Marsden is Here

D had a Significant Birthday this year, and with some money from her inheritance chose to take us both Sydney for a long weekend, and to cram as much into the few days as possible.

This was my first time out of the country, which meant that I had to bite the proverbial bullet and get a passport. This was a bit of an exercise in itself as the photo we paid for from the chemist wasn't adequate and we ended up just having E take photos of me against the kitchen wall with my phone and using the online tool at passports.govt.nz until we got one that was good enough (the main issue was shadows around the eyes).

( Travel log, very long with photos and links to galleries )
Overall despite some hiccups it was a very enjoyable and interesting, if full on with little-to-no time to relax, trip with lots of new experiences and many good memories made.

( work, finances, health )

A bit over a month ago we adopted a second cat. Ellie (Eleanor) Kat is a pale tabby, about 7 years old according by her teeth according to the vet, bigger and more playful than Gytha and also much firmer about enforcing her boundaries on people with teeth and claws.

Her owner had died and she had been living outside with one-a-day human contact since. D & E fell in love with her from the photo in the FB post, and so did I a little bit so the vote was 2 1/2 to 1/2 in favour. Gytha was very not-impressed with the new addition to the household (Ellie was completely unconcerned about the presence of another cat, beyond self defence) but we have progressed from hissing/growling matches and stand offs to them being somewhere between wary and comfortable in each other's presence as long at the half-metre distance isn't pressed. Gytha has also become much more peopley, but interestingly also more interested in play.

Ellie is also used to a much larger territory (Gytha has always stuck pretty close to property boundaries) leading to several evenings spent herding her home from a block away when we first started letting her out.

I also think the household dynamic has improved with D having a cat she can call "hers" :)

With E away visiting for this school holidays and D in Wellington for part of school holidays / all of quilting symposium, my expectation was that I would be able to take the energy I normally spend on them and redirect it to a) easier work hours b) downtime c) catching up with people I haven't seen in ages and d) the long list of things wanting to be done around the house.

Narrator: this did not happen.

( mental health dump )

I've been meaning to write bits of this post in some form since February, when it started to feel as if everything was coming together for us. In some ways this lapse has become symbolic of the subsequent feeling of not making progress.

At last report we were urgently looking for a new flat and our consents had just gone into council. With much gratitude to the previous landlord who extended our lease for the month we needed to find and move into a fairly spacious four bedroom place right at the Christchurch end of the southern motorway and possibly closer in travel time to my work than where we were. We will miss the space when we move to our own little place I am sure...

Said little place at least now has foundations, as of 2-3 weeks ago. There has been a little bit of ground/drainage work on the site since, but I have no objection to the pad getting a decent curing time. E and I drive past each day after I pick her up from school to check. There are several other houses in-construction on the street, most ahead of us, but neither of the adjacent sections as yet.

E joined us in January as planned and I run her our to school each morning and take a break from work each afternoon to go out and collect her. This has really helped move my body clock back towards where it used to be (some mornings are still hard) and on weeks where we don't have too many other errands (usually health related) given a boost to the amount of hours I am spending at work. I still have to put in a little time most weekends, but I am not spending as many very late evenings, which is good as D's shoulder continues to get worse for no discernible (x-ray, ultrasound so far) reason and I am needed to help prepare dinner.

One downside of the new rental is the elements on the oven, which are not consistent enough for D to be able to reliably make eg a cheese sauce. This has constrained our options a little.

So I have reached the point of almost balancing the requirements of household duties, school run duties (which at twice a day Christchurch - Rolleston do add up in both time and petrol) and work commitments with even a little time to myself when I absolutely need to collapse or hermit grumpily. Easter is hopefully going to give me the chance to catch up fully; there are handful of big tasks for tomorrow (Monday) barring interruptions (of which I feel there have been far too many over the past months).

I am admittedly typing this in the office on Easter Sunday to give me a break between two significant sections of work which I intend to get done (one down), but at least I have found the time and energy to do so. And with this out of the way I can move onto another outstanding task, maybe soon even some of the unpacking / cataloguing / decluttering which desperately needs to continue before we move for what will hopefully be the last time in a very long time.

