Marsden is Here

This is not the journal post I planned (hoped?) to be writing this weekend, but Stuff Happened and here I am.
Beyond that large parts of this are not exactly what I had mentally outlined when I sat down (hours ago :o ) but getting these thoughts out where I can see them was the point of the exercise.

~~~

( work/life/money )

[A quick bash out, things aren't quite as dire as they may read]

Yesterday (Friday) was the last day at work for the year. There's a skeleton crew next week leading up to Xmas but I'm not officially back until January 11th.

I say "officially" because I was back in the office today (Saturday) to make up some hours for the week, and will be next week to finish off my end-of-year cleanup. Weekend visits have become quite regular, partly because I am trying to clock more hours to earn more money and partly because life keeps getting in the way of me competing my targeted, or even my contracted hours during the week. My body clock continues to be uncooperative, and a steady stream of appointments and misadventures have been sucking away at my time as well. (For example D has sprained her shoulder for the second time this year, same shoulder, different muscle.)

I also say "officially" because I intend to spend several half-days in the office over the next few weeks off-the-clock dealing to a project which is eating at my sanity but just isn't going to get done on paid time. It's big but a lot of it is also a rebuild and I hope I can get most of it out of the way.

Combined with the long list of other things which need to be done over the "break" - including some which weren't able to be dealt with last year because we had the kids and I had limited computer access/time, and some which were just shoved into storage in the crush to get moved, and some of which are just "spend quality time with my wife" and "catch up on some webcomics/computer gaming/other me time which has simply been pushed aside" ... although I plan to take things more gently than usual I don't expect the demands on my time to recede to the point where I really feel that I am "on holiday" for more than the odd day which I dedicate to "not anything" .. and odds on those are going to be sabotaged by something.

Speaking of moving, another of the things is "find a new rental by the beginning of February, as close to Rolleston as possible". This is proving unlikely to improbable; in part because landlords really want a year-lease and we don't expect / can't /afford/ to be renting for more than 6-8 months, with prices where they are for the amount of space we "need". So there's the stress of conceptual homelessness.

The build is another sore point, the contract we signed with the building company was to begin work /on site/ in November and yet practically the end of December and they have not yet managed to get the plans into council for consent. (Which also means our mortgage approval is up in the air...) It's not clear to me if the building company are the ones stuffing us around or if as they claim the developer of the sections is stuffing them around / being incompetent by not having information on the land which is that entity's responsibility to supply.

I'm leaning towards both actually. Anyway this close to Xmas/NY shutdown means best-case scenario consents won't be done until mid-January .... which means work may start in February ... we can not actually afford this. We are not actually bleeding money as much as we were (and /that's/ going to change going into a more expensive rental) - but summer has a lot to do with that. The longer things drag on the less likely we are actually going to be able to afford to finish the build, and basically lose everything.

And even then if I can't get my f*&^ing S&^t brain/bodyclock sorted out to work better hours we're not going to be able to pay the mortgage either, because I haven't been managing the hours the calculations are based off and we will have /no/ free capital and /no/ wriggle room in said mortgage for emergencies or even unexpecteds.

So I actually really need to be able to work on recharging and resetting this break. Which is ironically why there are so many things which need dealt-to, as I've identified each of them as taking up mental/emotional resources which I want freed up.

[deep breaths]

This is something I wrote to someone who is finding everything too much at the moment. I have been asked to make it more widely available - if you feel it would help someone please feel free to share it. If that is the post, please use the Dreamwidth version. Link at bottom if you are reading this on LiveJournal.

~~~
I don't know you very well, we've maybe spoken a couple of times at parties and other than that only what I see on FB. But I'd like to share something I've learnt in times like these - we're /taught/ that it's a bad thing to be a "burden" but that's a lie. People will happily carry something (or someone) they see value in. Additionally the context always seems to consider the weight as if it all has to be borne by /one/ person. This is also false.

