I don’t have much to write about for today’s blog. Mostly, we lounged around the house playing games. I had a little trouble falling asleep and staying asleep last night. This was the first time I struggled with the Nothing Much Happens podcast while it was playing in my earbuds. I distinctly recall listening to the audio several times during the night, indicating I was conscious. At one point, I was suddenly conscious of a particular beeping sound, which is my earbud’s way of telling me it’s low on power. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was 4 am. I removed the earbuds and tried to drift off again. It took a while. I’m occasionally prone to brief bouts of insomnia like this. I don’t really know why. Maybe the couple of days in Essex, bookended by lots of driving, threw me off kilter a little. The upshot of the insomnia was that I didn’t get out of bed until around 10 am. I suppose there are worse things that could happen. In the grand scheme of things, spending more time in bed may very well be the best thing for me at the moment.
My first order of business after finally kicking myself into gear was breakfast. The wonderfully thick slices of bacon I picked up from the butcher the other day called to me. One can never have too much bacon in one’s life. It’s so hard to find decent cuts of bacon in the Netherlands. It’s typically sliced wafer-thin back home, and doesn’t taste nearly as good as it does here. I put enough bacon in the air fryer to make a couple of sandwiches, but John pointed out I should have put a new packet of butter in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it, since the butter left in the dish was barely sufficient for a single slice. I was already tiptoeing around John in the kitchen, so I decided I’d make do with the already soft butter and just ration it for two slices—going through the motions of microwaving another slab, putting it into the butter dish, etc., just seemed like more effort than it was worth. John continued hovering around me in the kitchen. From what I can tell, he does this for a couple of reasons. On the one hand, I think he sees a need to watch over and care for his little brother, which is, of course, completely adorable. On the other hand, he likes a clean kitchen, and I think he’s equally minded to follow after me, ensuring that everything is tidied up.
As if to deliberately demonstrate my ability to clean up after myself, I made a point to clean the air fryer after cooking and eating my bacon sandwich, but there was a hilarious ‘whodunnit’ moment after Lisa emerged, as John tried to sleuth his way to identifying the mystery person who was responsible for leaving some breadcrumbs on the breadboard as well as leaving the butter in the middle of the kitchen counter last night. Like a detective, with a looking glass held up in front of him, John initially aimed his suspicions at Lisa, claiming it was she who made toast last night, and so must be guilty. In her defence, Lisa went into high-pitched-voice denial mode, one of her ‘I’m most definitely innocent’ tells (those who know Lisa well will recognise her characteristic high-pitched squeal—it’s unmistakable). I tried to mock John for making a fuss over a few breadcrumbs and a butter dish that was not 20 cm from where it normally lived. Moments later, John had a measuring tape out and was proclaiming that the butter dish was at least 40 cm from its rightful home. This had all of us doubled over with laughter.
With breakfast, and the mysterious case of the breadcrumb miscreant, now behind us, we lounged around the garden, idly chatting, playing word games, and talking about the weather—we’re British; it’s what we do best.
In quiet, reflective moments, which I’m enjoying numerous times a day here, I pondered my still-worsening right-hand tremor, which I still maintain is getting more pronounced and is now accompanied ever more by my right leg twitching. Curiously, I did ask Lisa today whether she has noticed any worsening since I’ve been here, but she maintains she hasn’t noticed it to be any worse than 3 weeks ago. This makes me wonder whether I’m slowly becoming paranoid about it. Maybe it’s because I cannot escape the physical effects and that it’s playing more and more on my mind—sort of like trying to deliberately ignore blinking and then realising that’s all you can think of.
By mid-afternoon, it was time for one of this week’s two therapy sessions. I parked myself in the crafts room to prepare. I was anticipating this being a heavy and emotional session, so I was sure to close the windows and door. I didn’t want to burden John or Lisa with concerns if they heard me crying.
The therapy session was indeed laden with emotion. We went through my homework assignment of writing a letter to my body, exploring some of the themes of loss of control more deeply. We also delved into issues of self-worth, my social awkwardness, autism, and my childhood. My therapist feels I am being too hard on myself. Accepting praise is something I struggle with, which we explored in detail—that was a very emotional topic for me. We touched on issues of past bullying and some of the unsettled aspects of my time at secondary school, and subsequently as an apprentice electrician in a testosterone-filled oil refinery environment, where I was bullied mercilessly up to the point of descending into suicidal thoughts. I already covered all of this in great detail in my autobiography, which I must get around to publishing sometime soon. All of this was a rich source of material for the therapist.
Because my therapist felt I was being too hard on myself in my approach to the Letter To My Body homework assignment, she has assigned me a follow-up challenge: to write it again from a more positive, thankful perspective.
I needed to decompress from my rather intense therapy session, so I spent some more time sitting in the garden, staring numbly into the distance over the serene landscape. Eventually, our thoughts turned to more playing card and board games. We had an absolutely hilarious time playing a fun word game. The idea was to describe a word or phrase to an opponent, but crucially without using any of the words listed on the card. Of course, these are always words that are most closely associated with the word or phrase you’re trying to communicate, so it’s a mentally challenging exercise in lateral thinking. That game equally funny and stressful. We were all falling on the floor with equal measures of laughter and stress. In fact, we were laughing as hard at how stressful it was as at the game itself.
We followed up with more card games and another round of LIJONG, this time with mutually agreed-upon changes to the gameplay to explore different ways of playing. Ultimately, like many of the games we play, it all came down to who had the sharpest mind and the best trivia skills. We’ve each come out on top about as often as the others.
I finished off this evening at the laptop in the crafts room, writing up this blog and putting some material together for my therapist. Despite being another ‘do nothing’ day, it has been surprisingly full on today. I don’t have any concrete plans for the remaining few days here in Wales. I think the best I can do is to simply enjoy the peace and quiet for as long as possible. I’m pretty sure it’s doing me the world of good.