How are Things?

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  • Tuesday 8th July 2025

    I woke at 5am for some reason believing it to be Saturday. My brain is craving release. I managed to get up today and get some work done, then took my boy to art camp. Yesterday saw me hunt for him in the car park. He is 13, not a big deal, but today they ensured that no child from his group would be let out without a parent coming to pick him up. Of course I was the last one there, so I managed to cause a lot of delay for all the teenagers minding the place. Lordie.

    Today was the release of the brand new, all shiny, will-solve-everything financial system in my workplace. This thing will, and I quote, see the institution hopefully do away with lots of administrative staff. It was supposed to roll out at 9am. That became 1pm. At 2.30pm there was no sign, and I had to collect my son and make it home to work from there.

    At home in the afternoon, maybe it was the coffee, maybe the consciousness of the extra needs of my son, but I was alerted and somewhat agitated. I got as much done as I could by 5.30, then made dinner.

    By 6.30pm I and my son were online, playing our very first round of Dungeons and Dragons. The DM is a friend from work and there was a third person joining us. My son finds it hard to regulate his excitement, even his voice, so I had to tell him to ease up on the volume a few times. This was enough to see him upset, thinking that I was making him feel left out. Maybe I was. The truth is that I have no friends, no activities and no hobbies other than this, and the chance to do something, anything, just for me, is rare. And he didn’t like it. I hope we get to do it again, it was a good space for my brain to be in.

    And now, the laundry is out of the machine, the clothes are laid out for tomorrow, and I will be at my computer by 6am at the latest to see if I can sort out the financial issues of my unit. Talk to you then.

  • Monday 7th July 2025

    This day is the anniversary of the attacks in London. I was working in Finance at the time and we had to scramble to ensure transactions were noted and closed off before anyone lost any more money. It wasn’t much but it was the least we could do. The whole thing was horrific; we have much better understanding of what that means nowadays.

    Today I got up at 5am and just could not work hard. I sat and dawdled and did almost nothing until 8am, at which time I was able to go for a shower and start the day. My son has summer camps, a mere band-aid to the time I need to devote to work. I am supposed to carry out forty hours-plus, but will be lucky to get thirty-five. I sought valiantly to get something in the vicinity, but senior management shut down the project three weeks before it was to start; quite deliberately I now feel. These are men who might honestly be threatened by such an idea.

    I did run into two colleagues from another unit, who tell me that they have a role vacant. This is in fact very interesting to me. I am well aware that the idea of moving roles is very attractive, as my ego wants me to find something new. But my disaffection for my current role is not frivolous, and the unit with the vacancy is certainly much more up my bleeding-heart-liberal street. I am conscious that the idea of moving absolutely fulfills my emotional regulation, and makes me very happy.

    There is a need to watch this space. So I will.

  • Thursday 26th June; Part One

    I have long suspected that I am a character in a TV show. One of the reasons for this is that each year there is one day that is a culmination of all the events and themes of that particular year; a season finale, if you will. This year, that day was this Thursday.

    I was up at 5am as I usually am, and I carried out my meditation, exercises, and tried to get as many emails as possible done. However, at 11am, there was to be a reception that my unit was hosting, seeing every other unit in our section potentially joining us. A complication was that I was due at a hugely important meeting from 10am. A further complication was that Problematic Colleague was no longer available to assist; in fact, it was quite likely they would show their face so as to point out errors, demean me to others, and likely have help in their efforts from my boss. A secondly supposedly helpful colleague frankly refused for no reason other than she didn’t like my boss.

    The new online finance system saw delay after delay in getting the purchase order system to the Caterers. I finally got it out to them Wednesday evening, and when I arrived Thursday morning I wasn’t sure if the items would be there in good time; even if they would arrive at all.

    I needn’t have worried. Tea, coffee and thirty beautifully arranged cupcakes were delivered at 9.30 am, giving me plenty of time to rearrange the boardroom tables, set out the catering, and… the vegan options? Where were the vegan options? I thought briefly about contacting the caterers, but remembered the pale faces of the two men, already worn out before 10am. So instead I grabbed my wallet, and got two large vegan bags of cookies from the online shop, as well as grabbing a handful of napkins as well. By 9. 45am everything was set up.

    I took the time to remove old coffee stains from desks, and gave everything one last stare. It is impossible to see every error, every gap, especially by those who strive so hard to locate them. All I could see was a neat and calm set up, with chairs and tables dotted around, treats made ready and welcoming, and a proper reception ready to go. Was it enough? Would fault be found?

