Pain, gain and space

Space
Summer was full of bodies and things in the house. The older boys returned from their year in the country for their studies and with them came two carloads of stuff that exploded into the house. We rapidly moved our offices from their respective bedrooms into our bedroom and to wherever my husband found a spot to sit.

Places he worked included: kitchen table, youngest's desk, neighbour's house and room in a holiday house that I'd booked for two weeks (I was thankful I had the insight to book a house back in September prior to Stage 4 restrictions lifting as I hear it was very hard to find places after that). 

Places I worked: nowhere. Summer was a time of no writing. 

Summer was a full belly of happiness, overeating and chaos. I'd forgotten how much space a family of five adults take up. Every surface (floor, table, chair) was taken over by something. My desk was 20 cm from my bed. I found a secondhand bookcase for all the books I'd bought and hadn't read yet during iso last year. This joined my desk in the bedroom that began to feel like a room in a house of hoarders. Boxes of things spewed out in the returning people's rooms, in the laundry and kitchen. People were awake at the opposite hours to me. Food was being made in the middle of the night. People came and went. Many bottles of things were drunk. Laughter, talking, music.

Then they left and with their departure, space returned. One left for only two weeks for his placement and has since returned. The other left for the semester. We have more space now, but less than last year. Space is a fluid idea as we drag our desks and chairs from one room to another trying to recreate an idea of a workplace. I now share a space that was a bedroom only a week ago with my hubby whose job requires him to speak a great deal, and when he's not doing that, he talks to himself or swears at the screen.

Space is transitional.

Gain
I have had the gift of time this week and for the next two weeks. I had surgery last week on my knee and have three weeks off work. I furiously wrote lists before the surgery of the things I would get done (HA! I thought it would be like a holiday! What was I thinking?). The lists looked pretty similar to the ones I wrote last year as we headed into Stage 3 then Stage 4 restrictions. Overachiever style lists. Lists of impossible length. 

Instead I have napped. I've watched Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, It's a Sin, The Drowning. I'm now watching Sense8. (Son: Are you watching a series a day? Me: ah...). I've sat and looked at the garden. Walked a short distance and watched three lorikeets devour some pears on a tree. Patted the dog. Listened to a podcast. 

Things I have done that were on my list: prescribed exercises, read books (2), 3 pages of free writing (twice), read over the last edited chapter in my manuscript, edited next chapter in my manuscript, newsletter (hah! here you are), finished son's beanie, started knitting baby blanket (not my baby). 

I've had unexpected and truly welcome gifts of love from two people who I least expected. A dinner delivered with all the bells and whistles (or drinks and magazines) and a dinner made by a neighbour. 

My hubby tells me that I talked in my sleep last night. I was laughing and saying that this is why I love working in the library. Maybe I miss work, the library, the students. 

Gains are unexpected

Pain
Last year in January, I was preparing myself for the pain of two kids moving out at the same time. I ached. They left. Survived. Thrived. This year when one left we waved him off and absorbed his space. He's thrived out there. I don't think we'll ever have him back for anything other than visits now. He'll be in the country. He loves it out there. I didn't feel the pain this time. 

My knee was good over January. I said to my eldest (med student) I was going to cancel the surgery. He reminded me that it was only good because I wasn't walking on it and that this wasn't a way to live my life. The weeks leading up to the surgery I was swimming and going to spin classes in the hope that all the exercise I did before the surgery would mean I healed faster and would be back to normal life. It felt like the lead up to having a baby. All that energy to get everything done before everything changes. When I went back to work, I rode there, then swam after work. That weekend I sat on a milk crate and dug up the weeds in half of my front yard that looked like a pasture of grass. On Saturday night we walked down to a friend's place for dinner. Monday I couldn't walk. Tuesday was no better. Wednesday my knee was operated on. 

Pain is a barometer