How are Things?

Blog

  • Monday 21st July 2025

    Good evening all. I’ve become so used to this blog it is beginning to feel weird if I don’t make a daily entry. Today, I woke up so tired I was at one quarter power, and honestly my entire body and soul was begging for rest. Instead, I got up, late, did my exercises, slowly, and got myself into work.

    I hate the fact that my son is now old enough for me to leave by himself. He has a fully charged phone, and he has a person who calls in, but it is two hours after I leave, and my eager imagination creates all manner of disasters to happen the moment I leave.

    The day itself seemed to beg me to stay home. We had torrential rain from about 5am onwards and it didn’t stop until at least 10am. There is always a part of me that worries about those who have to deal with that; animals made starving by climate damage, homeless people with nowhere to go. It is the case that I now know that such well meaning wishes don’t do anything concrete except make me forgive myself.

    Work was brought to us by the words ‘Coffee’ and ‘Perseverance’. I brought the huge number of emails down from 120 to 30, and then turned to the questions for tomorrow. Tomorrow, we hold interviews for folks wishing to join my team. I went with the flow last time and had to deal with a frankly less than pleasant personality. Tomorrow, I aim to get the best person possible for the team.

    The evening was salmon for dinner, lots of laundry done, and listening to the rain. Hope you’re not out in bad weather, wherever you are. Sleep well.

  • Saturday 20th July 2025

    My brother woke me early to find out what happened. It was so early that it woke me up; and seeing as I am up between 5am and 6am during the week it wasn’t very much what I wanted.

    Anyway. Today my son and I took my niece to see a movie. She lives thirty minutes away, and the movie theatre is another thirty minutes, so we had to head out around 12.30pm. Then pick her up, and then over to see the movie at 2pm. The movie tickets cost approximately $39, and snacks beforehand cost roughly the same. We were going to see Jurassic World Rebirth, and I think it was my son’s fourth time seeing it; maybe fifth?

    My niece has had a hard time. A hard life, really. She went through a really bad event as a teenager, and then had an eating disorder that derailed life for several years. She picked herself up, and got her degree. She met someone, and they fell in love. And then just the other day, the person she loved didn’t want to be with her any more. Her heart is broken, but she is keeping going. And we wanted to spend some time with her.

    And she hated the movie. For some reason they played it too loud, and there were points of sadness in it right from the beginning, and to a wounded heart it was all too much. We left after about thirty minutes and dropped her home. I’m only sorry I couldn’t give her a better afternoon, but I am proud of my son for coping so well with it. He really wanted to share this experience with her; but when he couldn’t, he was an absolute gentleman about it.

    Then we got the groceries and he turned into a teenager.

    My son was in the worst kind of teenage mood all afternoon and evening. At the till I asked him to swop one sliced pan for another, and he had nearly a fit at the burden I was placing on him. I honestly was trying not to have a huge argument with him right then and there.

    We got home, we got dinner into us, and then, finally, he got some rest in bed. I managed to not do anything very productive all evening, and it is appallingly late as I type. And now, I’m going to go to bed.

  • Friday 19th July 2025

    Finally, this week is over. I have been so tired and so uninspired this week, and now there is a chance to rest for a moment.

    I made an appointment with my councilor, a woman who by now knows me way too well. Then I had lunch with a fellow colleague where we got a chance to raise our concerns about senior management.

    Problematic person has done a lot of crying but has broken up with terrible person but I’ve gone ahead and notified security about his awful ex; if only because apparently my name was mentioned in the break up conversation. The Problematic person’s emotional wave has gone out from shore, and in fact is now heading back in: they have texted me to say they’re annoyed with the other people being annoyed with them. This is a mess, and I’m going to get myself out of it.

    Dinner was made by my son and it tasted amazing, mainly because he is a great kid. I’m listening to Amy Poehler and going to bed. Night all.

  • Thursday 17th July 2025

    Things that happened today:

    So I made it into work, determined to ignore any and all calls for intervention, assistance or emotional support. Only to receive a WhatsApp message: The horrible abuser had been cast off! Really and truly! The relief was huge, and it was amplified when a third party told me that horrible abuser had been told to stay away from exactly the type of environment we all work in. As in, part of his probation was to stay away. And he’d been here! Several times!

