Walk that walk, but watch out for the step

 The new year begins quietly and mostly with contentment. 2020 had been rung in with a wake, 2021 with trepidation, 2022 with a breaking heart and an impending saluki-sized hole. There is still outstanding paperwork but there is also concern because of radio silence, so I email the federal prison to do a welfare check on my brother. 'He's fine,' they say. It seems unlikely, given that three weeks ago he had been beaten up by a gang of white supremacists. 

Rooms are being rearranged, furniture rehoused. New roles started. Articles are copy-edited, work wardrobes refined, relationships evaluated. New clients considered, meetings around  marketing strategy and investment booked. Travel planned, down time scheduled, professional and personal development time booked.  How busy do I want to be becomes the optimal question with a close second being  'do I want to put concerted efforts to re-engage with casual romantic relationships?' No rush, no real urge to push into permanence. Its weird to think that my former spouse will be getting remarried and all I can think 'Thanks be that he's found someone. Long may that continue.' Life is so much easier not being in that relationship. And it is good to see him happy, to be able to laugh with him and not be on high-alert for volatility so much of the time.  

The year is filled with events, people and things to bring me joy and contentment. A friend announces a call for Tellers for the festival I volunteer at. 

Working my way through various detective/cop shows, and I am currently on Rizzoli and Isles, based on the Tess Gerritsen novels. I'd seen episodes before but had not had an opportunity to watch in succession. The friendship angle makes me both grateful and both lonesome for my close female friends. The sibling interaction makes me feel immediately less alone as I wonder if my brother will survive making his time. 

'Studies show that best cure for heartbreak is distraction.' Apparently, for me, that looks like obsessively worrying about genetic inheritance and aging, and trying to create the most personal festive calendars I can for my little people without beating my head against the wall.

Onsite at a project, the roof is off and I can only shake my head in relief that it isn't mine. I climb up the scaffolding in my blue and black dress to get visuals on what I already know: this particular project is a pain in my keaster. I scuttled down the scaffolding, grateful for leggings because I'm pretty sure the site manager is looking up my dress. 

I was chatting with the nurse phlebotomist at the private clinic where I am fulfilling my father's curse of 'wasting his money.' in my case, this looks like genomic testing.  The doctor is also from Stuttgart and was flummoxed when I shared that I had been born there. 'How long were you in Germany?'

'About 6 years, in total,' I said, ticking off the 'major' moves, laughing when I reach the most recent.

'And now you are in England and will stay there?'

'Who knows? Honestly, I love living in different places. It seems unnecessary to be restrictive about what happens next.'

'Next,' the character in a well-thumbed favourite novel, thought. 'Next is more.' That truth in fiction resonates even now, perhaps more so. More experience, more loss, more love, more pain, more joy...even when there seems to be less, so much less, it is quantifiable by the weight of absence. 

Leaving Baden Baden, then Karlsruhe, I was struck by how quickly the landscape becomes industrial, then tired suburban. My brief childhood memory of Stuttgart is out of sync with what awaits me at the Hauptbahnhoff: a granite and Steele complex almost brutal. It makes Liverpool Street seem homely in comparison. And I by 'homely,' I mean the British use of the word, what we in the US would say as 'homey.'  

My hotel for the night is much less hands on than the Brenner and I relish both experiences. I actively needed to relinquish my agency for a few days, needed to be intensely looked after, to the point of having my bed turned down, the option of having food brought to me if it was a bridge too far to venture downstairs.   

Later, on the interwebs, I am catching up on a costume group chat I belong to. 'I make wedding gowns and santa suits - the santas are the bigger divas, by far.' Thus coining the term 'Santa-zilla.' I giggled before taking my afternoon nap. I no longer avoid the tiredness, anymore. I just have to work with it, as I do with my depressive episodes. Maybe that is the point. The more we learn, the less we know and the less conditioning we have to lean on.

Through December, I work my way through various detective/cop shows, and I am currently on Rizzoli and Isles, based on the Tess Gerritsen novels. I'd seen episodes before but had not had an opportunity to watch in succession. The friendship angle makes me both grateful and both lonesome for my close female friends. The sibling interaction makes me feel immediately less alone as I wonder if my brother will survive making his time. 

'Studies show that best cure for heartbreak is distraction,' Isles says in one episode Apparently, for me, that looks like obsessively worrying about genetic inheritance and aging, and trying to create the most personal festive calendars I can for my little people. This heartbreak is different to divorce, to James Robert dying, to hours spent watching mama being whittled away. I miss my dad but am also relieved. And that relief comes with a bit of guilt and shame. 

Onsite at a project, the roof came off and I could only shake my head in relief that it isn't mine. I climbed up the scaffolding in my blue and black dress to get visuals on what I already know: this particular project is a pain in my keaster. I scuttled down the scaffolding, grateful for leggings because I was pretty sure the site manager is looking up my dress. Whilst I am not opposed to a fling, something about the site manager makes the hair on the back of my neck rise, not in a sexy way. 

Now, it is almost a month later, a new year. 20 years ago (in September), I moved to the UK. I rang in that New Year's in London, in a relationship with someone I thought might end up being a permanent 'plus one.' I have to laugh at that idea now. 

I made it to my Tuesday Yoga class this evening, probably the last one for a few months whilst I settle into my new role at the College. I have an office, a desk in the library, and the grounds are expanse enough that I could nap on a summer's day almost unnoticed. 

Life goes and goes. Just gotta keep shakin' that thang, babycakes.