Shedding

If you're someone who does New Year's resolutions and sticks to them, then maybe I might get to be you when I grow up. And yes I know, I could make a New Year’s resolution to be someone who does New Year’s resolutions. But what would be the point of that? We both know that by the middle of January, I'll be entirely over whatever I was resoluting, and instead vigorously defending the reasons why I should still be allowed to carry on being completely imperfect me.

So, as this new year begins, I find myself resolution-free, pottering around, mostly trying to work out what day of the week it is.

I think it's Sunday - I'm hoping it is, as I'm sending out a Note - but in truth, it's felt like Friday, Saturday, or Sunday for so long now, I can’t be certain. I'm not sure where Monday to Thursday even went - they used to be a thing, right?

Also my sleep pattern is all over the place, what with New Year, and Santa visiting, and going out and staying up late, and staying in and staying up late. Then of course there’s the drinking wine, and the eating of cheese, and generally indulging in all sorts of stuff I could easily make a New Year’s resolution not to do.

And, because I go to bed late, I figure I can get up late, but it seems that dogs and chickens and rabbits do not observe the festive period as a time to change their habits. So no matter what time I go to bed, Arthur still wants fed at 8am precisely, and the chickens still get up with the light, whether I've been out late being effervescent the night before or not. So I’m up late and up early and napping in between. And all the while Grendel, the new rabbit, silently judges my behavior.

Mark also, is all over the place with his sleep pattern, but that is because he's building a shed in the backyard. Though when I say shed, what I really mean is tiny house. Though it's not really a tiny house because it’s not connected to the water mains.

It's not connected to power lines either, but it does have a solar-powered generator. So I guess it could be categorized as an off-grid tiny house suitable for someone who never drinks, showers, or goes to the bathroom. But shed, just feels like a snappier title.

It will be his office. Since we moved to Tweddley Manor, he's never really had a permanent space to work, which for someone with ADD is not ideal. There's always a ton of distractions in this house, and for a person who's either hyper-focused or struggling to pay attention at all, it makes life tricky.

It’s a complicated matter building something from scratch, but he’s the guy to do it. In the building of the shed, he is hyper-focused. If he's not actually constructing the shed, he's drawing plans, measuring angles, or updating the budget. It's very impressive, and also entirely mental.

He, like the chickens, is awake as soon as it's daylight and also, like the chickens, has been mightily pissed off with the level of LA’s current rainfall. When he's not on top of the roof nailing in shingles, or measuring up a siding to fit a window, he thinks shed thoughts.

As far as schedules go, we've been like ships who pass in the night - chatting with each other briefly at dinner, just before he falls asleep in a chair and heads off to bed.

So when he got up at 4am yesterday, not long after I had come to bed, I asked if he was OK. He answered that he was fine but just getting up because he couldn't sleep. And I said, “Please don't work on the shed right now. Even for you, it’s too early.” And he laughed and promised he wouldn't, and I dozed off.

When I woke up later, he'd cleaned the kitchen (gotta love that hyper-focus), paid bills, and filed bills that had already been paid (thank you, ADD). As I pottered around making a cup of tea, I asked him if the reason he couldn't sleep was the shed, and he shook his head and answered, “Venezuela. I made the mistake of looking at my phone in the middle of the night.” And I sighed and nodded.

“Guess the Epstein files have to be really bad,” he offered up with a half smile.

“Seems so.” I said, “Or the budget for that ballroom has gone way out of whack.”

“Or someone is mightily pissed off he didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize”

I nodded and smiled. And then both of us, punch-drunk from our odd schedules and obsessions, had a cuddle.

“The kitchen looks lovely,” I said.

“Yes, it’s true. I am marvelous,” he replied.

I laughed.

I tried to think of something positive to say about the Venezuela thing, but I really couldn’t think of anything.

“I’m exhausted,” I said. “Done with it. It’s never the disappointment that destroys you, is it? It’s the hope. The hope that they’ll stop behaving like fucking maniacs. But they don’t. Just when you think they’re done with one, they add another. Each one worse than the last.”

“Yup”, Mark said, and we stood in the kitchen, cuddling.

“Want me to tell you about the shed?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Let me make some tea, and then I’m all ears.”

And we sat and talked for a bit about windows and doors. We even discussed paint colors, and Mark wondered if he should involve a bit of feng shui - which is hilarious considering he went to school in Greenock, but there’s always room for making things better.

And maybe it was just the reasonable conversation or the comfort of a hot cup of tea, or the fact that I’m really not sleeping so well at the moment, but I found myself blurting out, “I don’t want to change.”

“Uhm ok,” he said, looking a bit surprised, “What exactly is it that you’re worrying about changing?”

“Me,” I said. “All of this. It’s changing me. All this fuckery they’re doing: the greed, the brutality, the murder, the starting wars, the basic disrespect for all forms of life. It’s changing me. I find myself feeling vulnerable, hopeless, sad. And I am not a vulnerable, hopeless, sad person,” I added, “Don’t you know I’m from Cumbernauld?”

“I do,” he said.

“So I don’t want to change the person I am because of the people they are, but it feels like they’re relentless, so it’s very fucking hard.”

He nodded. “It is,” he said quietly.

We sat for a while, drinking tea. Then Mark said, “You know how you’ve always been anti-New Year’s resolutions.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But only because I don’t see that I need to alter my life according to the workings of the Julian calendar.”

“Just it means you’re technically an expert in not changing.”

I pondered on that thought for a while, then I said, “That’s quite deep for someone who’s not slept very well to process.”

“I’m just saying,” he added, “That you're really good at not changing when you put your mind to it, and so you have to just remind yourself to not let their actions change you, and decide to continue to be the person you are.”

I pondered some more. “I like the sound of that,” I said, sipping on some tea. “Though isn’t that technically a New Year’s resolution?”

Mark scoffed. “No. Because it’s January 3rd. This is technically around the time you’d be breaking a resolution.”

“True,” I said, liking his point.

And I felt much better.

And so it’s January, and Mark and I are both involved in shedding. Mark is building a pretty remarkable office come shed at one end of the backyard, and I am choosing to shed the idea that I am powerless in all things because of the actions of these uncontrollable morons. I will be mindful not to lose myself feeling vulnerable, hopeless, and sad. I will remember who I am.

And this is not a New Year’s resolution. Definitely not. One, because I made the decision on the 3rd January, and two, because that decision is here to stay.

xo

PS: Please click on the heart emoji to like this post, then those fuckers who run the world with their algorithms may recognise that some of us are a bit pissed off. (Apologies for my attitude. Maybe it will be next year’s resolution for me to change my spicy tone :D )

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Shedding - Audio