    Honestly, I throw up my hands at this. In no way was ANY of this a good idea; going out with horrible person or my getting involved in the whole nasty thing. Colleague is blind to a dangerous degree to firstly allow this and then to lie about it. He is immature and dangerously so.

    Strange behavior from a colleague, this time from another unit. She claimed there was construction work going on so could she us e an adjunct office. Yes she could but she is disingenuous, and I wonder at all of this.

    And finally, I and Young man spend the evening together with my niece. She has broken up with her partner and I can see their influence decreasing on her heartbreak.

    Enough drama. So to sleep.

  • Wednesday 16th July 2025

    One part of my role is to help junior staff. And some of those junior staff share an open plan office space. Today one of them called into me with a problem. A second staff member has been speaking about a very unpleasant situation with their boyfriend. There was signs of real problems, possible physical abuse, and certainly financial cohersion.

    I spoke to the second staff member, and it is sooo much worse than I realised. Firstly, the boyfriend is in fact getting a lot of money off them, nearly four figures. They forget birthdays and important days. They openly speak of other people in an effort to make junior staff member jealous. And the icing on this unpleasant cake?

    He is on the sex registrar list, but he swears he didn’t do it!!

    I could if I wanted to show you a press briefing of the criminal case. He recorded men and women in bathrooms and showers, and kept it up. When the case was reported on social media, folks came out to say they knew him in school and he was nasty then, too.

    Oh jeepers.

    We talked and talked. Junior staff member swore up and down that they would break up, that they would block their number, and that all would be well. There were tears, there were promises, there were guarantees.

    Aaaand they have done none of them. Apparently they left my office and told someone immediately that they were not going to break up with Mr Sex Register. The news article is just a conspiracy, it seems and the rest is just a joke. Relax!!

    For goodness’s sake. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them cop the fuck on.

  • Tuesday 15th July 2025

    Yesterday, for all the briefness in my entry, was an important day. I gathered as many people as possible to decide the best way to deal with the coming year. It was a collective group action, about building consensus and about sharing information as a group. It was work, diligence and about being as professional as possible in a public forum. The skill attached to it was gathering the reigns of those in the room, and moving their opinions towards my vision for the future. And I did, for at least the majority of the event. My agenda items were carried out and I’m in charge of doing so.

    Not surprisingly, today I was tired. I was up, but not functioning for quite some time. I did all the things I usually do, but slowly, and most likely with little flair. However, today moved from the external, to the internal. The company I work with provides a coaching service, where you can reach out to a more senior member of staff in a different unit. Today was the first day I was to meet him.

    The movement towards his office was far too cinematic, in that I moved from my office, down to the concourse, towards his building, up in the elevator to the top floor, and then into the winding corridors that led to his office. When I knocked, he opened it after a moment and said my name with a question mark. I smiled, nodded, and met his eyes, and he held the gaze a little longer than normal. I felt that he used the tactic to gain space over his visitors, and moved my own gaze away.

    The plan is that the first session lasts at least an hour. The discussion is not to be a counselling session, but it is very often like that in terms of topic. It is not meant to be about technical skills, but rather the psychology behind the work, behind the person.

    His office is busy, with many mementoes and souvenirs of a busy life. I see such things as the birthright of the smart and the rich, and look upon them as privilege. Those not credited with intelligence are not given such rights, but have to be happy with impersonal space – a bitter thought, probably not my only one. He himself is a short, neat man, with wiry strength, and an ethnicity going back millennia.

    The conversation would have deserved a setting to Philip Glass; there was harmony, but not sentimentality. We quickly found ourselves discussing profound matters, and the conversation reached a depth I had not really emotionally prepared for. In short-

    I believe I am not a good person and I have no right to work there.

    And in that vulnerability is all my wasted potential and fear, making me blind and leading to defenses rather than merely working, and working well.

    We both acknowledged that the conversation had uncovered a lot rather quickly. Myself, my stomach was one tight bundle. We wrapped it up after an hour, and I took a lunchbreak to think, to breathe.

    The afternoon saw me have a cup of tea with a person who is heading away from our unit. She is heading to another country where she can rent an apartment for a fraction of what she can get here. I wish her well, and admire her for seeking a good life for herself. We all want that, of course we do.

