(58) pre-vacation rizz
as our family holiday closes in, (always starting with the 1st of august, my baby siblings’ birthday, who turn 16 this year so they’re not really “the babies” anymore), i start relaxing and mellowing down — which is a very welcome break from past years’ experiences, where the approaching holidays only heightened my anxiety.
is it therapy, is it not vacationing with my mother, grandmother and siblings’ (who come packed with a pack of undisciplined dogs, and all of their complications, capriciousness/particularities/unchecked mental illnesses) for the first time in my 33 years of existence (like my bestie g was aptly suggesting yesterday), or a combination of both? who knows!
last week i was a very socially active person, against my wishes!, but all was good. (j said i was in chiqui da night mode lol). i had dinner parties three nights in a row, funny enough each with my three closest group of girlfriends (almost by rank!). i didn’t especially feel like going to one of them, and i was THIS close to not going to the friday night (after a very eventful and long day), but i went to all of them and so glad i did. and then on the weekend i was alone (a with my in laws, j in brussels to attend the goodbye party and civil union party of one of our best friends), so i had the friday group over again for a pool day.
it was good because it had been a very long time since i’ve caught up with any of them. although my life is by far the least interesting out of them all, and i had the least news (when they asked “how about you?” i had nothing to offer besides “PHD” and what i say in this newsletter, and most of them read it anyways lol), their lives have been pretty eventful, so it was especially good and important to hear from them.
before going to synagogue last week i also had a very weird experience of having to save my neighbors and their dog, who were trapped in between two locked doors of their house (the kitchen door, and some massive prison-looking safety bars that separate the kitchen awning from their backpatio that borders with our garden). was it the hand of G-d, if i’ve ever felt it! in between having an exam to proctor and grade, and a meeting in law school, i was planning on staying in lisbon before going to synagogue (bc the law school is literally 3 min away). but for some reason i was tired from spending 8 hours in the building, so i decided to go home, buy some vegetables and let the dogs out to pee. by another act of G-D, i decided to also step outside in the garden and open the pool cover since i was alone (no daughter to be a drowning risk!) and the day was so so beautiful, when i hear them screaming. note: this is the first interaction they’ve had with me altough they moved in months ago and we literally share a whole see-through fence, we see each other every day! at first i didn’t even realize how serious the situation was, but as soon as it hit me i went into action mode, climbed trees and hurled myself through the wall and fence and started on the mission to finding their hidden spare key in the dark, and rescuing them from a slow painful death from dehydration and exposure to +40C/+100F temperatures… it was wild! my heart was racing when i saw the state their were in, and their 8-week-old puppy, no water, no phone, no one to hear them crying for help, just a few hours after getting locked. if i hadn’t come then i wouldn’t have seen them until late the next day, or even sunday had i gone to my fathers’ in another city for the weekend, like i had initially planned… i get chills thinking how badly it could have turned out.
last week was also the last opportunity i had go to shul before our synagogue closes for the holiday (on the 3rd). next time i go will be on the 23rd, when it reopens and our rabbi will be there, which is always exciting. she is a joy to be with, and i have a lot of things i want to ask her.
i’ve been feeling light, airy, and elated, not letting a perceived lack of productivity (by my deranged standards) stress and depress me, although the thesis is happily trotting at 300 pages along, and staying there, while i skim through more literature, and do more non-active-PhD-tasks, teach a few transatlantic postgrad seminars, submit and apply for more conferences, apply for teaching a whole intensive course on critical legal theory by myself next year (yay! scary!).
i think the sun and the heatwave that struck this corner of the world have played an important part in putting me in a good mood? (save for climate doomsday worries). the rainy cold july was freaking me out, in spite of being a helpful incentive to lock myself in the office and cram.
in between the dissertation work per se, researching and writing, going to vivas/defenses (my good friend v is a doctor after all of the trials and tribulations into getting to this point! so happy!), the academic work, finishing with juries and exam grading, the hurdles of selecting our classes for next year, the elation of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of not having teaching commitments next term (please G-D make it happen) and working only with beloved colleagues and mentors, i’ve also been quite frankly taking it easy. Not feeling especially productive? Take a break, go for a run, have an extended lunch hour with a chopped salad by the sun or watching TV. Read a non-thesis-related book.
the three weeks began on the 23rd, and as a mandated mourning period in judaism, it feels so weird and conflicting to always have it coincide with happy personal times. birthdays, events, and usually the entire length of our summer vacation (with tisha b’av smack in the middle of it).
maybe also because of this conflict between productivity/exhaustion with relation to the thesis, stress and anticipatory excitment over break, summer bliss and contrasting mourning (on top of biblical mourning, it is almost a year since the war started), this week i’ve even not worked & taken a out of school for two whole days (!!). to be fair, with last week’s professional and social demands + the thesis, i felt like a distant roommate and not her parent, and i was missing some one-on-one time with my challenging, smart, wild, curious, funny, wonderful daughter.
