I accept

Here are a few things that I, on the verge of turning 30 (I'm 28, but 30 is only a year and 4 months away and I figure I may as well come to terms with it now), am accepting about myself:

1. I will never be instinctively neat. Nor will I ever have matching underwear. I will likely always hate putting clothes away and delay emptying the dishwasher for as long as possible 
2. It is highly improbable that I will ever be a runner. Or enjoy exercising. I live in hope that some day I will exercise. 
3. I will always act as if I were starved as a child when faced with free food. Always. 
4. Similarly, I will never be able to refuse ice cream.  
5. My hair will never be sleek. I will always look ever so slightly disheveled, if not out and out disheveled 
6. Talking loudly/audibly will probably always require effort. Often more than I can be bothered to muster.
7. Put me in front of a crowd of people and my body will likely always decide to visibly shake with nerves, even if my head says I'm not nervous. 
8. Mornings will never be bearable before coffee. 
9. Following recipes is most probably not something I'll ever do adeptly (meaning reading the whole thing first, making sure I have all the ingredients and then following the steps without making up steps unintentionally)
10. I will never have long polished nails. Clean and only slightly nibbled, maybe. 

I'm not yet ready to accept I'll never be great at parking. Or that I'll never have the body of Gisele Bundchen. Although, points 1, 2,3,4, 5 and 10 certainly point in that direction. I'm also still holding out hope that regular exercise might be in my future - even if I never enjoy it. 

Behind in Time

Have I mentioned that I hate Time Difference? How about that I loathe and detest it?

Well if not (which I highly doubt), I do.

Yesterday, an important day in our family, I was planning on phoning my mum. I was in my mind while I sat at my desk that as soon as I was no longer at my desk, I'd call her.

But then I forgot - it slipped out of reach as I drove home, further still when I decided that stopping at Walmart for CD players, baby wipes and disinfectant (for work... my job is not the most conventional) was a good idea. And by the time I got home it was too late.

But I called anyway.

And woke my Mommy up.

Oops.

I told her to go back to sleep - that I'd phone her today, and that I love her. I put the phone down and paused to let the nose tingle (does everyone's nose tingle when they're about to cry?) and throat ache (how about throat ache?) to die down. I blinked a few times and went to get dinner started. It's not like it hasn't happened before.

Living on this side of the Atlantic, behind rather than ahead in Time, you (I) hold the calling power. Phone calls are made in the evening and my evening is later than their evening, so it's up to me to call them in theirs - to find the time in my day when their day has already ended.

When I was ahead in Time, I used to find this all very frustrating. I'd be ready for bed, aching for sleep, and it would only be 5pm in Jeremy's world. I'd either have to stay awake until gone midnight to talk to him or else I'd snatch a few words while he was at work - conscious that I was sharing him with math code and work phones and evening plans. Generally I stayed awake until after midnight. Generally I was exhausted. I resented him for my lack of sleep - surely it's easy enough to find time in the day, or immediately after work...

Now I'm behind in Time I understand. You mean to call and want to call but then something else comes up and it's still daylight outside so how could it possibly be night somewhere else. And then you check the time and realise it's let you down - that to phone now would mean waking them, stealing precious rest from them, and another day has passed.

And that is why I hate, loathe, detest Time Difference. And why without it the Atlantic would be that much smaller.