Forever-Child

I may be 50+ and arguably approaching "old lady"- territory (eeek!) myself, but I still appreciate getting an "Easter nest" by my mum. Granted, I don't have to search for it in the garden anymore and pretend I believe that Easter Bunny hid it, but know that it will wait for me on the chair next to mine at the dining table. It is lovely a warm and reassuring feeling to know that even if I am by no means a child any more, I will be spoilt by my mother as long as she is able to do so. Time is precious and I value time with my parents all the more now that they are officially old. I was lucky enough to have been spoilt by grandmothers and great-aunts for decades, but now it's just my mother, who very much regrets not having grandchildren she can spoil rotten and therefore focuses all her gift-giving energy on me (and Highflyer)...

Blink

 

Earlier this month, I wished a good friend a happy 50th, hoping she'd spend a great day with her family. Little did I know (in fact I only found out yesterday) that her birthday took a horrible turn when towards the end of an extended bike trip (the whole family are passionate cyclists) her husband suffered cardiac arrest and despite help arriving quickly and a lot of lucky circumstances happening the short version of the story is that he has been in an induced coma ever since, not yet able to breathe by  himself. Under "normal circumstances" you push away the fact just how quickly a happy day can take a turn for the worse when an inattentive driver who's texting on his phone runs over someone or as in this case, a heart just stops beating and your loved one's lives are turned upside down at the blink of an eye. It's not that you have never heard such stories (and thankfully, often also their happy endings), but you hope that it won't ever be somebody close to you.

Cancelled

Few things compare to the bliss of finding out a work event that you were not that keen on in the first place is cancelled at short notice. Other people might be annoyed because they already invested so much time and effort preparing for it, but you, being yourself, had put your stakes on performing best with a bit of time-pressure and adrenaline, so, yeah, you'll survive...

No Going Back

Last May I switched to a 4-day-week at work. This means that I reduced my regular working hours from 40 to 36, working 9-hour-days now from Monday through Thursday and have 3-day-weekends every week. I signed an agreement that I would do this for 2 years so this "part-time episode" will finish at the end of April next year automatically if I don't request to prolong it. Right now, I can not imagine EVER wanting to go back to working on Fridays as I have been enjoying my additional day off waaay to much. I wake up on Friday mornings, knowing that I have 3, not 2 days ahead of me and also you can get so much more done on a Friday than a Saturday if you want to make an appointment with people or institutions that are not typically open on Saturdays. Since my employer is not a charity that just gives away money, by working 10% fewer hours I also earn 10% less salary, but the net difference is not so dramatic and at this stage in life I would always pick me-time over money.

 

Memory Lane

I spent the greater part of last week at my parents' and while I was there also looked into some drawers. My room in their house is interesting as it has always served just as a guest room. My parents moved there the year I graduated from school and moved to Vienna so before the move I had gone through my childhood stuff in our old flat and also seized the opportunity to throw out/give away a lot of the things I had collected/hoarded up to that point.

What I did move mostly got put on a shelf (all my beloved books, for example) or in a drawer (e.g. my childhood jewellery and crafting supplies) and has gathered dust there. Out of curiosity, I looked into some shoe boxes and immediately remembered all the things and the circumstances that brought them into my possession. It's incredible though, that 35 years (!) have passed since I last held most of these things in my hands and the realisation that I probably won't ever use most of them again ever and another "culling" is in order is somewhat sobering.  My 18/19-year-old self probably did not give it that much thought and was mostly glad to be done with sorting out and moving stuff, but the older I get, the more I ask myself why I am still keeping some things at all. 

Some people think that you are keeping things "for the next generation" which in my case won't be the case, but I know from personal experience, having witnessed my parents' generation deal with the many MANY things left over by their elders that with the exception of a few prized heirlooms, this is more often a burden rather than a gift. Well, or I could be fatalistic and see this as an advantage, actually: whoever gets to sort through my worldly belongings likely won't be held back by sentimental considerations and can just check them out or sell them for a profit...hmmm. Be that as it may, I should probably start decluttering in my flat in Vienna where 27 years of life have also left their mark...

 

Don't Call

These days, the only people I ever talk to on the phone are my mother and my husband, full stop. Whenever I think about calling one of my friends, there's something that holds me back and makes me DM them instead. It's inevitably something along the lines that that I remember they probably eat lunch pretty late and I might interrupt them, that I am certain they are doing something related to their children at that time and won't be available or that they (like me) have their phone on silent at all times and the frustrating game of trying to call one another back will inevitably begin once they see a missed call from me. Also, I can see who has seen my Insta stories (and I do post pretty frequently) and know they know that I for once, am alive. This is the downside of at least one party being on social media: you fee like that senile relatives who tells stories everyone has heard a million times when you reference something they already know you'd been up to lately. I have also noticed that when I do talk to someone on the phone for a longer time, I have the tendency to begin to multitask after a certain time and try to silently unload the dishwasher or do something else whilst engaged in conversation. Likely a bad habit I picked up during those eternal lockdown video conferences when I would actively participate in meetings WITHE THE CAMERA ON whilst simultaneously completing an online purchase and once even painting my toenails without anyone noticing. Secret superpower for sure :-p

I hate voice messages with a vengeance and am tempted to just hit "delete" with an evil chuckle whenever I do get one despite my WhatsApp status message rudely informing people that I have strong feelings about them. Texting of course also requires time and in my case, ideally a proper keyboard for longer conversations. Other people, however, have completely different preferences and might prefer spontaneous phone calls at all times and even consider messages a nuisance (therefore not replying to mine for weeks) and there's no right or wrong in this question, just personal preferences that are varied even in the same generation.
When have social interactions become such a complicated minefield of overthinking and awkwardness?

 

Dreams. Are My Reality

Well into my thirties I could simply not relate when people talked about what they had dreamed the night before. I didn't deny dreaming myself, but never woke up remembering any details of my dreams. As I got older I would have occasional weird dreams, one of which was of a strange erotic encounter with my then-manager that made it hard for me to look him in the face the day afterwards at office and still makes me cringe thinking of it years later. Me remembering my dreams was not a regular occurrence, but it definitely has become one lately. Not only that, but I have developed the skill (?) of being my dreams' director so to speak. Meaning when I wake up earlier than I had planned to get up, e.g. because Highflyer has a brutally early shift and his alarm goes off, I would remember the "plot" of my dream and consciously decide to either continue it in a certain direction or, if it was not a pleasant one, to cut it short or change the topic. I am pretty sure that this type of dream where you get to intervene has a name, but I have forgotten it and am too lazy to look it up. I wonder if this is something you develop as you get older. Years ago, both long before travelling frequently by plane and falling in love with someone who flies large planes for a living, I actually had a recurring dream about witnessing a plane crash in different locations and from different vantage points, always being the first one to notice that something was "off" and that disaster was about to unfold. It wasn't even particularly disturbing as I would wake p before I got too close to the crash site. I have no idea what this dream was about, but it thankfully has not triggered a fear of flying...

PS: If you "get" the reference in the title you're old, really old :-p