I just need to catch my breath

Sometimes you have to write an email to someone who provides a service and what you write will take lumps off your pride. And then you press send and it feels like a wound has begun to heal. Or you’ve at least staved off a bleed, until they reply. But take the wins where you can.

This time of year is always a bit too much. The next few weeks loom. And then, days of biscuits and tea and wine and screens playing movies and shows I love, watching them alongside people I love. But still a ways away. In the meantime, I’ve to get through it. The emails, the bills, the deadlines. The things on which Christmas Eve puts a glorious pause.

I was away in warmer climes for a week recently and then I was home and it was bitterly cold for parts of the day and in between all that I ended up on antibiotics and off work and off life. I mean, kind of restorative. Unsurprising too. It’s been a year. If you can: stop, admit you’re in a weak position, lie down, wait around, rest will come like a sunset.

Soon, I will listen to my favourite seasonal songs incessantly. Darlene Love’s Christmas (Baby please come home ), Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath the Tree, and Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses. I adore that last one. Girl, wrecked, finally gets an evening with the guy she fancies.

Distractions: Some short fiction I enjoyed is Apocalypse by Mileva Anastasiado on Necessary Fiction. There is always time to read a love story. Islanders, by Eimear Ryan on RTÉ radio is a lovely five minutes about a trip to the Blasket Islands by two people born and raised landlocked. I’m a sucker for soundscapes - I’m not a great sleeper - so I’m very into the recorded forests from around our beautiful world on the fantastically titled tree.fm.

Previously: Please Yourself (thoughts on writing), Moon in Aries (thoughts on horoscopes), and The way smoking a cigarette looks, that feeling (flash fiction about the gym).