    No, and yes. But there was nothing more I could do about it now. I was due at my Hugely Important Meeting. So I locked up the boardroom, handed the key to fellow colleague, emailed my boss regarding all the details, gathered the rest of my papers, and moved on to Part Two…

  • Tears on the Pier

    On Saturday, I and my son saw my niece. It was down in one of the seaside fronts along our city, that on sunny days is filled with the need to do, while at the same time is lazy, hazy, relaxing… I have known my niece all 24 years of her life, and she is a rare and precious thing. She’s young, and in many respects knowing about a lot of things, and at the same time still becoming to know. Getting to walk with anyone while they come to knowledge is a wonderful thing.

    I had concluded fairly recently that she no longer wanted me in her life. She’d made and broken several attempts on my part to meet up, and when we had met her again, she’d finished the meet up fairly quickly. The last time I’d tried to interact with her, I had tried to call round with a gift. I wasn’t even going to call in, merely asked her to drop down and open the door.

    She left me sitting there for half an hour before I’d gotten the hint and left.

    My son, all 13 years of insistent love, was having none of it. I’d told him none of this, and he demanded another meet up last Saturday. I watched over text as they agreed to a time, and a place, and before you knew it away we went. I was pleased they were making time for him, but I expected it to be a less than sweet affair, full of social effort and labour; and I wasn’t terribly interested in the labour coming from me.

    We all met up at 2pm, in some artisan coffee house that couldn’t give him juice, and talked about unimportant things. I myself have a bad habit of fawning in social situations, but really did not want to this time. The coffee I’d been served was as bitter as a barren stepmother, so I gave that up as a bad idea. A good idea was to go walk the pier with ice cream, and so we left the crowded cafe and escaped to the fresh air.

    People walked dogs past us as we talked about nothing in particular; the pier needed to offer boat trips. Chips smell better by the sea. Seagulls are dangerous to all life. All the while we were walking on and on, the length of time of nothing conversation getting longer and longer. A sweet moment in the middle of it was when we turned back, and the healing cool wind reached under shirts and napes of necks to make us exclaim in relief; all a bliss.

    The walk back saw us turn to talk of our shared family. Her mother, my sister, is rarely in either of our company. My niece blames her own sexuality and orientation; I blame my divorce and my sister’s husband. Either way, we feel judged. Each step saw us walk back from the water’s edge, back away from the extremity. The fear of judgement came up as a topic, and before I knew it my recent silence was brought up by her. I explained with clear eyes my efforts at reaching out; and her efforts at pushing back. My niece, however, was crying before I finished; I am it seems her only family, the only one she can trust, the only one who will speak to her.

    She actually cancelled seeing me the day after Christmas with ten minutes notice.

    None of it, apparently, should be read into. She took herself off for five minutes to breathe and compose herself, then joined myself and my son in the book shop. There, among the stacks of paperbacks and coffee table depictions of life, we settled our sad souls as best as we could; to regain the possession of ourselves, and our possession of each other as family, and for me to start to imagine the relationship continuing.

    Before long, it was time to go. She and her girlfriend had made plans to see another friend elsewhere, and my son’s social candle was flickering. I drove both of us home, weary and worn from the effort, and we ate pizza without consciously taking it in.

    I still feel myself untouched by it all. I find myself guarded; if she does all this without even trying, fully engaging with her is not without risks. But still, it is more positive than I led myself to believe on that pier. And now we lead ourselves out from it.

  • Sunday 22nd June 2025

    Good evening, all. I’m writing this while under the covers, my cat making herself comfortable at my feet. It is Sunday night, after a busy week, and I wanted to take a few minutes to say hello.

    This week saw me take my car in for testing. Unfortunately it failed, in that the diesel filter needs cleaning and that is a job that takes several thousand euro. I will need to get that arranged, and I am not sure how or when I will be able to find the time.

    My annoying and very unpleasant colleague has finally left the unit. My boss seems to believe that the right thing to do is to have Annoying colleague still on the books in case she is needed. This is annoying, again. And I will have not so much a performance review, but an objective-planning meeting this Tuesday. I actually hate speaking to my boss these days, in that my body actually reacts to it.

    Also this week my son will be leaving his primary school. He is nonchalant about it, in that he seems to feel he will be able to go back and visit at Christmas. Yes, he will, but he will face a very different world in secondary school, one that has a lot of new demands to make on him. I am weepy at the thought of leaving his old school, and I very much pine already for the understanding nature of his teachers. I felt able to exhale there. Now, it is very different, as it has to be. I fear if I show him how large the mountain ahead is, he will lose hope.

