JDubs and I do most of our talking at night in bed. In the dark and the silence things seem more sincere. We lie side by side chattering and I stare into the blackness, sometimes grabbing the nothing for no reason. I remember hearing my parents doing the same through my bedroom wall. And I wondered why they couldn't have just said everything over dinner. At least then I would have been in on it. It's a funny thing and now I understand it. I don't have to compete against the sound of gunfire on the xbox. JDubs doesn't have to follow me around the house trying to hold my attention for a split second. We each have a forcibly captive, sleepy audience: we are free to just talk. Everything he says at night stays with me and quite often becomes my dream. The things we discuss in the dark set me up for the following day: we come to conclusions and make plans. I can feel rested and ready. Then I can sleep.
Last night was different. I was very suddenly overwhelmed by panic and it was odd. As I lay there thinking about vinegar, a whole wealth of other concerns flushed into my head. I hadn't called my credit card company as planned, the dishwasher was still turned on, what were we doing on Tuesday night?, that piece of work that my boss had criticised, what would I do if I lost my dad?, I should be reading more. I have never, ever worried about a lack of provisions. I have never been kept awake by something that hasn't happened yet. I started to cry and John asked me what was wrong. I said that I was worried about vinegar. Silence.
The dark makes things so clear. As I waffled on about how I was feeling, I said things that I didn't even know I thought. I realised that my life was finally how I had wanted it to be. And it still wasn't enough.
2 months ago I had four jobs: all wildly different, very time consuming, low paid and occasionally enjoyable. I did these jobs so that I could get the job of my dreams. I got the job of my dreams. It's not enough.
In one of my jobs I have left behind a group of people that are irreplaceable. I didn't know how much they meant to me, until I realised that I was laughing less. I hadn't felt challenged in weeks. I hadn't felt angry in so long. It had been a while since I had been around creative, weird people that made me see things differently. We were all from a diverse array of backgrounds, but as a group of people, we worked. We were tied together by a restaurant that we all hated and we knew how to make each other laugh. I used to laugh until I hurt and cried. We were tied together by the fact that we were all going somewhere, we all had our own agendas and dreams. That has gone now, I have got there and left them all behind. My new job is fabulous, and thankfully I have a trusting boss who allows me to dictate my own hours and go my own way. But it's the banter I miss: I am working with people with whom I have very little in common and to be blunt, who don't excite me. I didn't realise that this was real life. Thankfully I have friends that have this effect on me too. And JDubs makes me laugh so hard. But for some reason, I need it at work too. I need it all the time. It's time I realised that work is not play I guess. That's real life, right? I don't see why it has to be, and I think it is going to be a bitter pill to swallow.
I don't have stuff to do in an evening. I don't have anything to do! People told me I would be tired working 9-5, that I had no idea how hard it would be. But I genuinely feel like a fraud doing these hours. I'm normally just getting going at 5, and most days I have to be turfed out of the office by a key jangling locker-upper. I started bringing work home with me, but JDubs put a stop to that very quickly. Thank God he did. My void left in my life by the freeing up of spare time has become occupied by worries of a drastically undramatic nature. Vinegar, hoovering, neighbours, defrosting, travel arrangements, risotto. This is real life too, right? Ok.
The problem for me is old. Neither of my parents worked 9-5. I was the sort of child that lay awake at night trying to work out where the universe stopped. I never saw my mum cry over a burnt casserole. My dad used to get angry about how the media skimmed over civil wars in third world countries. Sunday was a day for driving hundreds of miles to look at some badger sets or for discovering a new town. Holidays were unplanned forays into dusty, remote countries that often, I'd previously thought were fictional. We never washed the car. I have never lived in 'real life'. I've been working for years to get it, I got it and now I'm going to do everything in my power to resist it.
Last night, as I was whinging about my hideously Western neuroses, JDubs told me to write. I always used to do it, even if I had nothing to say. But I have been scared of it for so long. I stopped soon after doing an MA in writing, as it took away the pleasure. Just as doing a degree in English took away the unregulated beauty in reading. I have been putting it off with excuses: no time, no ideas, writer's block etc. Now I have the time, the energy and the material. This blog seems the natural way for me to reignite some creativity. The last few flickers of being unique have gone since leaving my previous, unfettered lifestyle. With luck, this will be all I need to keep the housekeeping demons from my door.
