My emotional frailties have been disassembled and set in front of me this week through a series of everyday events that have left me wondering what learning I’m supposed to be taking from it all.
Things began badly recording the podcast.
Pressing “record” I am presented with the usual question.
“Record to this computer or to the cloud?”
I don’t want to take such weighty decisions at the best of times.
I wouldn’t have admitted it to myself previously but I always choose, “Record to this computer” because, like the dinosaur I did not see myself becoming, I feel nervous about storing my recording out there in the ether rather than on the safety of the hard drive in front of me.
I am the modern-day equivalent of the man who kept his savings in a shoebox under the bed rather than placing his trust in new-fangled banks.
As it turned out, there was insufficient space on my drive, the file didn’t save, and we lost the entire episode.
Later, my daughter shared with her mother a tip for ensuring that your candles don’t “pool” but instead burn down evenly.
The identification of a problem that hitherto had not been a problem has caused all manner of intricate and focused candle activity involving but not limited to wrapping them up in silver foil while they burn, making sure they remain alight for a minimum period of time, and hours of wax-based hypervigilance.
I’ve scoffed extensively at this tomfoolery while painfully and hypocritically aware of the weeks I have wasted trying to perfect my sourdough starters with different bottled waters, variations of temperature, multiple different flours and a precarious contraption positioned over a radiator that involved an empty tissue box and a piece of card known through much hilarity to my children as “the bread shelf”.
My shadow self seemed front and centre when, having fastidiously cleaned the kitchen and wondering why I seem incapable of keeping it tidy, I sat down with a cup of tea and turned on the TV.
An episode of “The Apprentice” was beginning but after two minutes the insufferable egoism and arrogance of the dozen or so contestants had me switching off.
Seemingly bereft of doubt and without any evidence of thinking let alone overthinking it was excruciatingly exposing what felt like my own familiar timid uncertainty.
Not only that.
The back door has swelled in the constant rain causing me at one point to hit it with a hammer for reasons I’m still not clear about.
The back gate has come off its hinges and I bought the wrong size replacements so now it just swings in the wind laughing at me.
Then, on Thursday, I made kedgeree and couldn’t even hard boil the eggs properly. My daughter saved them after a fashion which involved the microwave and some minor explosions.
I read something recently written by a therapist who said their client had stopped thinking “I am ridiculously stupid,” and now thought, “I am ridiculously stupid almost all of the time.”
That feels like a magnitude of progress I can really get behind.
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