I've managed a couple of other little things in that vein also this weekend, after a significant emotional collapse over the whole state of things last week. Generally though my mood is holding, although it can quickly slide from from positive to grumpy. My sleep for the last little while has rarely left me feeling rested; many dreams with a particular ... texture? feel? which I have come to recognise as meaning my mental state is getting better or worse, but can never be sure which.

I have been fortunate in life. Got through school on intelligence, flip side never properly learned to study. Worked hard for things - causes really - I cared about, but through the support and generosity of my parents I never had to work hard just to make ends meet ... and now I find I am too broken to do so. I've never had to deal with choosing to leave home and family behind to make my own way in the world, or with being left behind. Mostly content - complacent even - with being been carried along by events, I've never really had to make any hard decisions, they've always been more-or-less made for me by (generally fortunate) circumstance.

So an easy life, but it has left me ill prepared me for my present situation. Sometime in the next 18 months I am going to have to make, or at least commit to and step forward on choices which in consequence are going to negatively affect or even drastically change some other peoples lives, people I care about, in order to properly support others.

I have never faced a clashing of commitments and wants on this scale before. It ... for lack of a better word ... scares me. And I have been hiding from it. Waiting on this bit of information or that, doing a bit of research and leaving the tab group open until the time is right to act. But that time could now be as early as the end of next month.

This is only one of the things which has been taking a toll on my mental health, but I suspect it is one of the bigger ones (hard to tell since I still shy away from examining it to closely) and it has been doing so unseen. It was only yesterday that it seeped through to me that the great amount of the past four weekends I have spent in bed has not been just about trying to feel rested enough to make it through the next week, or hiding from the world because I just couldn't cope with any more input right now, but also about avoiding facing up to my own discomfort and the cause of that discomfort.

After all, pushing my (perceived?) negative feelings away and paying them no mind is something I have done so much for so long that it is reflexive now. And there are so many more obvious and immediate concerns in just making it through the day or week without breaking down.

~~~

I am having phone appointments with a counsellor referred to by my GP, we get five hours on the public health dollar an I've had two so far. The first was basically a backgrounder. The second I talked about things which are currently bothering me a bit more. The aim, mine anyway, is to have an idea what sort of ongoing counselling to seek out at the end of the process.

I'm supposed to be looking for the little things which make me feel good. There are few.

- The feeling of having solved a problem or written good code, rarer these days than it used to be and usually tempered by previous experiences of finding out something is terribly wrong with it 6 months later.
- Time spent with D which doesn't feel like part of the chores. Usually at present that is listening to her current audiobook with her.
- Time spent with the cat when she is just being companionable rather than demanding.
- a small amount of reading for pleasure I have managed recently, (mostly in conjunction with trying to cut down my screen time before bed).

I don't really have any hobbies any more - the one game I am in happens erratically and I do not have the time to be working on one of my own. I usually manage to set aside a few hours for playing Path of Exile at the weekends. The rest of the time I am either

- at work (which is a great struggle at present),
- trying to keep up with the world mostly as it pertains to work and my immediate life,
- attending to household chores (practically all of which fall to me since D injured her "on" shoulder before lockdown and it still hasn't come right so she can't lift or even reach without pain, but at least we found out this week what the actual problem is) although that workload is really no different to before D moved in
- attempting to be a good husband and make sure my wife is as comfortable as I can make her and has what she needs to feel productive and cared for
- attempting to rest (I have not been waking feeling rested). Or being forced to retreat from the world into bed.

I've been trying to find the time and energy to write a journal post for three of the four weeks I mentioned earlier.

~~~

#fuckcancer We are between the anniversary of my father's diagnosis and his death a few short weeks later. It's not weighing on my mind but it is ... present. Another good acquaintance whom I have known for many years (and who is younger than I) is currently in the end stages of a breast cancer which spread to her brain; she leaves behind a young son :( And the young niece of another dear friend also died of cancer earlier this year, with all the attendant grief :(

On January 11th D. and I proclaimed our commitment to each other in front of a gathering of family and friends. On January 13th we sorted out the paperwork in a registry wedding (which was planned for the 10th, but doofus here left it too late making the booking). From January 13th - 16th we were on honeymoon.

( Lead up )

( Ceremony and after )

( What we did on our honeymoon )

April, December, September - only managing these big updates every 8 months is suboptimal.

