October 2026
This month's theme/summary: still unemployed for the first time in 18 years (but still too much to do) + new employment (9.25 hours a week) and Already Behind + staycations
Some things that happened in October:
- While at home, my thesis revisions were due. I submitted them with much difficulty - it took all day plus some reconfiguring because I was only allowed to upload three files and I had my full thesis body plus 4 appendices, some of which were much, much larger than the others. My first six attempts to upload the files took 4-5 hours each before failing at the very last step. It took literally all day to get it to work. My supervisor approved them, and I thought I was done! But I then received ANOTHER email saying there was still yet another step to complete to lodge them with the university and library. Ugh. I had a month to do them, and I wanted to spend what little time I still had with my family while I was still in the US, so I left it until I returned to NZ.
The train horns blared again the evening that my family and I hit submit together on my final revisions (I made them come into my room and hit the button with me). Again, this stuff is not like me to think, but I couldn't help but hope that that was my dad celebrating the final major step to my PhD with me. - My dad's 77th birthday took place while I was at home. I scheduled my travels specifically so that I could be home for it, as usual. We went to his graveside and shared something we loved about him and what he'd be doing now if he were still around.
The cemetery has shifted ownership and the new managers are really awful - my mom's payments apparently don't get recorded anywhere so the balance due never decreases?! The choice for this resting place for me and my immediate family (my mom bought plots for all of us so that we could be together forever) was clinched when we saw multiple sightings of deer on the way there the first time we visited to check it out (my dad loved deer hunting and the woods), but the last owner gave me the creeps. The only saving grace was the admin lady who handled everything in the office - she is fantastic. But now the new owners are terrible and she is complaining about them. I hope they don't drive the good admin lady away! - Home continued to be awful without my Dad. So many memories. So much sadness. So many tears. It feels like I'll never get over this, never be truly happy or feel whole again. I have many moments where I laugh and have fun with friends, but it's all just...tainted. There is always such an undercurrent, even when I mostly 'forget' that he is gone. The happiness is immediately infiltrated with sad, like I was able to temporarily push the sadness away to laugh, but as the laughter subsides, the watery sadness rushes back in to fill the void.
At a recent work event, a colleague mentioned how sad he was for me that my father had passed, esp me finding out that he was dying right before I gave a talk to my entire field of colleagues at a conference, and I burst into tears right at the table in front of everyone. He only brought it up because he had just lost his dad and was talking about how he was doing, which was terribly. He apologized but I just said, no this is how it is for me right now. I start crying everywhere now. Even for happy, lovely things, I cry because I cannot share the photo or tell him the story. And when things get quiet and I'm alone, like right now, I sob.
I was told (via GriefShare group counselling sessions) that this is really normal, even close to a year after from his passing, and that I should expect it to get worse, with 'grief ambushes' occurring a lot as time goes on. Whatever it is, it's AWFUL. I still feel like I'm living in a nightmare I cannot wake up from. Other life circumstances are not diminishing this feeling. - My flight home was broken up by a 24+ hour layover in Houston. It really does make it easier to break up the trip like this. I had to change my flights because AirNZ canceled my original first flight out and rescheduled it to a 6 am flight, which would never work for my poor mom's schedule. Luckily, AirNZ reimbursed me for both my hotel and meal during my layover.
- Things have been non-stop since I got back. I started my new job a few days after I got back, so much of that time was preparing for that. I only work Mondays and part of Tuesdays but that first week we also had workshops all day Thursday and our biggest event of the year - a conference with 60+ of our colleagues - on Friday. The next week, I was called to do media interviews - including my first live radio interview!! - for a press release I had coming out about my recent research. Plus preparing for my final (FINAL) thesis submission.
- The job change is also still rocking my world. The union rep got busy with other things so I got shifted to someone else. The someone else has 30 years experience with these sorts of negotiations and point blank told me all the things that my original rep was asking for were unlikely given her experience. So the settlement deal has changed a bit. I keep having to pare it down and concede things, which isn't great. I'm keen to have it be over, but yet again someone else on the opposing negotiating team is away on bereavement leave. It's crazy and awful of me to think this, but this is the third time/person since July. Sometimes I think they are making it up to stall/make me give up???
- I have now started at my 0.25 FTE job at a new organisation - just 9.25 hours a week. It is incredibly overwhelming to learn an entirely new way of working. I have about 500 emails in various accounts I still need to process. In good news, I have already had my first paycheck, and one of my working days in October was a holiday!
- I had to kick my flatmate out. Well, have a serious talk with her. With everything going on with me, the loss of my dad and job, I need to be alone.
When I arrived home from the US, the entire flat looked like a bomb site. There were dirty dishes piled up and food all over the kitchen, that she didn't clean up until 2.5 days LATER. There was recycling piled up and tipping over so that our pantry door couldn't close for weeks. She just kept adding to the pile???? The trash was attracting bugs. And she was having parties and people over, including her boyfriend staying the night every night, every DAY. This directly conflicts with what I need from a flat, so I asked to have a chat and she wasn't free for like 5 days. But when we finally chatted, I was calm and she heard me out. Her visa is up in late November, but she is applying for longer visas to stay in NZ. I told her if she started being cleaner and letting me know when people were coming over, I could honor an end November move out date. She's doing better but I had to ask her to clean the kitchen again and take out the trash and recycling. Here's hoping she doesn't try to overstay. - The past two weekends, my best NZ friend invited me to get away. Partly because of the flatmate situation, I enthusiastically agreed. We went down to Hamilton one weekend and had a blast: went to a great sculpture garden, tasted a tea flight at Zealong, went for a bike ride along the Waikato River, went to see Klara and the Sun in theatres and had the theatre all to ourselves!, saw some great art and attended a free country and blues concert at the respective festivals in Raglan, had delicious Thai, yummy brunch, and a great American lunch inside of a Jukebox-shaped building, walked around Hamilton Gardens, went to some hot pools, and started watching Stranger Things Season 5.
This past weekend, I joined her for one night at her AirBnb nearby. She does not have a place to live right now so is just staying in temporary housing. After she picked me up this past Saturday, we went to lunch at the Lincoln Cafe, which was delicious, then went to the Kiwi Valley Farm Park to cuddle some fluffy bunnies and guinea pigs, feed some horses, goats, sheep, etc., and go for a proper hayride. Exactly the ticket for Halloween! Then we went on a nice riverwalk in Helensville before heading to Kaukapakapa for their Halloween Hoedown. It was really fun to go line dancing. Sunday we just lazed about, hung out with the AirBnB border collie mix, Billie, cooked breakfast and lunch at the place while watching Stranger Things from couch/bed. Before she dropped me off at home, my friend and I explored a nearby water fall track.
I'm sad though, because this BFF in NZ for 17 years is thinking of moving back to the US or elsewhere. - It's warming up!! I loooove summer in NZ. I cannot wait until it is beach weather.
No comments:
Post a Comment