I just finished reading “The Falconer” by Dana Czapnik and it may end up being my favourite book of 2019. It’s about a seventeen year old girl figuring things in New York in the 90s and that’s about it. She has a crummy best friend she’s also in love with, an amazing friend she hasn’t quite figured out yet, and loves basketball more than either. This is isn’t a YA book. The writing is solid and gorgeous and heartbreaking and I related to her. Not from when I was seventeen, but now as she tried to figure out what would make her the best woman she could be. In the end she figures she should be curious, kind (as in making attempts daily to be good and not just ‘not bad’) and without giving a fuck to what most people think.
I go back to work in about a month. Actually April 1st is the date, which obviously is horrible but I think it will work, that we will be able to manage. Things are ok, but still fairly unpredictable. Most days right now I’m on my own, everyone else and work and school. It’s been hard knowing how to fill these days, what their purpose is. When the caregiver role is taken away (most days between 9:15 and 2:30 ) I’d be lying if I said I haven’t felt lost. I wonder who I am during this time. No, I wonder who I should be during this time. I’ve tried jumping into it as being for me, to write mostly but that pressure is too much. Some days I write and it’s all that matters and it’s lovely and other days I think nope, I’m 42, it would have happened by now if it was going to. Which is ridiculous and boring, but there it is.
I don’t want to clean the house, take up a new hobby or work out. And so I read, a lot. Of course I clean and do everything I need to in order to keep this ship floating. That’s why I’m home. I listen to podcasts and walk the dog, but things I loved yesterday (a podcast called the Aria Code all about opera for beginners which is glorious or the idea of starting up this blog again) falls away a week later leaving me like a picky toddler with the blueberries I’ve tossed scattered all over the floor.
I want to go back to work (which is only every part time) and I don’t. I miss my friends but I crave the quiet. The most consistent thing right now is the constant worries about how the day went and what the night will hold. And maybe that’s ok. It’s not a holiday or a break, but no longer a crisis. It’ s a funny floating space. I have put so many rules on this time, expectations on myself that result in guilt – you should swim, no write, no blog, no exercise.
But I’m going to read. And be curious and kind – more than ‘not-bad’ – and just be.
Pink Fish Reads 