Not all Fun & Games

 

Last weekend Highflier and I finally went to my hometown, two weeks later than originally planned due to me getting Covid the week of my birthday. It was coincidence that Highflier could join after all, which seemed like the icing on the cake.While it was great to see my parents and also get the chance to do a bit of (almost water) skiing, it was also really depressing as my father's health had deteriorated since I last saw them around Christmas time and on top of that he was in an extremely deflated, anxious "endgame" mood, making it difficult to cheer him up and let him consider different options to alleviate the situation. Being an only child to ageing parents (my Dad is turning 80 later this year) who live 300+ kilometres away and - same as me, vice versa - tend to keep bad news from me until the moment when they have to involve me is the material for a hefty dose of anxiety every now and then. I mostly manage to remain positive and not let my vivid imagination get the better of me, but sometimes I do wish everyone could just be healthy and happy ALL the time, pretty please.

BRB

Pressing "Pause" for a moment here. Be right back.

Blessing in Disguise

I had been looking forward to last weekend, getting Highflyer to request time off work well in advance. We were going to spend it at my parents', going skiing (both of us had got a ski pass for Christmas for my staple Carinthian ski resort), eating cake on the occasion of my recent birthday, etc. Well, then I noticed a certain, very familiar "off" feeling at the back of my throat as I was out for dinner with friends on Thursday night and immediately took an antigen Covid test when I got home that came up with a faint pink test line. Bingo. I took another test on Friday morning when I already had a full-on throat ache and yep, there was no denying it. All winter I had joked that I felt like a scorpion or cockroach, being the only person who did not fall sick before Christmas when everyone in the office came down with the flu or Covid. It was just bad timing as we were all set to go, my Mum had prepared everything and the weather was picture-perfect. Bummer. Then I saw the positive side. What, if I had only realised I was sick when I was already there, had kissed my parents "hello" and passed the virus on to them. My dad, who is turning 80 this year, has a severe chronic illness and so far - at least as far as we know of - managed to avoid the virus, so I really would have beaten myself up if this had been the case, regardless of the outcome. Neither the mountains nor the cake or my presents are running away so it's just a matter of postponing something nice and I am very grateful I only had a sore throat and runny nose, but no other symptoms.

Ancient

 

Last week was my 52nd birthday. Among the gazillion of wishes I received that day, I got a particularly heartwarming one by one of our team's interns, whom I hang out a lot with when we're in the office together. She's 26 and it reminded me that I was an extremely prejudiced brat when I was her age and genuinely found it weird to socialise with people twice your age as I had an image of them being half-dead and super boring. Well, some of them probably were, but my own Mum is the best example that age is just a number and you can be full of ideas and projects, no matter how old you are. When I started at my first job there were two colleagues who I am still in wishing-one-another-a-happy-birthday touch with. One of them is two years older than me, the other about 13 or so. I liked them both and got to know them really well over the 9 years I worked there, but naturally gravitated more towards the younger one, who was closer to my age and in a similar situation in life (recently graduated from university, lived in Vienna and had a boyfriend) than the older one who was married with two teenagers, commuting from rather far away by car and train as she and her husband had built a house in the village she was born. For me it was like a fascinating "study project" to see that they were friends just like anybody of the same age group. I remember that years she quoted her new boyfriend as saying he just realised that the other colleague was almost a generation older and felt a bit relieved that it apparently was not just me.

Well, since then I've come a long way and made friends with people beyond my age cohort in both directions, including "dating" somebody considerably older than me for a while. I still admire these Gen Zers in the workplace who treat the old farts like one of their own. Well, coming to think of it, maybe this privilege is extended only to those who treat them as equals in the first place...