( long )

For several months D. & I have been making the arrangements to have a commitment ceremony (wedding but without the paperwork)* early next year. Dress organised, ring #2 organised, venue booked, deposits down on things like hair and make up, invitations in design ...

Although we'd come to the agreement to have a "formal occasion" organically, D. still insisted that at some point beforehand I needed to formally ask her, along with a suitable bri^H^H^H gift. She had managed to find out that I had a ring (aka #1) in the works and was getting antsy about the delay. (There was an issue with the setting).

Anyway Saturday last week was moving day. After very a long day of trucking stuff to the dump (two loads in a little box truck) and from her old flat to what is now Our place I managed a little sneaking.

Coming from the other end of the house to investigate a loud "uh oh" and expecting to find something like the cat having thrown up on the new bed D instead found this:



(For scale, bed is a queen.)

The card contained my formal proposal, the ring I had picked up on Friday (D. thought it was going to be next week), and the Big Fluffy Dog I had arranged to "adopt" from a good friend who was looking for a new home for him.

So, that's a thing.

~~~
* It's a compromise. I have very strong opinions on any type of authority being called on to permit a relationship and weddings typically invoke at least civil authority even if not religious. I accept that some formality/paperwork around being recognised as next of kin etc may be necessary, but that is a different thing.

So we will have a event with as many of the trappings of D's concept of a wedding as I can tolerate / afford to declare our attacment to each other in front of the people who do matter to us, friends and family. Or at least as many as the venue can accommodate. Guest lists are an exercise in reluctant decisions.

~~~
Technically we may have started with building a house together. On that front the unit has been completed and C. has moved out there; we now have a spareish room and are playing the sliding puzzle game of rearrange all the furniture (and boxes, currently) so a room or half-a-room at a time can be carpet shampooed. At the current rate we'll be finished in about a fortnight. The majority of the non-utility areas will have been almost completely reconfigured after the process.

For example in the master bedroom, which has been done, there are only some wall hangings, powerboards, a heater and an alarm clock of what was there previously. (My bed of what, 15 years, having gone off to the Eco-Drop (base) and dump (mattress)). I may yet move back in another set of drawers.

A great many things have been thrown out. More are doubtless to follow, there are wardrobes and cupboards we haven't got to yet.

D "+ Guest" was invited to a very special wedding in Auckland, so last weekend I paid my first visit to this city which was not purely contained to passing though the airport.

My lasting impression was of the number of rainbows we saw, and much closer than I am used to encountering in Christchurch (at one point it seemed we were about to drive through the base of one). D was unimpressed, I guess they just become part of the background colour if you have lived in the city.

I am grateful that we did not encounter heavy traffic at any time during our visit. Even with the assistance of google maps unfamiliarity with the motorway system, and exits meant I was changing lanes at short notice more than I would have liked, sometimes in less-than optimal driving conditions.

The visit was a bit of a whirlwind, what with delayed flights it was almost exactly 36 hours between boarding at Christchurch airport and getting home. In that time we

- flew up
- found our rental car
- stopped for a slow-to-arrive lunch at a Sylvia Park eating establishment
- found our motel
- changed
- found the wedding venue (a short drive north of Auckland)
- enjoyed the wedding (with bonus cheese), at which I encountered an old acquaintance and met a few new people without embarrassing myself or D.
- it was rather a change to be the unknown partner rather than the well-known member on one of the social groups. Not an unpleasant one.
- returned to the motel via one of D's old flats to pick up some things which had been accidentally left there when she departed. Fortunately these took up almost the same space coming back as the wedding present had travelling up.
- dragged ourselves away from the motel by the 10am checkout time
- dropped D's chef knives off at her sharpener of preference (who couriered them back later in the week)
- spent some time sitting in the hothouse winter gardens.
- Met up with a friend of D's for lunch
- I was thanked for making D seem happier than she had been in a long time :)
- visited the butterflies, geckos and crocs at Butterfly Creek (the kiwis were being shy)
- returned the car unscathed
- resisted the entreaties of the saleswoman in the airport jewellery store and hung out in the departure lounge while our flight was delayed & delayed (but several others (to smaller centres) were announced as cancelled while we waited, so could have been worse).

This is a diary post covering the period from Xmas to the first weekend of January.

( snip )