Recursive Words

I appear to have fallen off the internet bicycle again – and it’s not so much that I’m struggling to get back on it – it’s more that I’m not sure I really want to.

I’m willing to consider that I’m ever so slightly burned out.

After the last couple of years working flat out in the daytime on corporate projects, and then flat out in the evenings and on weekends on content creation for the YouTube channel, there hasn’t been much of me left.

Escapes I used to cherish such as running, reading books, writing in the blog, and catching up with friends have become afterthoughts. You don’t need to tell me how bad that is.

I can’t remember the last time I sat down at the end of the working day to just watch television. There’s always something to do – something to research – something to record – something, something, something.

I have been finding time to read though.

Rather than take the iPad up to bed with me at the end of long days, I’ve started taking a book instead. I’m finally working my way through the “to read” pile (which immediately makes room for more books, but here we are).

I read “The Graduate” last week, and “A Widow for a Year” the week before that. Next up is probably “Before the Coffee Gets Cold”. I have a number of paperbacks from modern Japanese authors waiting on the shelf, and two wonderful books by Tove Jansson that I started reading some time ago and never finished – “The Winter Book”, and “The Summer Book”.

I kind of agree with the widely held idea that unless you give yourself the chance to live – to have some adventures – then you’re left with very little to write about. In some ways a good book provides a portal, doesn’t it – an escape in plain sight to a hidden world, and an unknown cast of characters.

It doesn’t help that I spend most of my waking life either in the study at home fighting with various computers, or standing in the kitchen washing up.

Perhaps I should write poetry about washing up.

On about washing up… I just walked into the kitchen and discovered everything left over from baking the cake for our youngest’s birthday strewn across the kitchen – supposedly “washed up”. I also found the dishwasher still full from last night when I switched it on at 1am. That explains no washing up – they couldn’t be bothered to empty the dishwasher, so didn’t wash up at all. Again.

I won’t even start about the mountain of dirty clothes that have been deposited in the middle of the lovely new downstairs bathroom for everybody else to enjoy the smell of.

Why? Why do even the simplest tasks have to be so hard for anybody else to do? (please excuse me while fire erupts from the top of my head). Why does wandering into the kitchen in-between work calls invariably turn into an endless round of chores?

I’ve lost count of the times the kids have seen me lugging the contents of the kitchen recycling bins out to the main bins outside. Do you think they might learn by example?

I also wonder what sort of journey of discovery their life might be once they get their own place – learning that dishes and cutlery left on the kitchen worktop won’t magically jump into the sink or the dishwasher – and that clothes left on the bathroom floor won’t magically leap into the washing machine.

I remember going through the true costs of “living” with our eldest daughter when she started looking for her own place – and seeing the hope slowly drain from her face as reality dawned on her.

(Several hours pass)

We just got home from the pub after taking my youngest daughter out to celebrate her birthday. A rare trip “out out” as a family – which roughly translates to “Dad buys everybody dinner”.

It’s been a day.

We’re now surrounded by the inevitable destruction derby that follows a birthday – plates that had cake on them, wrapping paper, empty boxes, and so on. Guess who will be standing in front of the dishwasher in a few minutes. Go on. Just guess.

Roll on tomorrow, and a call to a plumber or builder to come and look at the water tank in the loft, which has apparently decided to start pouring water onto the flat roof. Because of course it has. And guess who’s first in line to deal with it.