by Life is exhausting. Mornings are damn near impossible and even though things improve during the day, I’m having to slow everything way down. Communication must be kept to a bare minimum – I find instant messaging a huge burden at the best of times. There’s certainly no point in trying to achieve anything, at least not anything that meets the 2020s definition of achieve. Today I spent most of the day in the park next to where I get the water once a week or so. It’s pleasant there. And quiet. And less crappy than sitting or lying on the sofa. I just wish there was a loo. Today’s weather was conducive to being outside. I’m thankful for the milder weather. The whole of yesterday morning was particularly terrible. I watched YouTube videos about climbing Everest, which had a certain irony given how I was feeling.
What I’m dealing with meets all the criteria for ME, with one exception which I hope will remain so: having it for at least six months. I read that three-quarters of people with ME aren’t able to work, which doesn’t surprise me. There’d be no way in hell I could hold down any sort of normal job at the moment. This afternoon I drove to the supermarket – usually I’d walk, but walking has become more of a shuffle, and anyway I needed to get heavy bags of litter for Kitty. I started off putting items in a basket as I’d normally do, forgetting that I’d need a trolley this time. I was able to exit the place without buying anything and start all over with a trolley. When I got to the checkout, the lady accidentally scanned the cat litter three times (I’d bought two bags). To resolve the problem, she had to communicate with someone using a kind of walkie-talkie, then that person (presumably) had to come and unlock something or other, then she pressed a metal security tag against some kind of reader, all while the queue was backing up. I thought, no, there’s absolutely no way I could do this job. Or almost any other job.
My actual job I can handle, but only just, because my hours are way down. Yesterday for instance I only had one 90-minute session with the boy in Mehala. I took the bike there and deeply exhaled the whole way. I needed some stationery and rather than go to the mall on the way there under impossible time pressure, I went on the way back. Malls are always, um, interesting, when I’m like this. I must have walked around the same two aisles half a dozen times before deciding that no, they really didn’t have the coloured card I wanted. There were various stationery items with “good vibes” written on them, and even a young woman browsing them with “summer vibes” on her top. Seriously, take your vibes and shove ’em. There was a L’Oréal ad featuring Nadia Comăneci. This stuff revitalises and nutrifies (or something) your hair for 100 hours. Because you’re worth it. A hundred hours. See you in a hundred hours. Does anyone really think of time like that? It’s like when Vodafone offered 500 “free” minutes on the HomePlus plan. A deliberately meaningless number. I did get some bits and pieces and paid for them at a self-service kiosk. I was pleased to manage that. As I was sorting that out, Gloria Gaynor’s seventies hit Never Can Say Goodbye was playing. On the way out I passed a morbidly obese man wearing a T-shirt that read “Football’s coming home” in large red, white and blue text. Not something I would have expected there and then.
It was a slow ride home. I went down streets I hadn’t been along in years, or in some cases at all. Which was quite nice. When I got home I had spaghetti with bacon, mushrooms and other vegetables. That was easily the highlight of the day.
Tomorrow Dorothy is celebrating her 72nd birthday at Buzad. She said there would be 30 to 40 people there. I don’t know whether to go. That’s a lot of people at any time. If I could go for a couple of hours and then leave, maybe. I called her last night to say I didn’t know for sure if I’d be going. I did that because I knew she would write me an instant message in Romanian and expect me to reply, and that would generate another message, and so on, and it would all be too tiring.
Mark had to bring his exit from Romania forward a few days because of the movers, so my catch-up with him last weekend sadly ended up being my last. Until (hopefully) I get to see him sometime in the north of England. Not having him around is going to be a real bugger, let’s be honest.
I spent a lot of yesterday catastrophising. If this goes on until September when the new academic year starts, I certainly won’t be able to carry out full days and weeks of work. My earnings will no longer cover my expenses. My mental health will be shot to pieces by then. It’s already teetering. And then what? Go back to New Zealand, where everything is so damn expensive now, and do what? Would I even be in a fit state to make the move? How would I go about selling or renting this place at that point? But then again, if someone had told me when I moved to Romania that I’d see a big improvement in my life until something happens in year ten which will bring it my time here to a close, I’d have bitten their hand off.
Lately I’ve been listening to The Rip by Portishead. It’s a beautiful song. The band took their name from the seaside town just down the road from Bristol.
Mum and Dad are now in Poole, as far as I know. They’ll be down at my brother’s place until (I’m guessing) Tuesday or Wednesday.
