I found a box of candles in the attic. Most likely they’re the ghosts of Christmas Carol past. I’ve been sticking them variously around the flat on the basis that I’m sober at the moment so the chances of me setting fire to myself are at low ebb. I’ve made a little tinselly bright cocoon in my living room, and I’m writing this while drinking chamomile tea from my absurdly large silver-plated teapot. The fish tank is bubbling away to my right and I’ve just been watching Bojack.
Three weeks ago I couldn’t get into the living room for piles of stuff. There was barely room to sit down anywhere at all. The table was covered in glassware. The only places I had to sit in my whole flat were my bed, my altar and the loo.
It’s a lot better now thank the lord. It feels like a home again, and over time I’ve managed to apply enough thought and care to make sure that the details please me. Sure I’ve jettisoned tons and tons of stuff. Tennants Auctioneers have helped me move a mountain of boxes. The job is still not finished, but every day it gets more manageable, and now I can sit on a beanbag surrounded by candles in the early evening and just … breathe out.
Breathing out. Yep. That’s the plan now, even for a few days. That’s all she wrote. Tis the season.
Usually, Christmas is a melée. Usually, I turn it into a melée for fun. It doesn’t feel like life if it isn’t hard work, and so even when I’m supposed to be chilling out I find ways to wear myself out because I love being too busy almost as much as I love obliterating myself with alcohol. Being busy is another avoidance addiction. Not this year. Ok, today Max and I hauled a load of boxes and crap furniture around and then shoved various boxes of bollocks into the attic for forgetting. I’m tired from lifting. It hasn’t been a slow day. But I know what’s up there now and it’s not in my way anymore and the effect is a nicer home for me. There’s still enough random stuff down here for me to be able to sustain my eBay habit for years to come and not run out of it. But I can see the floor.
I was about to get a load of paint and go hell for leather in the spare room, but I’ve let myself off the hook. The pandemic has given me an excuse to hibernate. To switch off my ambition for a little while and clean up my launchpad. I’ve opened cans of worms that have been closed for decades. I’ve looked long and hard at things I’ve badly needed to examine. Now it’s time to trust that those plates will keep spinning for a few days, and switch into neutral, crank up the heating, burn the frankincense and chill the fuck out in my lovely home full of pretty things.
I’ve run a bath. I’ve got nothing to do tomorrow but for a bit of shopping. There’s no point stressing about all the life things. They can wait. We all have a pause now. It’s the rules, yes?
I’m not very good at pausing but I’m learning.
AlBarclay 