I’ve been given many more shifts at the Ding vaccination centre. The agency dealing with it also has the Bury centre on their books. Fortunately bread has been happy to facilitate my doing both jobs. Two jobs… Had it really come to this? It certainly had.
With the Omicron variant turning up, the war cry has been sounded. The booster program has rocketed. The next 6-7 weeks, my vaccination rota is packed with 12hr shifts.
So it’s time to move on from the bread warehouse. Finally. Ironically, my fitness levels are such that I’ve started treating it like a gym workout. I need to start working out at home, or I’ll either waste away again or get fat. Neither are particularly appealing. I’m stretching the shoulders in most of my t-shirts now. I won’t lie, it’s a good feeling. My arms still look like sticks but at least I’m relatively healthy now. It’s quite shocking looking back at how underweight and unfit I was. Skeletal almost. Not pretty at all.
I’ve grown to like a handful of my bread colleagues. All of them are the young ones, in their twenties. Weird. When I was their age, I used to hang out with forty somethings. All the older people here are miserable buggers. And I thought Mr Grumpy Fuck was bad. A few days ago, I’m working my cute little ass off as usual, humming along with my favourite Cory Taylor songs, when I hear Mr Petulant bitching and moaning about us having not done anything again and again. I wasn’t even pissed off, but I just burst out shouting “I’m not fucking lazy, I’ve been working my ass off all day, get fucked!!” Excuse the expletives but for me to go from happily singing along with my work to full on bellowing at the top of my voice tells you a lot. From behind a load of bread stacks, he shouts back “Come and say that to my face and see what happens.” “Really?!” I say to him. “Pathetic. Why don’t you go back to your school playground?” Peace was made quick enough, but it made me realise that all my tolerance for aggressive behaviour is next to zero now.
So I’m sat outside smoking in my last break at the warehouse with the girl I’ve been working with. I’ll miss her. We’ve had a lot of laughs together. Bless her, she said she will miss me too. I’ve helped her through a lot of stress recently. So, finally… No more bread.
So, in my infinite wisdom I (on autopilot) thought it might be a good idea to grab a couple of xmas bits in town. I must have gone into Lush when there was a lull in customers as while I was in there, I turn around and all of a sudden it’s packed. Apart from my nearly having a panic attack, (shades of last year) the worst bit was the staff were walking around with a box of chocs offering them out. I was gobsmacked. Sure, I’ll just dip my fingers in that box… Jebus! At that point, I bailed and got the hell out of there. Honestly… It was mental. What was I even thinking?!… Clearly I wasn’t. Half the time, I don’t even know what day it is! Last Saturday before Christmas… Muppet. What did I expect? Despite the new rules, I’d guess at least 25% of the people I saw out and about in the mall had no mask at all, and many of them had their mask covering only their chins. I can’t imagine how many new infections took place just today. If I wasn’t doing daily LFT’s already, I would be now. I was genuinely scared. Walking along with my hands stuffed firmly in my coat, stress squeezing the sanitiser in my hand like a stress ball and visualising an energy bubble around me. Funnily enough, it was around 2 metres all around me. I got out of there less than ten minutes after my arrival. I’ve not felt like that for ages.
#stayawayfromtown #lessonlearnt #neveragain #wtfiswrongwithpeople
Thursday now. It’s Christmas eve tomorrow. A deep wave of depression has come over me this morning. I just want Christmas out of the way now. I’ve just put up the Christmas tree. The power supply for the lights wasn’t in the box. Figures…. The only reason I’m doing any of this is my attempt at making Christmas as painless as possible for the kids. I’d completely ignore it otherwise. Selfish? Of course. My flavour of depression does that I’ve found. I never figured out why, but I have always been a little selfish at times anyway. I have to push myself to check in on people. I guess if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t even do that much.
Christmas this year is a financial shit show as much as an emotional one. There were issues with the timesheet portal and I’m getting my wages late. Like Christmas eve late. I’ve always been useless at Christmas even when I’ve had money, let alone having to get presents on Christmas eve. The kids will be getting mostly money this year. They know the score though. Bless them.
My Princeling made a very astute observation today. I’ve been going on about having so much to do, yet I’ve pretty much been at home all day intermittently doing the odd bit of housework. He said that maybe half of it is just my mental load. Possibly… I have so many things in my head at any given time, I all I want to is to tick them all off. I am a supreme pontificator at times though, so most of them won’t get done. Todays depression has been debilitating which makes it worse. Work husband could tell as soon as he saw me today. We met earlier so I could collect a PS4 from him for my Princeling. It’s always nice to see him, even if it’s only for 5/10 minutes.
So it’s 6pm. I’m sat on the sofa bashing out this drivel, feeling alone and sorry for myself. How new. To be fair though, thinking about it, I don’t do this as often any more. Quite aside from whether I have time to laze on the sofa, I’ve not felt the urge to “hoodie” nap for some time. Well, I’m feeling it now!
Even knowing that I’ll be seeing my dear friends and adopted brother and sister tomorrow doesn’t make me feel any less alone. I don’t have anyone visit me for weeks, sometimes even months at a time.It’s weird you know, my working in a job where I talk to hundred’s of people every day, yet I feel so, so alone at home and in life. Conversely, I’m not sure I would want anyone else living here with us anyway. In any capacity. Other than Precious of course. I’ll actually be living on my own before too long. My Princeling plans on getting a car and his own place as soon as he can. To his credit, he has got his act together after his first job and has been saving very well for his car. So proud of him. I always hoped that when he went out into the real world, that he would adapt quickly and with out too much stress. Much like the rest of the family, he’s had quite enough of that.
The point is, I have “Empty Nest Syndrome” to look forward to, on top of this horrific loneliness that continues to get worse. No one I know could help me with the loneliness even if they wanted to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always pathetically grateful for any company when it arrives, even if I don’t always show it. It’s horrible though, I’m desperately, desperately lonely and yet the kind of interaction I crave is not appropriate with anyone. After all, My Lady’s gone now. It’s not about sex though. Just being around the one that knows you better than anyone and vis versa… I’ve not spent more than a few hours with anyone outside work in well over a year and a half. I never get to the point where I truly relax. Other than with my Irish friend and musical compadre. We don’t socialise often, but when we do it’s usually a long/late one. This is the only exception.
I’m sinking further and further into the sofa as I type. Guess I might nap after all…
And sure enough, I did. It’s a few hours later now. I think I’ll play Battlefield 1942 for a bit and go to bed. Today can go away now. I don’t like it very much…
The Life and Times of Lord Crookedhorn. 