Happiness and Misadventures

Unused to Vacations

Here it comes again. It's that time of the year just before my vacations, in which I'm quite uncomfortable to leave. I am so mundane that, after a few months, I get used to a routine and I struggle to break my habits. Luckily, my girlfriend learned to "manage me" and, therefore, to take the lead in these circumstances.

In 2023, the renovation1 and the moving stopped us from our usual "quick travels", but next week we're planning to go back to Dordogne, in France, to enjoy some more tiny medieval villages. My girlfriend We are also planning to paddle for about 60 kilometers on canoe, we'll see. 🚣

In these last few weeks, we've been busy (among the other things I already ranted about here on the blog) to clean up the old apartment we stayed until six months ago. We fixed every hole left by nails, cleaned all the windows, and white-painted the walls. Well, that witch2 of the owner still complained that there the flat was not "liveable". I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. That has been the drop that made me overflow, and I resisted overreacting.

After that, the tension inside me was just too much. I needed to speak aloud about all the problems I were keeping in my head. I had to let them flow out (with also anger tears, to be honest) in order to have a more ordinate vision of the actual severity of the troubles. Well, the conclusion is… that life is a witch (with a b), but I'm quite lucky, so I can't complain too much. Real obstacles are another thing.

AI-generate image of a sketched man torso, with his head becoming smoke, or something similar to snakes, flowing in the air
"A drawing of a man letting his problem flow out", by Bing Image Creator

Since life is short too, anger is the last option to choose; sadly, in the daily routine, I tend to forget this. I am quite calm, and stress usually doesn't affect me too much, but things were getting worse, lately. I need some kind of motivational poster to hang behind my computer, for when I'll come back home. Maybe I need to be grateful for what (and who) I have, but really wouldn't know who, or what, to thank. This would be an interesting subject for the next blog post — after the vacations!


🎮 Just re-played a couple of hours of Firewatch

🎧 Pedestrian Verse by Frightened Rabbit

📖 The whole Scott Pilgrim series again (always nice memories)


  1. About that, no carpenter has been sighted at the worksite in the last four weeks. 😑

  2. You can replace the "w" with a "b", you get the idea anyway.

#personal #renovation