Wordsley, Stourbridge, England: 3 degrees, grey, cold, overcast and damp.
Waking up in a house alone is a luxury that I haven’t had for quite some time, being both good and strange. Being able to do anything you want, within reason, without worrying about someone else in the house is sublime.
Walking naked from the bathroom after a shower to your bedroom, without worrying that anybody is there, is sublime.
Cooking whatever you want, no matter how unconventional it may be, is also sublime—not worrying if your routine clashes with somebody else’s is sublime.
Going to bed and getting up at any time, without feeling guilty because of somebody else, is also sublime. The only problem with all of this is that there isn’t anybody there to share your craziness with.
Everything in life is a compromise. I’m English but I live in Brazil. There are attributes of England that are not in Brazil, and vice versa. Living alone has its advantages, but nobody is waiting for you when you arrive home. In the same way, if you have somebody who loves you and cares for you, it is very good, but you can’t do everything you want to do.
“You can’t have your cake and eat it!”
An old English saying that essentially means you cannot have everything in life, and that everything in life comes at a price.
Universities don’t give out a certificate degree for free; you can’t just knock on the door and ask for a degree, and they’ll readily give it to you. You have to earn it by studying for four or five years through endless nights until the early hours of the morning, and even then, it is not guaranteed.
Everything in life has a price; it’s just a question of how much you’re willing to pay. One of the most expensive things in life is the cost of laziness and procrastination. If you waste your potential, time and energy, which are probably the most precious attributes in anybody’s life, you pay very dearly. You cannot recover time; once it has gone, it has gone forever. Money you can recover, most material things you can cover, but time, talent and energy you cannot.
When you are young and full of energy, with all your senses working well and your life ahead of you, it is easier to do, build, and work on anything. Still, as you get older, it becomes increasingly complex until it becomes almost impossible.
Getting old is a shit!
Wasting time and talent is a shit too!
Not looking after yourself and later in life your body begins to breakdown and fall apart is a shit!
Value yourself, your talent, and your time because they are very precious. If you don’t, the price you pay is extremely high!
My mother is in the hospital for knee surgery. She was admitted and operated on yesterday. I went to the hospital today in the early afternoon to visit her. The hospital, Russells Hall, is enormous—a labyrinth of corridors and passages that branch off at various angles, with a continuous flow of people from all types, ethnicities, and medical professions coming and going, creating a never-ending stream of activity.
In today’s modern healthcare landscape, the amount of infrastructure required to operate a hospital is astonishing and quite costly. Modern hospitals resemble small towns or communities in many ways. I was particularly impressed by how the reception area, or lobby, resembled a bustling central train station in London.
It was filled with people coming and going and featured shops offering a variety of food, sandwiches, coffee, and other items to cater to the large number of workers, patients, and visitors that support such an environment. Having spent a significant amount of time out of England and in Brazil, I noticed that while there are large hospitals in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, Russells Hall truly stands out as remarkable.
I was kindly helped by a nice lady who saw that I was lost and literally directed and took me to my mother’s ward. I finally found my mother through a maze of small corridors, and she was sitting on a chair beside her bed in a room with four beds.
Each bed has its own medical station, ensuring the minimum support for doctors and nurses in the event of any emergency. The decoration was of light, pale colours, and the room had floor-to-ceiling windows at the end, facing the car park. For some reason, the heating was working very well, as it was extremely hot.
Considering that she had quite a large surgery, she seemed to be all right. She complained of the pain in the leg that was operated on, which is expected. We talked, and my mother introduced me to everybody who was there. After about half an hour to 45 minutes, we said our goodbyes, and I caught a bus home.
In ten to fifteen minutes, I was back in Wordsley, and twenty after going to the supermarket, I was home. I cooked myself dinner, which I think was the first time in a long time that I’ve done it, and it was nice; I enjoyed it. There were some minor emergencies and mistakes due to being out of practice, but it was overall good; the food was tasty, and nobody died.
I worked and gave classes for the rest of the day. It was bitterly cold outside, but at least the house was warm.
In bed by midnight.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
