Another whole month wiped off the calendar. It feels like it’s going so quick. French philosopher Paul Janet proposed the proportional theory – that as we age one year in our life becomes a smaller portion of our overall experiences, making our life feel shorter as we age. I’m feeling it. Time seems to be flying through but in the grand scheme, I don’t feel like I’m progressing as quick.
This week started with uni exams (again! It felt like only yesterday I was doing last terms exams… a whole 12 weeks had passed). The mental drain that attached itself to those couple of days lasted the whole week. I felt almost numb, allowing myself to work on autopilot until I returned back to myself. I gave myself the space I needed to just exist without expectations until I decompressed.
Returning to work after having those days off was chaos. My team held everything together, amazingly, but it all fell apart as a welcome gift back. A team member quit, leaving me to double my workload. Add in a 000 call, a handmade shiv, distraught team and an hour of lost time due to the disruption. A moment of reflection on this – my manager commented they didn’t understand how I was so calm about the whole thing – (my answer is easy; age, resilience, experience – it wasn’t my first rodeo). A team member profusely apologised for freezing in the moment and not knowing what to do – a friendly reminder that none of us know how we’re going to react in any given situation. Another team member was traumatised – something that didn’t affect me had a profound affect on someone else. It’s easy after the fact to say what should have happened, how people should have reacted etc – but this is only helpful for future scenarios. In this present moment, compassion and empathy is needed, with space to emotionally heal for these team members. Sometimes we expect people to heal quicker than what they can just because we didn’t feel it as deeply.
A meltdown mid-week when I received a phone call to say our mortgage documents couldn’t be issued because there was already an encumbrance on our property. With panic, I rang the bank I originally had my home-loan with and started down the rabbit hole. An hour later, I had discovered that when I was paid out the insurance claim (after flooding had destroyed the house), the bank claimed what they needed to pay off the mortgage but never initiated a discharge. I was promised that if I returned the discharge papers that day, they would process it immediately and remove the claim against the title so our settlement could go through by end of week. I hastily filled out the discharge form and emailed it back. Rang the discharge team, only to be told they wouldn’t be able to process it for a t least 36 hours. I burst into tears. Not because it wasn’t manageable, but because it feels like the universe doesn’t want us to build this house, and this was just another thing pushing it back. A side note of cranky – what kind of bank doesn’t ring at any point in a four year span and say “hey, your mortgage is paid off, would you like to discharge?”.
Another cringe co-parenting moment. My kids dad has this uncanny ability to always message me the day he is meant to take them (one weekend a fortnight) and ask if they “still even want to come, because it’s ok if they don’t”. This one sentence infuriates me because it makes me feel like he doesn’t want to see them which triggers a protective instinct. Really, I think it comes from his need to hear “of course they want to spend time with you, they love you!”… I don’t know what the right answer is, but I don’t give him this boost – I just can’t. I don’t feel he should be reliant upon children to reassure him. (Should I mention I think I just contradicted my own thoughts about compassion above?) I guess my glasses here are a little grey-tinted (think opposite of rose-tinted optimism).
So, another week has passed and here’s what I achieved:
- Sat exams – and felt moderately comfortable with the content knowledge – bit still experiencing a ‘bracing effect’ to reduce possible disappointment come result release.
- 2 more units done and dusted off the financial planning degree (as long as I passed the exams)
- Officially discharged my home loan that has been paid off since 2019 – technically I own my land now (something I’ve believed for years).
- Booked tickets for Anastacia at the Sydney Opera House for April next year. (This is the start of a four -day much needed getaway during school holidays).
- Saved $4810 this month and moved it over into a high interest account (This interest earning ability to soon disappear as the house starts to be build so we will enjoy it while it lasts)
- Ate a high protein breakfast every morning (eggs or chia puddings)
- Picked my next two units for uni
- Enrolled my youngest in their elective units for high school
- Booked a fishing trip for Father’s Day
Some of these might seem like little tasks, but in the moment I wanted to procrastinate hard against doing them so they deserve to be acknowledged.
The week ahead – hopefully filled with an offer on our investment property, issuance of our mortgage documents, a head-start on the next term of uni, a day of homeliness (baking, cleaning, feeding my soul), a well-spent weekend with the family, and another week of well-thought body-fuelling meals.
