Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024 - 11:11 am.
Time's flown by this summer vacation and I've been busy with multiple things. A lot of it involves work, which in turn has involved tears of rage on my part because I loathe working when I'm supposed to be resting. But my field has mismatching times and deadlines for everyone involved, and my uni's break does not align with the functioning of the larger academic world.
I didn't write an update last week because Andrew's nephew was staying with us for a few days. He's in his mid-20s. He reminds me a lot of my own nephews and niece that age in the sense that it's so great to talk to them and learn what they're up to. You have "grown-up" conversations in which you're the most grown-up who can dispense some wise words, but still have so much to learn from them, about how the world is changing in ways that you may not notice from your position in it.
Also, he's an artist and has an emotional intelligence that no one else in his family has. He called out Andrew on a few patterns that weren't doing any good to their uncle-nephew relationship; luckily Andrew has enough skills to digest it and listen to him, although he got a bit defensive at first. I've always have had a lot of sympathy for his nephew, he emotionally relied on his two uncles but then one of them died by suicide (and didn't get the chance to properly process his grief and questions about it) and the other one lives too far away. His dad is a deadbeat, his mom is in the army and married someone who is such an asshole that even the army kicked him out. It's amazing how Andrew's nephew managed to come up on his own.
I wish I could see my nephews and nieces often. I grew up with some of them, they (like Andrew and his nephew) were more like my little siblings. Now it's not even once a year that I see them.
This week Andrew and I have spent it leading a domestic life and, ugh, working, especially me. I started to get a horrible FOMO when I saw friends and colleagues enjoying their summer at lakes, mountains or abroad. I had this idea that Andrew and I would have our summer when we go to my home country in May but that's going to be just five days. Working days at that, so I'll barely get to see my siblings and friends.
Moreover, we were tasked with having to water our ex-boss/colleague/friend's plants while she was away at a resort with her family. I couldn't say no to her, not after telling her that we had no plans to go out during the summer. And we ask the same thing to our friends when we go out, however infrequently, only instead of watering the plants is looking after the cats. So I couldn't complain.
I sort of resented the task itself at first, and also that one of the things that had me working this vacation month was a paper from this colleague's research project. I'm a co-author and we need to submit a revised version, but this request comes from a journal from a country for which February does not mean summer (maybe in a decade when climate change ramps it up). So she could only stretch the deadline so much, and I got stuck with the parts that are always mine to work on (rewriting, translating, etc) to fix them this month. There were tears of rage involved but honestly, that work took me like three hours.
She has a nice house, too. We would've been next-door neighbors if the purchase of the first house we saw (which we pursued for six months) would have come through. And she has a lot of plants. Going over day in and day out for a week wasn't so bad. We can't have plants due to our cats, so I think that made me appreciate it more? I don't know. It was fun watering the plants.
Also, I realized how not sorry I am about not getting a house in that neighborhood. If there's something that cheers me up when I start getting FOMO is how happy and grateful I am that we live in this apartment. It has two downsides: no garden and no dog, but the rest is great. Less space to look after and which keeps us mindful of buying just what we need, opportunities for cool multiple-purpose designs, a bit safer than a house (we had to rush to our colleague's house one day as the movement detector alarm went off, though thankfully it was a false alarm), a green neighbor with cafés, shops, pharmacies, malls, and medical clinics within walking distance.
We're entering our last of the four weeks of vacation. I do not care for going back to work and some of its difficulties, but so it goes. I still have to do a bit of work, but I'm determined to enjoy this last week, run some errands, spend time in my happy place (i.e., writing, drawing) and spending quality time with Andrew. The latter always grounds me when I start complaining. We have a good life and I'm grateful for it.
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