Busy For An Unemployed Person

Yesterday as I was walking to Newtown from Mt. Vic on Adelaide Road two things happened: a friend with whom I was trying to make plans texted “You are very busy for an unemployed person,” and I thought, walking past the kids on their way to school in their uniforms in the cold and the wind, “Wow, it’s really good to be home.”

I have about fifteen minutes to write this before I go to see a friend in the hospital (which is a whole other terrible story for another time) and the internet here is really dodgy so I don’t have time right now to write about the best girly kayaking weekend the world has ever seen that I had with Alice in the Abel Tasman, nor about how we talked to each other for twelve hours a day every day, nor how we got awesome boardies at the Warehouse for five dollars each, nor about how we walked the track wearing those and jandals and felt very hardcore, as hardcore as people who keep stopping to admire different varieties of moss can be, nor about all the sandfly bites that have transformed my entire body into some sort of pinpointed map of welts. I can’t really get into, at the moment, how I turned down my old job which was offered to me again yesterday–which you’d think would have been a pretty easy decision to make, wouldn’t you, but trust me it wasn’t and I still don’t know if I’ve done the right thing–and how I have just about a month left in the country before I go to Samoa and I still haven’t got anything to wear to Shirley and Steven’s wedding in Otaki next weekend and how I’m spending every day having breakfast, lunch and dinner with friends, trying to meet, trying to catch up, trying not to believe that there’s a real possibility I won’t see them again, in between going to meetings about other jobs and, like, waiting on hold with Immigration and listening to that Bic Runga song AGAIN. I can’t tell you that A. gave me the sweetest text yesterday, saying that “my” room was free this week at her house and do I want to spend a couple of nights at home? And by the way, the children miss me. There are reflections about travel to record and pictures to upload but I have to keep going, I have to use every second of my time here while I’m here, there’s no time to stop and think about anything, I have to make plans and send that text and be somewhere five minutes ago. I feel like I was just doing this a couple of months ago and I’m sure I’m going to have a breakdown at some point, but I don’t care; I have thrown myself head-first back into Wellington and want to stay in as long as I can, no matter how wrinkled-up my fingers and toes become.

This computer keeps blinking out and I need to get to the hospital so all I can say at the moment is..well, right. I’m very busy for an unemployed person, and it’s great to be home.