I Like My Life

OK, I'm slipping again - over two months since my last post here... But, in a way, that's kind of a good thing.

Work has been a bit manic recently, August being one of two properly busy months in their calendar (the other, coincidentally, being December... and it all seems to be through exceptionally poor scheduling). When I say 'manic', what this amounts to is about an hour and a half of overtime spread over three days a couple of weeks ago... and I have only two deadlines this month. Compare and contrast to my last full-time job, which would keep me there till 6 or 7pm almost every night because there were six deadlines per team, per month, plus the minutia of keeping it all going.

My counterpart hasn't had it quite so easy, but it seems that his Sales teams just aren't as reliable or helpful as mine (for example one title manager was still selling on his press day, today, and giving advertisers till 5pm to get their copy in... amusingly, this led to one advertiser being very proud of himself for getting his copy in at 4pm - "an hour early!"). Even so, his overtime has been comparatively minimal, just a bit more frequent.

Making matters more interesting, our boss was on holiday during the busy period, and yet remained in just enough contact with the office to be irritating without being in the least bit helpful. Emails regularly flood in issuing edicts and stirring up trouble, but enquiries go unanswered.

The rest of the team are ticking along, getting stuff done, working late where necessary... I felt quite guilty walking at almost on time while things were 'manic', but I'm always up to date... and, with a week's holiday booked after the last deadline in August, I made a point of making a start on this month's work just after sending my last August magazine to press, just so I wasn't leaving anything for the others to do on my behalf while I'm away (quite unlike our boss, who ignored a couple of important marketing projects and moved one of her regular magazine press days so we had even more work to do during the busy period and while she was away. Classy).

But the thing is, I'm really enjoying it. The increased sense of urgency this month has made it - bizarrely - more fun. It's not hectic enough to trigger my workaholic tendencies, but it's certainly keeping me occupied.

When I got back to work after my holiday (another visit to my girlfriend's family) I found that things somehow managed to go horribly wrong in my absence. Based on what went wrong and how/why, I'm certain it would have gone wrong even if I was there, but it's an interesting echo of my last full-time job, not least because, following a short meeting, my counterpart and our boss decided (jokingly) that it was all my fault. I hadn't the heart to tell them that joke follows me around...

And, out in the real world, I'm slowly getting used to having my girlfriend living with me. After about five years of living on my own, in my own place, it felt a bit weird to begin with. Part of me kept sort-of expecting her to go back to her own place eventually (despite knowing full-well that, now she's quit university, 'her own place' would have to be her parents' home) and was inwardly bemoaning the lack of privacy (which, let's face it, was my motivation for buying a home of my own and moving out of my parents' house in the first place), but I can't deny the benefits of having her around.

It's not just the practical stuff - for example, she'll invariably have prepared dinner so that it's ready to serve when I get in from work. Despite being a bit of a loner (some would say 'hermit') by nature, it's nice to have company... someone to talk to in the evenings, someone with whom to share my favourite movies and TV shows (some of which we already had in common), someone to exchange hugs with, someone to snuggle up with in bed. I've never really felt that I'd be entirely comfortable sharing my life with someone to this extent, but it's been far easier than I'd expected. Having someone else around means I'm (slightly) less prone to wasting all my time doing nothing, and am generally a little less self-absorbed. We often come up with ideas of things to do together, but we're also doing our own thing occasionally, so everything seems that much more fulfilling. By the time the end of the day comes, both of us (usually) feel ready to get some kip in preparation for the next day.

That said, living with someone who suffers from Depression and anxiety isn't the simplest life one could imagine. Most of the time, things are fine... but there have been episodes were, having arranged to go out and meet friends, she's had an anxiety attack at the last minute (though, I suspect, they could have been brewing for days before they actually became evident to me) and either not gone out at all or come back within a few minutes. On one recent occasion, I actually caused a meltdown one evening. For almost of full 24 hours, she denied that anything I'd done was wrong and said that everything was her fault - pretty much the usual mantra when Depression takes hold. When I got home from work the following day, she could barely look at me or talk to me, and the hug that usually greets my arrival was delivered with elbows and clenched fists. Then, just when I started worrying that our visit to her family would end with me coming home alone, she seemed to just snap out of it... realising - she said - that the situation wasn't her 'fault' and that I could have been a bit more sensitive about things the night before.

And when I later mentioned my fear of her returning home, she actually laughed at the idea. "It's much better here."

Communication is at the heart of all relationships, and it's a constant learning process. Very little of my previous relationship experience is applicable to this one and, while my girlfriend and I are very similar in many ways - we may not finish each other's sentences, but we're often thinking of the same context-related joke - she's not quite at the point where she can comfortably ask for things (other than an occasional back-rub) or make suggestions or talk about all of the things that are bothering/worrying her... though that seems to be more to do with things in her past than it is anything in our current home environment.

And, by and large, she does seem to be in a better place these days - both geographically (home was always too quiet, with too little to do, compared to London) and emotionally. Having quit university earlier this year, she's quietly excited about her upcoming OU courses and, despite experiencing some writers' block on some additional, unrelated work, she's clearly raring to go.

Even better, she's getting involved in some voluntary work in one of her myriad areas of interest and speaking openly with her new GP about her illness. As a result, she is due to partake in some group therapy soon. While I'm not expecting to become involved in that, talking with other people should help our communication indirectly.

On a semi-related note, it could be argued that I'm the kiss of death for her sister's relationships. Each time I've met one of her boyfriends on our visits to the family home, they've broken up shortly after. The 'current' boyfriend broke up with her (again?) by phone, while we were there (literally in the next room, as it happened) but they've since got back together again (much to the displeasure of the parents) and are already arguing. Now, I know none of that is actually my fault - the younger sister's taste in boys could be charitably described as 'picking up strays' - but the timing has been uncanny...

It also highlights one of the other benefits of my current relationship: we don't argue. There are times that I sense some of my behaviour hasn't been received especially well... but it's evidently not bad enough to cause any significant problems and, despite my girlfriend constantly blaming herself for anything that goes wrong and describing herself as 'rubbish' and/or 'lazy', she's really anything but, and continues to be as positive an influence in my life as I hope to be in hers.