Simple pleasures

When I first started this blog, there was overt politics. At that time I hated both world events and my miserable job, which began to take over my life even as I resisted and resented this. I wasn't functioning in the job because I was obsessed by the horrors of the world. I wasn't doing anything useful about the horrors of the world because my job and my resentment of it took up too much time. I was looking for salvation from partners who were probably looking for the same from me, and hence were unsuccessful. I didn't know where to start, only where to end.

So I gave up the well-paid job and the boyfriends, to the horror of my friends and family, many of whom thought that if I just worked my way through the madness all would be well. But I was subsumed by the false consciousness of working as if this meant anything, and had begun to hate myself as well as everyone else. I gave up a lot of money, and spent a pitiful redundancy after 20 years' false consciousness on keeping the mortgage up.

I learned again to shop local and cook properly at home, and even occasionally to clean house. I started to enjoy walks instead of seeing them as wasted time, and to appreciate time with the kiddos. I read about things in which I was interested as much as I wanted. Sometimes I stayed up late at night and rose late in the mornings, and gave myself permission to do nothing. I dealt with the fact that I wanted stuff I couldn't afford, but more and more these became books or experiences, and not material possessions. I began to get braver and more honest with myself.

Though far from perfect in so many obvious behavioural ways, I am more frequently happy than not. I take the pills, but maybe only because I get electric shocks in my head when I stop. I'm working again (at least for now), but aware that this job isn't a personal definition nor a prescription for happiness. If it goes, as these things might, there's a backlog of recipes for cheap good food to exploit. If I can find time, there might even be room to explicate some of the horrors of this world.

The ego I like most was the one who took the kiddos out for a hummus falafel tea at Palmyra last night (an establishment to be recommended) and laughed myself silly at their jokes and confidences. The same person who bruised her head badly twice at IKEA this morning on a low-set sign- not quick to learn- to add to her purple-bruised chin and palm from a fall on Princes St three days ago. She isn't afraid anymore.