At Least Afloat

It wasn’t too great to be inside my head today at work, but I have to count the positives.

Today I did my first accounts for the company.

My boss and I had a meeting this morning, in which I may or may not have been two cafés au lait down. I went for the coffee this morning because my head and sinuses were loudly proclaiming their existence, shrill and piercing, and although caffeine doesn’t usually work for me under those circumstances, I still had half a bottle of milk in the fridge. So, it was one severely milked-down coffee, and then a second followed. The stress of needing to reformat my Convention de Stage and its Ammendment merited a desperately absent chocolate, and I went for the next best thing. I was on a coffee high. Anyway.

So, my boss, who was working from home that morning and met with me over Teams, said that we have to sort the Christmas party over the coming weeks, but for the next two I had better focus on helping the accountant, since I now am no longer locked out of the accounting software.

I realised today was going to be a busy, busy Friday. I cursed myself for not making progress with filing our invoices, since I had been informed that next week our accountant has an audit, and it’s supposed to be a particularly intense one. Chaps, I still haven’t made any progress. My day, where it hasn’t been meetings and daily tasks, and fixing those blasted documents because the Ministry of the Interior won’t take a double-language Internship agreement, peut-être parce que le français l’emporte sur l’anglais, apparemment… (We are NOT going there, Bella), it has been struggling with accounting. I don’t think I have ever cursed more in my life. I managed to file three bills and approve one reimbursement, and scan over three others, but only after much sweating and swearing. By the last one, I actually started to enjoy myself, and then one of my colleagues, who, unrelatedly, recently announced to us that he is becoming a dad next spring 💛, told me it was 6pm.

I have worked nearly 9 hours today. I can do that with catering, but not administration. This is the result of a 19 minute lunchbreak and sheer determination not to give in to my duff physical and mental health. My head, knees, fingers, and belly have all hurt today at different intervals. I have had some of the darkest thoughts and worries I’ve had in a while – I despised myself. I ploughed on through. Some days you just want to give up, and you can’t, and you don’t, and today was one of them.

And I came home to find the letter I sent to my grandma has bounced back. There’s a close next to her road that has the same name, so the neighbours at the same number get her mail occasionally. It’s just such a shame they don’t think about bringing it over – it’s only 30 yards to hers. After all, my family makes sure to bring over their mail if ever it comes to hers. And why can’t the postman learn to look at the road names?

My landlady told me of a similar story about address mix-ups in Berlin, where lots of streets in the East and West are named the same. I feel slightly better. I’m sure I’ve also fallen foul of “same difference” with regards to addresses before. Ha, now that I think of it, that reminds me of an address I memorised when I had drunk two cocktails. I wanted to surprise my friend, who at the time I had the vastest crush on, who lived there, and sent him a parcel. Alas, I memorised wrong, and he never got it, but he said he admired the covert approach. Since then I have the correct address for him, and the missives I have sent since have reached who they were destined for.

I came into my room, took the weight of the world (and my coat) off me, and talked with a few friends, and called my family, and everything feels better.

So, friends, the waters of life are occasionally choppy. We have peaks and troughs. Sometimes they come in quick succession. Today was a trough. The important thing is to keep above water, or at the very least not to drown. Today, I kept at least afloat, and I’m now sailing again. Had I the power to grant anything, it would be the strength to do the same on any day where it seems your own self is against you. Hold on. I, for one, stand with you ❤️