Switched Off

 

I normally write these posts on the weekend, scheduling them to go live on Monday at 09:00. Last weekend I straight up forgot to do so, which I take as a good sign. I sit in front of my monitor Monday through Thursday for 9+ hours and therefore mainly stay away from my computer on weekends...which, alas, does not equal being offline per se as I am still a smartphone zombie/victim to an unhealthy degree. So, in a nutshell: all good, nothing to see here.

Partner in Crime

Something I mentioned in my soliloquy at my father's funeral this summer was that while my mum has always been in charge of "voice communication", i.e. regular phone calls, dad was the master of written conversation and our family WhatsApp group (that is now no longer active as it just consisted of the three of us and Mum and I can just as well write to each other 1:1) mainly consisted of exchanges between Dad and myself. In fact, I would sometimes write to ask him to "poke" mum in real life and tell her to answer my question if she was available for a call as she had been "ghosting" me. I still call my mother twice a week just as I used to do before she became widowed, but now she is the recipient of daily messages and is much more responsive than she used to be. Dad and I would often gang up on her and make fun of her occasional autocorrect mishaps or the fact that she still mostly used the old German spelling she learnt at school, while he had switched to the new one once it became official. My father was known for his sarcasm and love of word-play and sometimes you could already anticipate a deadpan reply when you wrote, in fact looking forward to it.

Back at the beginning of the pandemic, when we were confined to our respective houses, we came up with a kind of "photographic telegraph" by sending each other a picture of lunch and/or dinner. This tradition is still ongoing and all my colleagues know by know that I take pictures of my tray at the office cafeteria, as do my friends who I eat out with or whom I am invited to dinner with. The downside of this tradition is that you tend to get worried when no photo comes from the other party. 

It was always Dad (an excellent photographer with any kind of device, too) who sent those pictures, but now Mum sends photos of her meals-for-one and we also exchange short messages daily. It still occasionally feels strange to have so much written interaction with her and I sometimes imagine Dad replying with one of his favourite emojis - the typical "dad emoji" thumbs-up or the eye-roll one - or a one-liner in dialect or with deliberate misspelling.

 

Tradwifing

 

On Saturday I more or less spent the whole day in the kitchen. I didn't have guests (apart from one houseguest who was very low maintenance), nor was there any occasion, but I just prepared (kimchi), meal-prepped for Sunday (soup) and baked (bread and cookies) in addition to making dinner and all of a sudden the whole day had passed with the only interruptions having been doing the laundry and going grocery shopping. This might sound sad and like a very boring weekend programme, but I just love pottering around in the kitchen and get immense satisfaction from having produced something that is (mostly) healthy and nutritious. After Saturday's "kitchen marathon" I was reminded of those trad wife influencers, who proclaim that there's nothing more fulfilling than being a housewife and making everything from scratch. While I don't subscribe to their conservative philosophy/sales pitch and would definitely get bored if this was my only occupation, I have to admit that this "part-time-housewife-mode" suits me just fine, especially at this time of year.

Annus Horribilis?

I'm an incorrigible optimist, but this year definitely has put me to the test. The past few months have been cruelly "morbid" to put it mildly. First my dad, then our neighbour, then a good friend's nephew, now my only paternal cousin, aged 55, who died from the same cause his father died of more than a decade ago, a sudden pulmonary embolism. This means that his mother, my father's elder sister lost her only brother and her only child within three months. Life moves on, of course and I always try to see the positive side in everything, but I definitely hope that all "protagonists" of my life will make it through Q4 and beyond. Is it too early to wish for a happy and healthy New Year? Well, since I already ordered my Christmas cards, I guess not.

Young Love

 

Highflyer and I recently celebrated our 6th anniversary. I am still madly in love with him and so is he if his words and actions are to be trusted. Needless to say, we are very happy about this fact and do not take it for granted. 

While most of our friends who have been together with their respective partners for a much longer time give the impression to still like and appreciate each other, this is definitely not the norm for couples our age as I am often reminded of at restaurants or in hotel breakfast rooms, where other middle-aged (eeeek) couples mostly seem united by mutual dislike and annoyance. The fact that we still have something to say and listen to each other is different from the "loaded silence" that seems to cloak other pairs. 

Mind you, other people might find it highly disturbing and could get the wrong signal if they saw us share the same room, each engrossed in their separate online bubble (Highflyer playing chess or commenting in his favourite forum, me rotting my brain on Instagram or YouTube most likely) for longer than is socially acceptable. And I love that we both appreciate that the other one is totally fine and comfortable with it.

We don't engage in outrageous embarrassing PDA, but still are very affectionate with each other and this is also something that seems to stick out from the mass of other 50somethings. 

I like to think our "secret sauce" is the mix of typically not being together 24/7 unless on vacaction, having met later in life when we both knew exactly what we were willing to compromise on and what were non-negotiable red flags, and also that we do not have children together. Highflyer (who is the father of three children) actually agrees to the latter, too. Very likely that we would have come out of this "next level relationship test" unscathed, but as we won't find out, I know that it has definitely made things easier and means less responsibility for me at least. 

For the record, most of the above-mentioned (outwardly at least)  happy couples among our friends do have children, so even more kudos to them!

Ain't Got No Time For That

 

You might think that with 3-day weekends and a rather flexible job that allows home office I'd have endless time for everything. Truth be told, I wonder how I ever managed with "normal" weekends and a 100% office-bound job. There are so many things I am meaning to do "one day", but then I realise that yet another week is over and postponing things to "when I'm grown-up" is, um, a bit delusional to put it mildly. Objectively speaking, I am on the wrong side of middle-aged and there's really no point in postponing anything anymore. It's rather a question of (re-)prioritising projects, reflecting on what is time well-spent and what can be ignored or deleted from my hard drive for good. Even so, it's mind-boggling how three quarters of yet another year have gone by. Mind you, I have already ordered my Christmas cards (!) and sorted most presents for the few people in my life I am giving some to, so, yeah, one step ahead in this regard at least.

What If

Interviewers like to ask people what they would do if they didn't have to worry about having to earn money and fulfilling any kinds of obligations. Well, in my case, I would just potter around in the kitchen, experimenting, as well as do crafts, dig around in the garden and lay in my hammock reading, which is basically what I do on my 3-day weekends already. Health permitting, this is exactly what I am planning to do when I'm retired, plus travel more. Not the worst kind of "programme" in my book, but of course one person's idea of an ideal day is another one's nightmare.