Wordsley, Stourbridge, England: 8 degrees, cold and grey with bursts of sunshine.
It’s Tuesday, back to work, and I feel relieved. It is always very nice to have time off, a break, a bank holiday or even holidays, but for me, returning to work is a relief.
I feel down when I spend a long time without working. I think it’s because I’ve never had a financial safety net or a cushion of cash to catch me if I fall. It might also be due to always being alone, never having family support, and living in Brazil—a country that, aside from its weather, beaches, and people, can be quite a harsh, cruel, and perverse place.
I enjoy working and love my job, but I was once very afraid of success. I have been unconsciously sabotaging myself from reaching the economic and professional level I should have achieved a long time ago. It is related to self-esteem and past trauma, but now, after a long process of self-reflection, I believe it has been resolved. When I arrived in Brazil in 1989, I was considered a young genius for what I knew and was capable of in the boat industry.
Today, I look back and realise that the lack of opportunities, the political and economic instability of Brazil and my own personal limitations prevented me from reaching where I should have. Even with the school, I could not make it much greater than it was and deserved to be. I’m neither disappointed nor frustrated; it is what it is.
The only thing we can do is learn and build from our mistakes, as well as our professional and personal limitations!
It is the day I must go to Kingswinford to transfer money from one account in one building society to another for my mother. I exercised, gave a class, and after my mother signed the slip authorising me to withdraw the money, I was off.
I took a bus to Kingswinford, did everything within minutes, and visited the mini-DIY store to buy weed killer and grass seed for the garden. I stopped by the local butcher’s and bought wafer-thin slices of ham, which my mother loves, then walked back to Wordsley.
I popped in for a quick coffee at the cafe on the green where Julie works; it was her day off, the day she looks after her grandson Ozzy. After I arrived home, I went back to work, giving classes, preparing a blog post, and writing a journal entry.
Late in the evening, Julie and I managed to talk; she called me, but I could sense that she was a little down. After gently pressing her for a response, she told me that she felt very insecure because we had not spoken much during the day.
In some ways, it’s endearing when your loved one misses you. In others, it can be restrictive, challenging, and claustrophobic. Besides, I’m working and making money, and we saw each other every day over the weekend, so there should be no reason for insecurity or doubts. If there are, there must be something wrong with us or her, because I am okay.
Everybody has a limit, and I’m feeling that I may be approaching mine regarding the need to explain our relationship and repeat what has already been explained repetitively. I don’t think I am an insensitive person. I know that I am a hard person because life is hard, and living in Brazil has made me resilient. I’m probably hard at my core, as weathering my mother’s struggles in childhood was not easy.
However, what shouldn’t happen is that a new relationship feels too heavy right from the start; maybe there’s something wrong. It should be light, free, without too many demands from each other, focusing on the purity of feelings and thoughts for one another, and essentially, just wanting to be together.
To spend quality time together, enjoying each other’s company, and see if it is worth pursuing in the future. If we can’t have a light, fun, enjoyable time at the start of the relationship, how will we love, care for and behave with each other when things get tough in the future, because they always do.
Life always has a way of throwing a spanner in the works, and especially in a couple’s relationship. Life gives us tests all the time, but really, it’s a test to see if the relationship or the couple are strong enough to continue and build on what they already have.
We live in a society nowadays that makes it easy for us to get married, and it is also very easy to separate or divorce, in theory. However, in practice, it is not as easy, but incredibly challenging to stay together and face the harsh situations that life throws at us.
It’s all a test!
My point of view on our relationship is one of complete satisfaction and dedication. I don’t know why, but I feel that way about this woman. I do not know whether it was the period of flirting that lasted two or three months, a kind of mental foreplay that bonded us together before we went out, which ultimately influenced and sealed the relationship and my feelings.
However, I also expressed my concern to her that we spend too much time discussing the same thing all the time, rather than just living our lives and appreciating what we have as a young, not-so-young couple.
I used a little child reverse psychology and said that maybe we should be friends, which put Julie into a state of hyper-panic. Understanding that we need to live and enjoy life, rather than analyse too much, I pointed out that if we are not, then there is something wrong, and we need to accept it.
And that is it!
In bed by 11:00 p.m.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