Sometimes we just have to accept little bits of ourselves being carried by different people as, when and how they can. And life is a complicated beast so sometimes individual people have to set down the responsibility or they (and we) have to let it pass to a different person.

And yes sometimes it feels that we are the only one left to carry our own weight with no hope of respite, and that can be a terrible, crushing, soul destroying feeling. But it is never, ever true. Sometimes we do drop pieces of ourselves along the trail, or cannibalise our ability to care about something to make it through another day. There is always hope. There is always another day. Someone will smile at us, even a stranger in the street, or comment on something we post and the weight will lift a little.

We all become a burden at some point in our lives. I believe it is just part of the human learning experience. When we come out the other side - granted not all do and every one of those is a loss worth grieving - we are better prepared and equipped to carry not only ourselves forward but others as well, strength permitting.

The comments on this post show you have a lot of people who see value in you, even if you don't, can't believe it right now. I certainly do even if all I have to offer are my words. They are willing to lift and carry you for a while. Trust them. Lie back and ride the crowd. Rest. Be well.
~~~

As a bonus here is a something else hopefully uplifting another of my friends shared.

I had a particularly bad dream last night - I had come home form a mediocre party to find a bunch of my friends who hadn't been at the party having a drinkies at my place. Without having asked or told me and somehow having gained access without keys (unless my flatmate who had also been at aforementioned party had conspired with them - but he'd disappeared into his room).

Somehow this hit all my triggers simultaneous and I went psychopath. There was ordering out, there was assault on my friends, even when I had calmed enough to just be standing at the other end of the house screaming there was a friend who now felt so unsafe that they rammed another friend's car parked up the driveway behind their car out and across the road so they could leave.

There there was some limbo about what was going to happen next, then I woke up with nothing resolved. Losing my shit like that is one of the things I'm most scared of in my waking life and doing it in my sleep is no less unpleasant :(

~~~
My next dream was about a futuristic proof-of-concept shopping mall where you basically fastened yourself to the floor and it moved you to where you wanted to go. There was even a mechanism for making sure your kids remained within [x] distance of you. All the store fronts/racks were virtual, but real-enough that you could eg physically experience trying on a pair of shoes before purchasing "them" and having them sent to your home.

But if you tore down the virtual façade the mall was infested with Aliens™ and some other brain-parasite aliens who were using it as a convenient source for hosts, and who were prepared to go to any lengths to stop people who discovered this from spreading the information, starting with a mob of layers using the fine-print in the contracts/disclaimers everyone who went in had to sign which forbid saying anything negative about the mall afterwards (yes this was set in the USA) to brainwashing to finally trying to kill customers (oddly by shooting lasers at them not by having Aliens™ tear them apart).

I can't remember how the dream ended, I think we got out of the mall but no-one believed us anyway.

~~~
I am sure I actually had a nicer dream later on, but I can't remember anything about that that one.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10549889

A husband and wife and another man were the people killed in a motorcycle collision east of Christchurch yesterday afternoon.

Police named the three as Martyn Hartley, 48, Kaye Hartley, 35, and Nigel Hannington, 44, all from Christchurch.

That's Kaye who I used to go out with, whose wedding I attended earlier this year.

Shit shit shit shit.

Emotional crash immenent!!!!

~~~
Edit:
The shower was running when I saw the article anyway, so I continued with that after calling my parents, and trying K&M's place just in case.

Waiting for tomorrows paper, which will probably have the death notice, before trying to hit the old workplace grapevine. I have very few contact details for anyone, but I know Kaye typically kept her work friends and family very separate and someone has to put the word out. The place is probably closed over the break and anyway a lot of people don't work there any more.

I keep catching myself thinking 'It could be another couple from Christchurch with exactly the same name and ages who ride a motorbike' and stopping myself.

I'm going to call another couple of people for the sake of making human contact, then hope there's something on TV.

Ahh, here we go - progressing from 'numb' to 'crying'

~~~
( photo for those who think they may know the couple )