Winter Friday Fragment

I struggled to fall asleep again last night.   I know the reason this time: I forgot to take my tablets until right before when I went to bed.  I ended up reading a chunk of A Perfect Spy, the novel I’m currently re-reading.  I read it when I was about seventeen, but thought it might benefit from a re-read now I’m more emotionally mature.  Also, I wanted to read some John le Carré and didn’t have the stamina for all the George Smiley books, and I don’t like most of the non-Smiley books of his that I’ve read, which limits my options.  I think re-reading has been a different experience, although I’m not sure how much that’s due to be older and how much to simply knowing how it ends.  I think the first time I read I initially viewed the protagonist/narrator as a hero, then revised that to an anti-hero, whereas now I just see him as a normal person messed up by his life (aren’t we all?).

I did eventually fall asleep around 2.00am again and slept through most of the morning.  I had to get up to answer the phone.  It was the NHS-linked charity that helps people with mental illness into employment.  I explained that I have a job now, but she said I have to come in and sign some paperwork (I think.  There was a lot of noise plus she has a thick accent that I can’t always understand on the phone).  I said I can’t do next week.  I didn’t go into detail, but I’m working on Monday and Wednesday, have a psychiatrist appointment on Thursday and can’t do Fridays at the moment because Shabbat starts early.  I could technically do Tuesday, but I thought I might need to crash after my first work day.  She said I really need to come in next week.  I stood firm.  She said she would have to speak to her manager.  I’m really not impressed, considering that I didn’t feel that their support was particularly useful to me.  I suppose I should be glad I stood firm, as I’m not always good at being assertive and saying no.  Now I’ve thought about it, maybe I should just ask her to email the documents to me.

Then I spent ages psyching myself up to phone the dentist to move my appointment (now on a work day because of my new job), only for them to be closed.  (It’s a frum practice, they shut early on winter Fridays.)

And now it’s nearly Shabbat.  Because of the bank holiday, it feels like this week didn’t happen, it was just all one long weekend.  But Shabbat is Shabbat, so here goes…