  • Monday 14th July 2025

    In which I chose to spend all my time in an airless room.

    Today, I held an event I myself was organising. It was an away day for folks with my job title. It is a very specific, if not very elevated, job title, and the need for Senior Management to push us around is consistent. So, I am therefore helping us to band together. We will be creating several things to support us, and to create cohesiveness among us for the future.

    I feel, with regards to the future, almost an interest in how bad it is going to get. I have very little faith in government, for very clear reasons. But how bad it will get, how low it will go, these are the things that occupy my minds.

    According to my fitbit, I got 4 hours sleep yesterday. I think I better go to bed.

  • Sunday 13th July 2025

    This morning, I awoke. In more ways than one.

    I was married for 13 years, and the divorce took four years to work its way out. That was June 2024, in a ritual in a court that was an anti-marriage. Do you not take this man? I do not. Is the marriage retrievable? Like a precious passenger that fell off a raft on a fast-moving river, with no chance to grab or collect it, or even mourn it being gone- No, it was not. Then it was over and I was travelling home on public transport, my voice and face as mute as other passengers, both sad and free and happy and released all at the same time.

    Then other things came that summer. No chance to rest or retrieve, just keep moving.

    It is really not until the return of Spring that I felt I could breathe out. Music and art, the record of others’ joy, no longer disgusted me. My fears lessened. My panic lessened. My heart became to calm. And now, I find my own music grows at times. My rhythm can contain more than one beat, and my soul isn’t so icy.

    The hot night begat a hot morning. Various thumps and whimpers from neighbors spoke of their desires being met, and I found myself actually understanding, even identifying, for the first time for years.

    And yes, I mean years.

    I’m no one’s idea of attractiveness. And I certainly am deeply uninterested in inviting anyone into my life. But this is another sign of healing quietly making itself known to me, when I feared it was not possible to ever return.

    I’ve just ensured that this blog will always be anonymous, it seems. I hope to write again tomorrow.

  • Saturday 12th July 2025

    The cat woke me, bless the little darling. It was actually no harm, as I needed to get up at 7am anyway. I was at my laptop at 8.30am, and started the long and arduous process of getting through work emails. You see, as schools are closed and I’m still expected to work full time, I have to enroll my son in summer camps. However, no camp will cover the full time hours I need to work, so weekends see me working in an effort to catch up.

    I really did underestimate how long it would take because those emails did take me all day. I finished at 1806, and I left 15 emails that were all about finance. Our brand new finance system is maddening in its new layout. It is so wonderful, that it has removed all traces of previous financial transactions on the system. I am saving the financial information until Tuesday, like a little treat.

    On Monday I am having such a big event I can’t even think about that right now.

    So, to go over Sunday; finish all the applications, email my boss who is returning Monday from leave, and then prep for Monday. My son returns at approximately 6pm. Will keep you posted.

  • Thursday 10th July 2025

    A confession; I am as white as boiled rice. The sun and all its works wring me out more thoroughly than linen on a washer board. Yesterday saw me moving across town, until I gathered my son and two of his friends to go see a movie. It went well, which was a relief; as a boy with autism friendship isn’t a certainty. But getting home by 6pm with the weather in the 70s saw me drained far beyond my capacities. I made dinner, and then I tidied up, and then I felt myself more empty than a dry gas tank. I was in bed by 8.40pm, and slept hard until 4am. I want to call it moral decline, but honestly it’s sadder than that; it’s old age.

    Today, with all my hours of sleep behind me, I still felt exhausted. But up and at it, at 5am. Not all things got done, but all things were attempted, even when I wanted to give up.

    I even managed to have lunch with my sister. We rarely if ever get together. Her daughter, my niece, has been through hell and back, and now has had her long term partner break up with her. The weight of the sadness I know she is going through… The gift of today was seeing my sister again, though. Salads and chats, and catching up. Plans and hopes for the future, especially when I thought once it might never happen.

    Afternoon, I had my online session with my counsellor. We talked over the week, my exhaustion, and possible plans for change. I have sought out so much change recently that I hesitate. I doubt myself. I would love new pastures, but only if they’re pastures, not battlefields. I want everything to be All Right. Which of us don’t?