    And on Saturday, my son and I took our much loved cat to the vet. She had shown no illness or symptoms but as she had never been to a vet before it seemed the wisest thing. Getting the poor thing on a leash was very hard, and then we had to bring her in the car, another trauma. When we got there, we had to wait for over 45 minutes. Eventually we were told that she has bad teeth, bad hips and needs her vaccinations updated; all told, it comes in as over €1,500. That may have to be done in payments, I think.

    After that, we went to go visit my sister’s child; I’ll tell you all about that interaction next time!

  • 18th June 2025

    Good evening, all. Another day is done, and the sun has set. This day has been hotter than normal, a dry, unblinking heat setting over the city and into the suburbs. My son is approaching the end of his primary school education, and to celebrate the school takes children on what they call a Leaver’s Tour. It means that I had to collect him an hour later than usual, a short vigil in the car while trying not to fall asleep.

    He’s on a high right now, as his last report card from his school was full of praise for the young man he’s become. They worked so well with him. He had struggled at his previous school, which had been a private, fee paying school. They had despised his outgoing ways, and loathed him even more when he received an Autism diagnosis. That is not an exaggeration: the overly fussy principal had shook her bob and said, “Sorry, he’ll have to go,” when I presented the recommendation report. When I had demanded his right to remain, they made the rest of his time there punative in an effort to force him out. When covid had arrived, they were almost gleeful.

    That was a very hard time.

    Getting the diagnosis came after the end of a personal struggle, and one day I will give the full report of it. Then the school he eventually went to came about after a long search online, then contacting them, and then a near magical walkthrough where my son found it amazingly comforting and positive. They were everything the other school wasn’t, a nearly rosy glow of support after years of outright obstacles. He thrived there.

    And now he is moving to a new school, a secondary school near our new home that has an autism support dog, a unit he can retreat to, and a full range of classes that will work with the skills he has, rather than the skills they feel he should have.

    For a short brief moment a few weeks back I listened to his father. That happens when I feel vulnerable or unsure. The subject options outside the core were Art, Graphic Design, and Geography. His father, paranoid due to Trump and a need to hope for chaos, wanted him to take Geography. For some reason I listened to him, the man who at every stage made the worst possible decisions. When my son realised he would not be taking Graphic Design he was horrified, and I realised what I had done. I had listened to his father’s fears, rather than ask myself what was right for my son. I put the question to his current school as well, and they answered immediately in the affirmative; Art and Graphic Design. His skills there are above anyone else they have ever seen. There is no reason to do otherwise.

    I have contacted his new school to make the change, and they rang us on the way home from my collecting him. I’ll confirm the details tomorrow, but hopefully I will never listen to his father again. I am vulnerable, perhaps, lonely and feeling uncertain about myself. My experiences in work and in other areas mean I would like support, and when that happens I fawn, and bend, far too much. I asked myself today, though, what it would be like to be back with his father.

    Then I snatched up the facecloth on the side of the sink and screamed, three times, into it, only stopping when I realised that screaming didn’t help.

    So what have we learned? That making decisions based on fear is always wrong. And that I have a vulnerability right now, in that I would like more assurance about my decisions. It will make no impact on me at all, as when I think about having a relationship I become very, very angry. But the need is there. Even the sturdiest trees sometimes need support.

  • Tuesday 10th June 2025

    Another Tuesday down. Tuesdays are always less than easy days for me. Everything I don’t like happens on Tuesdays. Team meetings, for one thing. My Unpleasant Team Member has to be dealt with, and I look forward to the hassle she is going to cause in her new role.

    I really do. I seethe with anger over this horrendous person and the damage they have caused. I am blue-flame angry with them, my own manager, and the daily existence I was pushed towards. The anger colours everything, from my daily drive to my nighttime writing.

    There is no validation in those moments. No one will support things, or change things, or even be on my side. Other people simply won’t empathise, and perhaps they shouldn’t. I know I am mentally exhausted, depleted and as a result wary of any major extreme emotion. Were I to hear of a personal conflict of the type I have had inflicted on me, I would very much keep away from it.

    I need to buy some superglue-dissolver. I tried to fix the handle on my bedroom door, and managed instead to affix parts together that no longer move smoothly. Instead, the handle comes out in my hand, usually when I’m in a massive hurry and trying move my delaying son.

