(no subject)

[toujours_nigel]

Today is my mother's birthday, and she turns 59. I am missing it because I am sitting hunched over my laptop writing the first ten pages of my thesis for the fourth time. I had tickets home and everything, but my advisor looked in danger of having a stroke if I fucked off for a week. One of my friends is getting married next weekend, which I am also missing, but then I have never managed to attend a wedding ever, so they're used to it by now.

I'm not sure I like this living alone gig. Something will change next August, one way or another, but still it's awful. The one friend I have still living in the city is an hour and change away by bus, works full-time, and has housemates she really likes. They're all very loud together, give me a headache.

I don't like people enough to be this lonely. But here we are, anyhow.

And here she is, with her mom and younger daughter on either side.

Comments

[dragonlady7]

:( I'm sorry you're stuck. I hate missing family things, too.
I was going to say oh my mother's not that much older than yours, but then I updated my mental math, and, well, my mother's 67, which makes sense because I think I'm about that much older than you are too, so really it's perfectly reasonable. It's more that I consistently forget to account for the last decade or so, in my life, so.
The other day my coworker said, "what year is it?" because it's a running joke (we yell it, like Robin Williams in Jumanji, at random intervals throughout our day, because we're fairly isolated and weird in our little upstairs office but really we were pretty isolated and weird in our cluttered back room that was really just a partitioned-off closet within the actual store floor, so it's probably us and not our environment), and I said, "Two thousand seven?" and we both stared in profound depression as we reflected on all that has not really happened in that decade. ("My whole life was ahead of me," he said wonderingly. Both of us worked for the current company at the time but we were relatively new hires.)

August is a long ways away. I'm sorry you're so isolated. I'm an absolute disaster at living alone, I don't think I'd actually survive it. You're doing great. <3

[toujours_nigel]

Well, my mother had me at about 30, so we're actually coming up on me being exactly half her age. *g*
What was I doing in 2007? Finishing school I suppose. It's been rather a decade, but also it's. I've been in this city and university and hostel since mid-2010, so I'll have had nine years here by the time I'm done and of course I've done a fair bit in the time--nervous breakdowns and all--but it does feel a bit stalled, especially now nearly everyone I know is in a different city.
Of course it's filia_noctis I miss the most, because we managed to live together very solidly for seven of those years, but c'est la vie.

[greerwatson]

Not "coming up on"! You reached that point about six months or so ago. From now on, you'll be getting ever closer to her. In thirty years time, you'll be older than she is now and two-thirds of the age she will be then. (One hopes she'll still be around.)

That sort of milestone is disconcerting, isn't it? I'm now older than my mother was when we moved to this house, lo these many years ago. Mostly, I don't feel it; but then it catches me unexpectedly in the knees.

[toujours_nigel]

You reached that point about six months or so ago.

I mostly meant I'll be 30 when she's 60 in Dec 19-Jan 20, which I'm rather looking forward to.

[fawatson]

Can you skype phone your Mum so you can at least see her an she can see you? (Or regular phone). It' not the same but it helps.

[toujours_nigel]

Yeah, we vidcall weekly-ish, and talk daily. It's mostly just missing her birthday that's irritating. Hoping to be there for mine.

[fawatson]

You and your Mum look a lot alike.

[toujours_nigel]

That's something I've heard in the last few years, which is odd because I'm a clone of my father, more or less. I suppose they look rather alike.

[naraht]

I'm so sorry. Nothing I've done in life so far has been as soul-destroying as writing my thesis. But it's a worthy thing to have done.

You have virtual companions at least, though I know that may not be much consolation.

[toujours_nigel]

I really do like my work; I worry I'm not doing enough.

The friends in my computer have been of great help, I just miss having someone around to do half the domestic chores. *g* That and birthdays, etc.