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

Prom(inent)

Last Friday I attended my godchild's prom. Obviously, the crowd mostly consisted of teenagers and their parents and I had plenty of time to people-watch. I tried hard to think back to my own school ball and it has mostly faded from memory. I can pretty much only remember the decorations to which our class contributed and the fact that my introvert father was also made to attend...in a suit. A very rare occasion indeed. From my observer's vantage point I could only imagine how many cases of unrequited love and infatuations were going on in that room, but overall these seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds seemed way cooler and confident than I ever was at that age, the girls in particular. Or possibly, they hid their insecurities better. From my toilet cubicle I overheard conversations on subjects like "anxiety medication", so: yeah, you never know. One girl tugged me at my arm at the sink, gushing "I LOVE your dress, it's SO pretty!" That moment it felt like the ultimate compliment to have one's outfit choice accepted by, literally, a cool kid, but I was mostly impressed that she decided to tell a stranger 3 times her age. Not that I was shy myself at that age, but I simply would not have bothered. The generation 50+ mostly seemed so uninteresting and OLD to me back then that I probably barely looked at my parents' generation's outfit choices and I doubt that they were all boring and frumpy. Well, my mother for one definitely was not, so I guess it was just my (and my friends') self-centredness and superficiality that had us decide "cool" was something that died when you reached 25 max.