Another morning, and today I actually don’t know what I’m going to say. I have had a lot of private thoughts that I don’t feel able to share – yes, even I have them.. But nothing so far has formed in my head to write to you. And so I will sit in front of the keyboard and see what stream of consciousness emerges today.
I have managed to avoid thinking about work for a few days, but it can’t be put off indefinitely. I spent some time yesterday looking at my college work, I have an assignment to complete by the end of January, and I need to go back over what we did, the things that we rushed through, that I didn’t have time to practise between sessions. I enjoy it, it means a lot to me, and several people have said that the qualification might help my employability. Well, it can’t hurt. So there is an incentive there.
I’ve also got some follow up work from the Berlin meeting to do for the 15th, but the email asking for it, with very non-specific and confusing requirements, only arrived last week. So, that will be a challenge And the paper I presented in Oxford has to be rewritten and expanded by the end of the month for inclusion as a chapter in a book, which will also be a challenge. As well as my usual clerking work. But I will get my head down and it will all get done.
My siblings are coming tomorrow – I think. We’ve never been close, but since our parents died, ten years ago, we have tried to make the effort to meet up at Christmas, rotating the location between the three of us. Last year it was due to be at my sister’s, but there was some bad feeling between my brother and brother in law, and I had a phone call the day before from my brother in law to say that my brother would not be going, but that we were welcome to if we wanted. This year, I have had confirmation from my brother to say that they will come, but although I’m expecting my sister, she hasn’t called to say whether my niece and family are coming too, and she’s been staying with them over Christmas, so I haven’t been able to call her. So I don’t know how many to cater for. Given what happened last year, the fact that she hasn’t called is making me uneasy.
Why do people do these things? I don’t like my brother in law and I never have, though I’ve tried to tolerate him for my sister’s sake. But I don’t understand why people get into petty feuds with one another and hold grudges like this. They hurt themselves as much as they hurt each other. I try to be tolerant, and to keep away as far as possible from those I find intolerable. I try at least to respect everyone’s point of view, even if I don’t agree with it, to acknowledge that they have their reasons for their feelings and behaviour. I have spent a lot of anger over the years to no good purpose, and made myself miserable in the process. I have realised that I don’t have to like everybody, and I don’t have to spend emotional energy on people from whom I get only grief. I can accept that they are who they are and how they are, and I try to do so without judgement, of them or of myself. And so I step a little further along the path.