04. 16. Saturday

I wasn’t quite awake yet, but I dragged myself out of bed – and on the couch in the living room, full of sunlight. It’s been since forever that I last saw such a light, full daylight but still tinted rose, a promise of a beautiful day. We lay on the couch, cuddling, for a beautiful eternity of ten minutes.

04. 17. Sunday

“When the band plays the next Scottish, I’ll wait for you”, he said. I had invited him to dance previously, so this was nice, until he added,

“If you can find me”.

“How about you find me, then?”

“You invited me, so…”

“Do you truly want to turn it into a power game?”

…

We did not dance, in the end.

04. 18. Monday

I should know better by now than to try and solve problems when as groggy and sleep-deprived as today. All I achieve is a giant headache and a sense of frustration, while the problems remain unsolved.

I should have gone to the park 5 hours earlier.

04. 19. Tuesday

I had put the box with the cycle-to-charge in my bag some 3 days ago, to be sure I wouldn’t forget it when I arrive to the bikeshop. Once there,  I explained I wanted the piece installed, so he opened the box to have a look – but of course it was the other box, empty since my partner had it installed on his bike last week.

04. 20. Wednesday

Strange to recall how much I loved flying when I was a kid. I detest it now. True, back then, I only had the opportunity every few years, and it was always for holidays to interesting pieces. Now it’s pretty much the only reasonable way to come home and see my family, since there still aren’t reliable train connections. 

At least I got some work done on the plane.

04. 21. Thursday 

Spent the day about: rent a bike for my stay, back home for some work, then to the seamstress to try my new costume, then up the hill to my parents’. Not sure if it’s the biking around that makes me so tired or the pretending to ignore all the things that are wrong.

04. 22. Friday

Nope, not today.

04. 23. Saturday

There’s absolutely nothing like the feeling of swinging a 5k hammer to bring a brick wall down. 

04. 24. Sunday

Spent the afternoon trying to decide on a tablet for the trip. Will this one be good enough to work on? Is that one in a good enough state? Do I trust that 2nd hand seller to begin with? 

At 10pm, I gave up. 

04. 25. Monday

Ran an errand for my parents across town, and as I drove over the bridge, I suddenyl found myself yearning for the city. To walk her streets, and meet friends in the coffeehouses, to cycle along the Danube in the sun. 

Not sure I like the way my life revolves around my home these days. 

04. 26. Tuesday

Spent the day working, trying to get everything done today and tomorrow to have a few non-working days while with my family. I even did some housework and exercised a bit, and was pretty proud of myself – until I relised, at 8pm, that I did not practice for next Sunday’s show after all.

04. 27. Wednesday 

Struggling to find a way to write about private things. I may share some of my own stuff with the internet, but I refuse to expose anyone else. 

04. 28. Thursday 

Got some family affairs done after a long process. It’s a relief, but the finality of it has me worried. If things are neatly arranged, what comes next? 

04. 29. Friday 

I feel incompetent in the face of aging and sickness. Guilty for not doing more, for not being here most of the time, for not putting my life on hold to help.

Of course it’s irrational. But not less real. 

04. 30. Saturday 

When I say I’m burnt out, I don’t mean fed up. I mean I’ve been slowly recovering for almost 3 years now, and  some days, after 8 full hours of sleep I still feel I had only 4 or so, joint pains, headache, asthma flare-up included. 

04. 02. Saturday

Decision fatigue is definitely a thing. I’ve scoured the whole Europen internet for the fabric, came up with 20 candidates – any of which would be okay but none really what I wanted – and you’re telling me I’ll have to pick one now? 

04. 03 Sunday

When I moved to Brussels the coffee truck was my only place to chat with someone – Alfio’s Italian, and I didn’t speak French yet. Over time, I often ran into friends who lived nearby, and even more often made friends (of sorts) with other market-goers over coffee. In the last two years, it was our only social life, Sunday  coffee strictly outdoors, in groups (not-so-)strictly limited at 4 people. 

It’s a regular meetup now – if you want to find me in Brussels, Sunday 11.30 AM at Alfio’s coffee truck is the place. Remember to bring your own cup!

04. 04. Monday

Waking up early – by which I mean, to an alarm, earlier than usual – is painful enough that I wonder if any time I gained may be lost in productivity. With interest. My sleep cycle has been all over the place, though, so I’m not ready to abandon this experiment after the first day, tempted as I am to do so.

04. 05. Tuesday

Activities are on Easter break, so we had friends over for dinner. L. cooked 2 kilos of carbonnades with fries, acting as if he does it every day, and the friends brought the wine. Good, simple fun, good food, good company. 

04. 06. Wednesday

I’m sore, tired and sleep-deprived, and technically, I have less than two hours to record a bunch of videos that I will obviously not do today. Again. 

I sort of regret accepting the couchsurfer who arrives this afternoon. I’ll need to tell him to be gone from here tomorrow during the day so we both can work (and I can record), and reasonable as this request is, it makes me uncomfortable to have to make it.

04. 07. Thursday

I always plan more to film than I actually can. It makes sense: the setup is half the work, so I want to do as much as possible in a single session. But it’s also frustrating, because I always keep on until I’m exhausted, and still I know, every single time, that I haven’t done all I wanted.