    I also need to buy a lightbulb. The one over the sink is blinking, soon to go out. The sink looks out over a large tree covered hill, covered with evergreen trees. The view, on the way there, takes in my balcony, currently holding flower boxes filled with the beginnings of wild flowers. I need to buy a lightbulb.

    It is nearly 11pm. I am all sad and weepy. I told you I don’t like Tuesdays.

  • Sunday 8th June 2025

    Sunday night. The lunches are made, the clothes are put away, and my wonderful son is asleep in his bed. The week coming is going to be very long, very busy and very hard.

    See, what happened last week was, as I mentioned, the week a member of my team handed in her notice. She’s been reported by both myself and another member of our unit for rudeness, and all the complaints have been waived away by Unit Boss. Unit Boss showed a lot of favoritism, right down to helping her with slides in a presentation. The new unit she is going to is busy, rushed, and bureaucratic, all things that will see her doing very well.

    What I have discovered is that senior members of the team, who don’t report to me, have been saying horrific things. That apparently I forced Unpleasant Team Member out. That Unpleasant Team Member was better at her job than me. That UTM will be missed.

    This is a terrible and hurtful thing to say. Really, it is hurtful. I am hurt by this. It actually feels like a punch to the stomach. The element of insult to my dignity comes rushing in through the door as an afterthought. I had believed myself held in some kind of respect, some regard. I thought that I held in some kind of worth. But the hurt is so disparaging that I can only force myself to hold my chin up and keep going.

    This horrible person, though. There is a lot of damage done there.

  • Tuesday, 3rd of June 2025

    It is 5.34am again; I have slept little, for some reason deciding to stay up late for no good reason. Added to the cat deciding to throw up at 4.30am, I’m back at the land of extreme tiredness. The main symptom is thought that lacks any real depth, and an elevated heart rate, all day. I’ve learn to not make decisions or take offence on those days, the main goal is to get to bed early.

    During Covid days were like that. You had to slide through them without connecting or touching to anything happening, just allow the events happen in front of your eyes without any emotional connection. It took a lot for that to change and to act on what I was seeing.

    The day today will be going through the motions; I am a person who built her world on motions so that will be no problem. I have a less than fantastic administrator to assist me. Their work is fine, they just lack any politeness. I will get through the day, get home, make dinner, and get to bed by 10pm, no arguing. I have to get an online meeting, but I will merely watch with no other distractions, I won’t do other than listen.

    On the phone to my brother this weekend, for the usual hour, he asked why I get up so early. Only men ask you to justify your decisions. My son and my work take up all my day, and I am obliged to get up early to make time for myself. To him, it is firstly perfectly okay to ask that question, and secondly he has so little understanding of the work it takes to keep another person going, alive, thriving, that he wonders at the structure my life takes because of it.

    Only five more minutes and my time of discussion is done; I received a wedding invitation via dm in February and didn’t realise it. The bride contacted me yesterday to see if I was coming, and when I checked the invitation was her child’s drawing. It looked so like a child’s drawing I ignored it, and didn’t see it was in fact her wedding invitation. The event is at a house in the country, and I would in fact have to cancel a medical appointment and attend, by myself, knowing no one and being without any means of getting away should the event become too much. And, as I don’t drink, I would be very poor company for everyone else.

    Good luck today to you, anyone that comes across this. You deserve a very good day.

  • Wednesday 28th May 2025

    So, I write these early in the am. If I am late with my exercise, then my time to write is shorter. Right now I have 17 minutes to write. On we go.

    My hideous colleague will continue to be hideous until the 20th of June, at which point they become someone else’s problem. The problem is that they will be still close by; they are moving to the unit next door, meaning I will still have to see them about the place. I hope very much that I have enough of a reputation to allow my friendly chat with them to go ahead; I am sure H.C. will continue being hideous there. I have also lied on the reference, giving a full clearing to go ahead and hire her. It is a role that will see her do well, in that she is not dealing with the public; but if she does it kindly remains to be seen.

    We’ve had torrents of rain these last few days, after weeks of blue skies. I am not phased by it, I have more than enough fortitude built up over years of it to not be upset. The concept of ‘cosy’ comes to the fore and I enough my home even more than I have been. The home itself is relatively new, I moved in here October 2024. I am still afraid to decorate it the way I want to, having been renting for years. The move itself was exhausting too, obliged to be done in a 6 hour period, so no opportunity to reflect on anything, merely move black bags and sacks immediately.

    Today’s plan; work, then gym for my son, then dinner and laundry. I will need to ask my creative side to come up with something useful to write about the next time I’m here.