life, in snippets

Tuesday marked 6 months since Tobermory flew in. Six months of living together, of drastic changes, of being busy, of working and changing jobs, of ups and downs.

And six months of being happy.

Something Mum often told me, when I was in the shitty-teenage stage, was that I’m incredibly selfish. She’s not wrong. I was brought up an only child, and never had to consider anyone’s feelings except for hers. And, well… she’s my mother, my parent. You don’t consider your parents have feelings, sometimes, they’re just The Authority Figure.

But, Tobermory and I were having a stupid snitchy argument a couple of weekends ago. Both in bad tempers, and you know how those wear on each other.

I snapped at him. “What the hell is wrong with you today?” Stalked off into the bedroom.

Arguing with Mum, I’d have steamed in temper. Arguing with some previous boyfriends, I’d have steamed in temper. Rightly or wrongly, I would refuse to back down.

In the bedroom, drying off my hair (I’d just got out the shower), I felt guilty. Turned around, went into the lounge, apologised, and asked what I’d done wrong to provoke the snappiness.

It sounds obvious. It sounds like self-adulation – look at me, aren’t I so wonderful, I back down! Such a silly thing, such a thing most people learn well younger than I am.

But it’s a big thing, for selfish me. I never learned to back down, never had to. Or if I backed down, it was in action only. I was still angry, inside my head, backing down for political reasons, in work environments, or with friends I didn’t want off side. It wasn’t genuine thought of the other person.

Tobermory is the first person I’ve cared about enough to put myself in second place. To look at my own actions, realise I’m hurting him, and not try and justify it.

Tobermory has taught me humility.

Mum was going through the paperwork the other day. Amongst other things, she was filing copies of various people’s wills. (Grandmother, uncle, herself. Mum is my cousins’ guardian in the event of Uncle and Aunty both dying, and the connection with Nana should be obvious, Mum being primary caregiver and all.)

It occurred to her that she has no idea what my wishes are. She thus texted me, to request that I write them down.

It is a reasonable request, after all. She is my closest living relative. Her claims can only be overridden by Tobermory, and even then, there could certainly appear grounds for offense, if I don’t outline my wishes first.

But the whole topic bugs me. I don’t know why.

There’s a large part of me wanting to throw up my hands and go “No! I refuse to do this! I’m not going to die anytime soon! Pft!”

I realise this is stupid. Wills and similar documents are like insurance. You hope nothing will ever happen requiring you pay the excess, but once in awhile, shit happens. And, you know, I do catch the bus every day. I suppose the driver could crack a loony moment and decide to mow me down on the footpath. Stranger things have happened.

It’s not that I don’t have wishes regarding myself and my effects in the event of my death. I do. Some, I’ll have to work on verbalising. Some, I’m going to have to check with Tobermory and Mum, to ensure they don’t mind. It’s not that they wouldn’t respect my wishes, I just want to confirm that I wouldn’t be offending theirs either. Funerals are for the living, not the dead, after all.

Maybe it’s that the young don’t like admitting their mortality. After all, I am only 23. I might have trouble planning past the end of this year, but that doesn’t mean I intend my life to end there!

Still, I’ll put my head down this weekend. I’ll work out what I want, who’d need to know, what bills would need to be paid.

If nothing else, it’s got me thinking…

My boss informed me yesterday I’m doing some “fucking good work.”

Did I mention before how laid-back this workplace is?

Next week I’m rostered to work 6pm-2am. This effectively means I will not see Tobermory at all next week, except briefly in passing as I go to bed and he gets up.

The good thing about 2am finishes? Company policy is to pay for your transport home. Thus, I can call a taxi at 2am, be ferried home (which is probably not a cheap trip), and not have to stress about buses or parking.

I don’t even know if there are buses running at 2am. No clue.

I’m feeling more and more confident in this job. Helpdesk is helpdesk is helpdesk, after all, and I’m learning the Company-specific bits easily enough; and Bossman said that I’ve picked up good practices. He likes my phone manner, likes how I deal with annoyed and frustrated people. Likes how I’m not scared to admit my ignorance, but do it in such a fashion that the caller is still reassured that their problem will be fixed.

This translates to me saying “I’m sorry, but I don’t personally handle that system – what I’ll do is take down the details and make sure the folks who look after [x] get all the information.”

This job has confirmed one other important thing. I do like Helpdesk. I just didn’t like the work environment of my previous job…

I’m feeling bad about Tobes’ current job though. It’s Helldesk, of the variety I just escaped from. And he has a lot less tolerance for it than I do. Entirely fairly, at that – he’s worked in IT for 10 years, give or take. He’s run the entire IT department for places, run large projects, handled servers. Being back at the phone-monkey stage is a major drop down the ranks. Not to mention that, as IT goes, Helldesk is the least rewarding and most emotionally draining.

So, he’s pretty much exhausted these days. Not to mention I had a bad episode of the night terrors last night, so he woke up this morning without much actual rest, largely due to me flailing around and him catching limbs at high velocity in the back. Poor bastard.

Still, we’ll get through it. It’s only for a month…