pinch

My exams are in less than two weeks. In two and a half, I will be back at work. I can't wait; for the challenge, for the elated exhaustion of doing a job really well.

I also can't wait for the inevitable weight loss. I'm a bit disgusted at myself, which upsets me more than the extra pounds really. I'm by no means huge, I'm just a little heavier than I like to be. I don't like this mindset, where I avoid mirrors and obsess over my waist measurement.

I accepted that I'd always struggle with my weight several years ago, now. I've been 81 kilos; I've been 59. I'm probably about 62 at the moment (I don't want to get on the scale).

At just 5'3", three kilos make a lot of difference. At 59 I am pretty much a size eight (not in jeans), waist measurement of about 27 inches. At 62 I am a solid size ten, waist measurement of about 29 inches. I am quite a muscular girl; I build it quickly, and my legs are as solid as they were a year ago, when I did strength work regularly. My core strength has gone to shit, though; an hour's yoga leaves me shaking where six months ago, even, I'd have done an hour and a half and felt invigorated.

Ugh, even the fat rant makes me feel angry with myself. Why am I whinging about half a stone when I was once twelve and a half? I know how hard it is to lose weight, and to keep it off.

And, it's Easter Sunday. Christos anesti; alithos anesti. I hope you are celebrating with friends, family or chocolate, or in any way that makes you happy.

and finally

Some good news.

My boy is moving to London, in August. We house hunt lazily, drifting past windows and fantasising about what we'd have, if we could afford it.

I can't wait.

weekend

Friday is always just a little bit magical, don't you think? Waking up in the knowledge that tomorrow is a lie in, that work today will be paper shifting and gossip.

Still, Saturday lunchtime is the perfect moment for me; the time when school achingly drew to a close, now the time when I sit with the newspapers and a glass of wine, lazily sketching in half known answers in the general knowledge crossword.

hefty

I weighed 59 kilos when I had my accident in December (I remember being grateful for this as the man who saved my life hauled me bodily onto the platform). I've since barely been to the gym (laziness born from broken routine) and I've been eating wantonly. Hello, three extra kilos.

Bizarrely this used to be my "happy weight". It certainly seems to be where my body settles when I'm neither working too hard at being slim or ignoring it entirely. I don't know why my attitude has shifted. My therapist would probably say it's something to do with getting back to where I was before the accident.

numerate

The benefit of suffering another day of accounting tuition is the knowledge there is one less to go. Air conditioned horrors of white painted classrooms, hands stained with biro.

The colleague to the right offers a finished answer, eyebrow raised. No point, no point; I cannot translate.

Misery of mathematical memory. My self worth takes a battering.

things acquired free in the last two weeks

A bag of soya products (revolting).
A man's razor (new).
Blackberry Torch (!)
Rescue Remedy chewing gum (as weird as it sounds).
Knowledge that I will barely scrape through the accountancy exam I am taking in May.

Ooh! There's a new Kitsune album out. Excuse me.

early

It's half seven and I am asleep, curled on my side after a late bedtime. He nudges me awake, hands on my back, and I slither over into his arms, what's wrong?

Those worries you have before the day gets truly light are the worst, grey sadness, limbo of pre-action. We drift in and out of sleep until the room is brighter.

I wait and wait for the weekend where he won't leave on Sunday, where we won't hold these concerns (just others) between us in the stillness of the morning. Where we have all week (all life) and he won't wake so early, so sad.

vday #3

(last year here)

Yesterday we spent the day in Kensington, visiting the Natural History Museum and Kitchen W8, then lazily browsing the shops in the clearest, sunniest weather we've had since before Christmas. It was decadent and perfect, and it went all too fast.

I suppose it isn't surprising a day disappears at such a rate when I can barely believe it's two years since we drove to Tintern Abbey, eating chocolate all the way. I love thinking of moments in those first few months, the fizz of excitement being with someone new and wonderful (and I still get excited, every Friday, every time I know I'm going to see him) and how I knew, smiling at him by the tube stop on the Goldhawk Road, that it would last. And, oh, how I hope that whatever happens in these next months we will still feel this way.

Since I last wrote an awful lot has happened and as a result of a terrible accident I have post-traumatic stress symptoms. Life has been pretty fucking awful. Things are much better (counselling and supportive friends and family; and him, of course, his constant mopping of tears and telephone calls) but I'm not myself. It's an odd existence.

I am also trying to fit the puzzle pieces of our lives together, we are both trying. I will never stop trying.