Retro/Per/spective

There are days between the everydays and the bad days, when you're all quiet inside, even though the music is turned all the way up, and you savour every second of solitude you get. Those days when you see things so much more clearly than when you're looking at them from inside your life as it is most days, and you think about The Great Wide World as you watch the people around you go about their business, and you feel a bit sad about the old man standing at the bus stop in his threadbare kurta pajamas, looking tired and beaten.

It's funny how, when it's one of those days, you start looking forward but inevitably end up looking back. Could be you've just been promoted. Or you're thinking of starting or extending your family. Or maybe it simply feels like you're finally on your way to someplace better. And as you build your castles and count your stars, familiar images creep into your mind. You think about the people and influences that have brought you to where you are, and you wonder how different things might have been if...

Before you know it, you're longing to be curled up on the comfy couch in that little coffee/cocktail bar you used to go to, talking about the old days and gulping down two-for-one cocktails with a friend you haven't seen in years.

I can never tell exactly how those days make me feel. Something between lost and free, maybe. Or like I'm looking for something I've already found. My mother says Dis soos op jou stoep sit en huistoe verlang.

Ahh, yes. Sometimes there's nothing better than sitting on the stoep, sipping a glass of wine and looking forward to looking back.

The One Where Some Things Change... And Some Don't

Right. So where to begin?
How about with a look back at this fairly recent chat with myself? Pretty intense stuff, right? Yeah - I know. Anyway...So I figure, having given myself a little kick in the pants and started blogging a bit more frequently, I'm kind of on the right track - y'know?
I figure I'll get back to the same old, same old, everyday shit, keep my mouth shut and work a bit harder at maybe worming working my way into a better job within the company. (Bit of a recurring theme, that one, hey?...)

Fast forward a few weeks, to the part where I'm sitting in a restaurant on a Thursday evening, almost shitting myself with excitement because I've just been offered a new job. A writing job. With better pay and maybe some travel and people buying me coffee, instead of asking me to make or serve it. Looking good, right? Right.
The only problem is the small issue of my current employment contract, specifically the bit where it says that I have to give two months' notice before I can quit.
*Cue the shitclouds forming directly over my head.*

Skip ahead to the bit where negotiating my notice period becomes turning myself into Public Enemy Number One, and words like lawyers and consequences and deportation are threatening my already frail hold on what passes for sanity, and I'm falling about between fuming and frightened as I work my way from Blubbering Mess, right through Stubborn-little- shit-with-attitude, to Semi-responsible-chick-with-a-conscience and, finally, walking-away- unscathed-and-with-final-settlement-cheque-in-hand-chick.

Which brings us to this week, which brings with it two very important things:
1) Sleep.
2) Normal working hours at a job that doesn't involve me answering phones, taking messages, worrying about other people's IT issues, dealing with people who think that I know what their CV says, or that I care, making coffee/tea for people who think that I know what their CV says, or that I care, or saying things like mafi Arabi, and then attempting to get people to understand as I explain, in Inglizi, why I am unable to help them with their hiring of domestic help.

Meanwhile, on the home front, the end of the Leaving The Old Job Blues is celebrated with suitable fanfare, involving a roast leg of lamb dinner and a few too many Cosmopolitans.

But the highlight of the month so far?

I'm washing the mountain of dishes that magically appeared on my kitchen counter after the aforementioned dinner, while Hubby wrestles the little people into their bath. Not surprisingly, The Daughter is refusing to cooperate. It's a battle she can't win, of course, and as Hubby carries her to the bathroom, I'm pissing myself laughing as I wonder whether the neighbours can hear her screaming, "Let go of me, you big, white FREAK!"

Busy, Busy...

Ja, I know it's been a while. But there's a new post brewing in the midst of everything that's been going on lately, promise.