04. 08. Friday

Scrambling the whole morning to somehow correct a tech issue. I set up an alternative link and reached out as far as I could to make sure anyone who tried the wrong one would get it, but I’m unsure if people who got discouraged from signing up once can be persuaded again.

04. 09 Saturday

I’ve been wondering if I’m too burnt out to ever enjoy any sort of work again. But here I go, all energised (though not less tired for it) after 10 hours of almost non-stop work.

It helps that I did some 6 different jobs during those hours.

04. 10. Sunday

I prepared everything: recorded, edited, wrote emails and captions, all ready to go tomorrow morning. and THEN I realised I complicated it way too much, that I assumed my audience was as much into this as I was. That I’m trying to communicate so much that my main point will likely be missed entirely. 

I’m glad I have no way to remake it, because if I did, I probably would.

04. 11. Monday

I spent most of the day scouring the entire European Internet to find functional, decent-looking clothing for my cycle trip, and came up mostly empty-handed.

I know clothing isn’t a right, but can I cycle around Europe in my undies then? Because apparently I’m way too fat to be clothed in the outdoors. 

04. 12. Tuesday

This one was lost.

04. 13. Wednesday

You know what happens when you try to fix problems in a hurry? You make even more mistakes. Rinse, repeat, until everything falls apart.

I’ve been sleeping badly, eating whatever and trying to get stuff done non-stop for the last 4 days. Even after I cleared out anything I could from my list. 

I’m still convinced it isn’t that I have objectively more things to do than others, it’s merely a personality trait.

04. 14. Thursday 

Something about inspiration. About needing to be prepared to welcome it. About how rusty the door to that particular space of mine is. Because I’m unprepared these days. 

Or because the pressure to create something amazing is too big, and not yet compensated by the growing pressure of the upcoming deadline. 

04. 15. Friday 

Today’s margin was missing my gym class, which I tell myself is okay because of how much I’ve cycled around. It was good biking, too. 

I’m worried one of these days I won’t be able to get my schedule right by just missing class, and my plans will collapse upon me like a house of cards.

Momentos are small, personal journal entries I write every day (well, mostly). The name and the format are from Niall Doherty, and used with his permission.

The weird date formats are intentional .

03. 21. Monday

Cardio targets are rarely accessible, and progress in the gym difficult to measure – we rarely repeat workouts. Each time I skip a few weeks, like now, it feels I’ve lost all I’d gained the months before. 

And then I go to the gym, still under the cold that kept me away and heavily medicated to keep the corresponding asthma flare-up at bay – and do the 1k row in 4:45, comfortably under the 5-minute target. Twice.

03. 22. Tuesday

I used to enjoy arguing with people about their nonsensical stances, be it about the “female principle” or whether certain kinds of salt are better than others. In hindsight, I think I was naive enough to think I could convince them. 

I pick my battles a lot more carefully these days.

It makes my life easier, but it makes it a lot more difficult to connect to others, too.

03. 23. Wednesday

Nope, not today.

03. 24. Thursday

Not today, either. I never realised the enormity of a task that, no matter how small in itself, has to be repeated EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. 

I might have copied the format, but I already see I need to create a better system for myself. Even if I do manage to build the habit.

03. 25. Friday

Technology tested, slides ready, playlist made, notes finished. Not entirely sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight – more often than not, I can’t when stressed -, but I’m as prepared as can be. 

It feels strange no to be in a last-minute rush.

03. 26. Saturday

My brain tells me my success wasn’t really, that I didn’t really reach my goal, that it should have been better.

But, for once, I disagree with it. I feel elated. I want to celebrate.

So I called a couple of friends,and my partner, and we went out to eat the best shrimp croquettes in town. 

Life is good today.

03. 27. Sunday

She’s often made it clear that she thinks I’m a weirdo. And yet, I wanted to make friends with her – but our conversation often felt awkward and forced to me.

Figure my surprise when, just the two of us at our regular friend-group hangout, we chatted easily for almost two hours.

03. 28. Monday

I have both not that much and an ovewhelming amount of things to do. At the same time. I’m paralysed.

03. 29. Tuesday

I don’t think I’ll ever undersand why a man from the US would think it appropriate to explain, not just once but several fucking times, that “the Arabs ruled the Iberian peninsula until 1492” – to a bunch of Spanish women.

03. 30. Wednesday

I wrote out all the thing I need to get done before leaving for Hungary, and nicely scheduled each item. On paper, it almost looks feasible.

If only I didn’t know that my whole schedule will go off the rails right away tomorrow morning.

03. 31. Thursday

Let’s put those potatoes into the oven now, they take a while.

Well, if I still want to go out, we have to eat something else, there’s not enough time.

By the time dinner’s ready, I will be super late.

Surely I’m not going to bike across town, in this miserable weather, without having dinner, to be late for a meetup? 

Noone will miss me anyways.

04. 01. Friday

There’s something about having a friend who can come over lunch and comfortably stay for the afternoon while we both have to work. 

I kept excusing myself, of course – the plan had been to actively spend the afternoon with my friend, not just have him here while I do my stuff. 

We did have time to make some cookies together, though.