Choosing Other Challenges

The Talmud says that all beginnings are difficult. I’m feeling that today: beginnings of days, beginnings of the Jewish year, beginnings of my novel.

I went to bed early last night (before midnight) as I was shattered, unsurprisingly, as I had only had about four hours of sleep the night before due to insomnia. This morning I kept waking up, having terrible thoughts that overwhelmed me and stopped me getting up, and then falling asleep again. The thoughts were about the Sarah Everard murder case, which has been in the news yesterday and today. For non-UK residents, Sarah Everard was a young woman who was abducted by an off-duty police officer who staged a fake arrest, then raped and murdered her. The police officer was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday. I was thinking about this on and off all evening yesterday and I’m not sure why; when there are murder stories in the news, I have to struggle to stop the “Could I murder someone?” fears get out of control and turn into moral scrupulosity OCD. I kept thinking about this case whenever I woke up and I had a nightmare about police officers who were actually murderous drug dealers.

Because of this, I was not in the best place when the phone rang. Unbelievably, it was someone from the Very Scary Task from last week. This was supposed to be done and dusted by now. I think he just found an old voicemail from me from last week and wanted to check it wasn’t new, but then he was asking me about something else and I said he should phone next week when I was in the office and it was only after I rang off that I realised that he didn’t know that I wasn’t in the office and that I only work part-time. So I hope he doesn’t think I was being rude, but I couldn’t really claim to have only just woken up at 11.30am even though it was true.

Tishrei, the first month of the Jewish year, is always crazy too. It’s Yom Tov, Yom Tov, Yom Tov, Yom Tov (Jewish festivals), then suddenly it’s nearly Rosh Chodesh (New Moon) and the end of the month and one-twelfth of the year is gone (actually one-thirteenth this year, as it’s a leap year and Jewish leap years get a whole extra month). The Yom Tov cycle is over, but it’s nearly Shabbat (the Sabbath), which feels the same, no work when I desperately need some time that is not paid work, but also not religious sacred time so that I can catch up on various chores and on my writing, as well as making plans for E’s visit later this month (later this secular month rather than religious month this time).

There were little things as well: the milk was off and my Mum told me what I already knew deep down, that I need a load more formal shirts and polo shirts as the ones I have are wearing out. I dislike clothes shopping and the thought of restocking half my wardrobe does not fill me with joy. It’s not much in itself, but combined with all the other things I’m worried about at the moment (finding an agent for my novel, starting work on my next novel, planning for E coming, work and other routine things), I just feel overwhelmed again. ‘Overwhelmed’ seems to be my default setting at the moment, which is better than when it was ‘depressed’ or ‘anxious,’ but still not great to live with. I need to take a deep breath, break things down and make some plans, but with Shabbat starting in a few hours, I won’t get a chance to do that until Saturday night or Sunday.

Not only was I feeling overwhelmed, but it got to nearly the end of the time for Shacharit (Morning Prayers) and I hadn’t davened (prayed) yet, even though really I should have done so hours ago. I felt that people in the frum (religious Jewish) community would look down on me for just not coping with life.

Then I had a weird thought. There’s a Jewish folk belief (as far as I know not something in a written source text) that, if God let us choose our challenges, we would end up just picking the ones we already have. I’ve always been sceptical of this idea. While there is some truth to the idea that we get used to our challenges and develop coping strategies, I think there are people who would choose different ones. There are some challenges that no one realistically wants. But this time I flipped it around and thought, “No one else would choose my challenges. Therefore they can’t lecture me on how well or badly I’m coping with them.” I think that helped a bit.

After lunch I had to get on with my usual pre-Shabbat chores, plus I had to do some ironing. I watched the Doctor Who episode 42 while ironing. I used to hate it (the episode, not the ironing), but this time it seemed OK. It had many of the things I dislike about that era of Doctor Who: it’s too interested in the companion’s family and not particularly interested in the science fiction aspect of the story; it’s illogical; it has overly-loud and dramatic incidental music; and David Tennant does his SHOUTY EMOTING!!!! But it was diverting enough once I silenced my inner critic and it was directed well by Graeme Harper (the only director to have directed episodes of both the original and new series). It also raises the curtain on perhaps the best run of episodes in Russell T Davies’ time as showrunner, which I’m looking forward to watching with E (Human Nature/The Family of Blood, Blink, Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords).

I did a little tinkering with the plot for my second novel, but I think for now I need to wait until I’ve done some proper research for it. The new novel is probably going to have to take second or third place behind spending time with E and finding an agent for my first novel for the next month or two. I want to write, but it’s just not the main priority right now.