroom… but I spent enough years putting up with other people’s disgustingness and inconsiderate behaviour. I think I’m entitled to a place of my own, with some space for friends and my sister to come and stay with me.

    I have two sofas and a coffee table. I could probably get along alright with just one sofa but at some point I was going to want a matching pair and there’s no guarantee that Ikea would have kept manufacturing the model I bought, so it made sense to buy the second sofa. Also, it does mean I can seat guests without us all having to be cramped onto the one sofa. I don’t think it seems particularly profligate to own two sofas.

    I managed to live for about 18 months without a microwave, iron, vacuum cleaner and various other domestic items, but it is rather tiresome not having these household basics. Yes, I did manage to survive without those things, but I could hardly be accused of being a spendthrift for purchasing such mundane objects.

    In amongst the packaging pile of Mount Cardboard are some large lumps of polystyrene, which protected my washer/dryer during delivery. I’ll accept that the dishwasher – which I did not purchase – is a luxury item that I could easily live without, but I refuse to wash my clothes by hand using a washboard and mangle. Using the dryer is horrendously energy inefficient and I have been good at taking advantage of nice weather to hang my washing out to dry, but sometimes it’s incredibly nice to fill the machine with dirty laundry, push a button, and then have dry clothes ready to wear some hours later – requiring virtually zero effort.

    The sum total amount of money I’ve spent vastly exceeds what I expected, even though I have bought bottom-of-the-range items most of the time. One must remember that I was starting my life afresh – a clean slate – with virtually no possessions, and the innumerable items which you use in normal daily life shouldn’t be underestimated.

    I bought items which could be seen as serving a purely decorative purchase, like lamps for my lounge and bedrooms, and shelves for the bathroom. I bought a bath mat and some pillows. I bought a pair of curtains. I bought some little organiser boxes. I even bought a couple of outdoor chairs to sit in the sun and read my book, in the privacy of my own garden. My life would function without these things, or I could make do with what I’ve got, but there’s an intangible value to having a house with some finishing touches which make it feel homely; inviting.

    If things should go horribly wrong somehow, with the benefit of hindsight some might criticise me for having set up my home relatively quickly – in under two months – instead of being much more cautious about the rate I have been spending money. I would counteract that argument by saying that this lovely home is my reward for having struggled through the years in shared houses, hostels, sleeping rough, months in hospital and generally unsettled existence which led me to the point of having no furniture, and very little else which is necessary to make a house a home.

    It pleases me when I open a cupboard to find that I had the foresight to buy tea and coffee for the benefit of any visitors, because I do not drink tea or coffee myself. It pleases me when I’m able to offer a guest a hot beverage of their choice, with milk and/or sugar too. It might sound laughable, the idea of living a life where I simply wasn’t in a position to have friends or my sister stop and visit, but that’s what my life has been like – we quickly take our lives for granted and get used to our surroundings.

    It will be a relief to take Mount Cardboard to my nearest recycling centre. It will be great to reclaim that space and not have the ugly eyesore, but I do have a final wave of Ikea furniture, which I have delayed for now because I have the bare minimum to be able to comfortably accomodate one guest or a couple. At some point, I would like to be able to have the space to have visitors and their kids too, given that most of my friends have children, and I have a young niece.

    To say that having a great big house that’s empty most of the time is hugely wasteful is a valid criticism, but this is my reward for working hard and making good sensible choices. This is how I’m making sense of the world, because I was struggling to see the point of being alive, if I was not seeing any benefit from my efforts.

    I guess for most ordinary people, they get a “treat” occasionally – they have to spend their meagre income little by little – but I’ve gotten an entire furnished house suddenly overnight, but that’s not really a fair comparison. I assure you that when you have no bed to sleep on at all, getting a bed seems like a necessity, not a treat.

    I’m beginning to live very well, and I am grateful; I am happy. I am beginning to feel contented and settled.

     

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