Saturday, Dec. 19, 2020 - 5:56 pm.
I don't appreciate having to work the days before Christmas. I grew up having more time for the holidays in my home country, and even in the UK. Here I'm supposed to work until the 23rd, I'm not entirely clear if the 24th in the morning, actually. But I will not, you hear me? I will work very little this week. This is very unlike me but also, I want my Christmastime.
I'm writing from a new desk that Andrew got me, solely because I said the desk we bought a year ago turned out to be too small for me. Excuse me, I use computers but also paper, notebooks, my iPad for drawing. And since my workspace took over my creative space, the things I enjoy doing, well, I don't enjoy them that much anymore.
Andrew knows this, so he's made me feel more comfortable by getting me a huge-ass desk, more space to work and be creative. In retrospective, he always makes my home office a priority. I say this because the original conversation was that he wanted a new desk, because his is second-hand but most importantly, for left-handed people. That was actually the first desk we got when we moved back from the UK, and it was for me. He then got me a new desk and took the left-handed one. Bless him for this, and for many other things.
On another front, my girlfriend Helen met my parents this week. It went really well, my parents are very welcoming of my friends, which is what she is to their eyes. They agreed on meeting again, but I'm not sure if that will happen because cases are going up in our home country and my parents are getting more frightened than usual. Helen is also being extremely cautious. With all reason.
A cousin I grew up with (I loved going to his and his siblings' house on Sunday afternoons when I was a kid), is in the ICU at the moment. Covid-19, of course. I have no further information other that he's in a very delicate state. I'm not freaking out yet. I'm still hoping he'll make it.
On more hopeful news, Brothers 1 and 2 plus sister-in-law 2, all medical doctors in the US, got the covid shot this week. They report no side effects as of now.
Back to our regular programming.
A few days ago, Helen went on a tirade because of something I did. We were texting last Saturday night after our videocall, and I sent her a picture of a cabin in a nice touristy area in our home country. She's always talked about taking me to the beach and I said, you know, going to the mountains would be nice too, Brokeback Mountain realness. She didn't say much and we left it at that.
On Monday, she starts sending message after message about what I'd say. In a nutshell, she was really sad because she missed me and wanted me to be there with her, and my little joke had unleashed all those feelings and an overwhelming amount of doubts about relationship. She also said that's why she'd been so distant since our call. I, um, I did not notice she was being distant.
I thought her reaction was completely uncalled for. But I'd already snapped at her a few times the previous days and by then I was feeling patient and generous, a veritable beacon of light, so I acknowledged her feelings and said I was very sorry. I let her go on and kept apologizing for hurting her, and I said us meeting sooner or later was not a dealbreaker for me, and that calmed her down.
Then last night she sent me a letter in which she explored all those feelings and yay, she did acknowledge I did not deserve her reaction. Seriously, my whole comment boiled down to: "hey, besides the beach, we could hit the mountains", but suddenly those fantasies were too painful for her because they're not happening any time soon.
I get it, though. I took this opportunity to let her know that's partly why I've stopped much of our sexual interactions. It's true, it's fun but also very frustrating. I never got to the point of feeling hurt about it, though. I just told her it was frustrating to me. So at least with her own meltdown she understood where I was coming from, and I got a bonus apology because she didn't quite hear me on the sex thing when I first brought it up.
My god.
Anyway, all's good now. I'm having my weekly videocall with her in a few hours.
Anything else? Well, my book is still out there. I finished reading it and I think it's nice, but it has so many typos and an unforgivable mistake in which at the start of a paragraph it's one day and at the end it's another (speaking about the same day). I'm a little afflicted by these mistakes, by the scarce attention, by the book being great while being ignored, by the book maybe being so bad that the lack of attention is warranted. I love my book. I just want it to be appreciated by many people.
These holidays will be quieter than usual, but I feel lucky to have my closest family and friends alive and well, even if we're physically distant. I'm luck to have Andrew, whom I love and who is my home (along with the cats). Just being able to be home is the best way to spend Christmas.
Be safe and, regardless of the chaos, happy holidays.
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