on wed i took her with me to the law school for a bit of shmoozing, showing her off to my colleagues, friends, staff and admin, and wrapping up with uni chores; then having lunch with g, clr and their kids, going grocery shopping and pool supply shopping, and then celebrating my dad’s 59th (with a scrumptious dinner at one of the city’s oldest and most beloved fancy restaurants).
yesterday i had g, her two eldest + clr’s daughters over for a pool day. two days with them after not seeing them since mozambique earlier in the year felt like a treat for all of us. the girls were missing each other, they mingled and were left to their own devices, while g and i had a lot of uninterrupted bestie time, talking and talking basking in the sun, where i am ashamed to say i got a pretty mild sunburn (despite protection, namely having multiple layers and different forms of spf50!). we spent all day frolicking in the pool with the girls. it was very good and relaxing. i didn’t feel guilty at all! (who is this person?!) looking back, it was necessary. for our bonds, for my mental health… for the tan! xD
today is another end-of-the-workyear special, with j’s annual sunset at our place, where we host the firm’s partners lunch and then all of the associates, the employees and their respective families for cocktail hour. what started out as a fairly simple family partnership has really taken off, and from being able to count the attendance with your hands, we swelled to be almost 40 guests, in spite of lots of absences this year. i didn’t even feel bothered to bake my traditional challah because the two greatest appreciators are not coming, and i’m taking it easy in general (i’ve decided challah making to be done in a “when i feel like it” basis during thesis-writing, and not as an obligation like before). this event is also blemished by our administrative (and husband to a’s nanny) d’s near-fatal accident two years ago, almost to the date. luckily that is well past!
so today i didn’t/won’t get a lot of work done either. shabbat starts and we stop by our friend m’s place for dinner. tomorrow it’s a shabbat day of just the three of us, the dogs and the pool, and we have the babysitter for the second night in a row so we’re going on another date (which i really should be planning). and on sunday we have a double baptism at an ung-dly early hour (we have to be before 9am in church an hour away from home!), and then we’re having our good friends i&h and their two daughters over for a pool day. i thought i’d work, as i’ve been doing every sunday, but honestly what for? i’ve already surrendered to my choice: not being physically possible to finish a shitty first draft by the end of july, and being resigned to using most of august (and maybe september too) to finish and revising it…
i hope to finish skimming through a TON of literature in the three workdays of next week. and then on thursday it’s the first day of school break for a, first vacation day for j, i’ve decided it’s my first vacation day for me too (unless i find myself wrapped up in the middle of a particularly enjoyable and productive task and feel like continuing/finishing it?). so it’s another chill pool day, packing for out vacation, and then the 16-year-old babies’ dinner party, and on friday a week from today wake up early get everyone in the car, bim boom bam, rush down south, go grocery shopping and cook for shabbat! and let our 10 days of uninterrupted bliss begin!
we were planning on hosting friends over while down south, since we have a spare room, but better decided not to: it’s a vacation for us, it doensn’t make sense to be hosting (which is what we usually do as a rule when at home, all the time), so the days will mostly be consisting of: mornings in the beach that we like, the three of us, having a picnic lunch at the beach, driving home, a naps while we chill alone and read (and watch the olympics yayay), then pool afternoon, and we either have dinner out OR we are invited to have dinner at friends’ place (which again, is an exception to the rule of what our social life back home usually consists of). at night we socialize outside of the rental, but during the day the routine and the day are ours (#protectyourpeace)
i feel kind of bad having been overoptimistic when making plans of having people around, but i need to take those friends’ generous advice and be rational/unapologetic: our vacation time is short, we need to make the most of it, especially at a time when full rest and recharge of social batteries are so important for me to be able to perform at my best. and as a family and a couple we could use this week to be bonding alone and recovering from a really intense year where we seldom had time for our daughter and each other. and, personally, i only really recover from intense efforts alone (go introverts!)
in grownup stuff, our taxes are paid, our cars are up do date with maintenance, revision and inspections, (sucks to put money in one of them, when we’re selling it and buying another one probably in late august). there’s a lot of home repair stuff that we’re not on top of that i wish we had done before leaving for our break (a list: our doorbell is still broken, our water heater broke, we have to get the contractor to come back and finish the roof patchwork and repair he was doing)… but i can’t be bothered taking on that load of stress, since it depends on j’s directions and j can’t be arsed dealing with it (for months now). at least we terminated with the previous housekeeper, and have a new housekeeper, bless her, who is heaven-sent really and in less than two weeks has helped us (and me, mentally) more than anyone we’ve ever had before! it was expensive and time-consuming to do this letting go/hiring process right but so far it has been SO much worth it. also props to my over-the-top onboarding document which has laid the foundation for a successful working arrangement. (iykyk)
my sil and bil and their giant dog are staying over “housesitting” and enjoying the pool. then we get back and i have three weeks of august to really crank the thesis up and finish the shitty first draft. a is going to my in laws from the 16-23rd, then j has her from the 23rd to the 28th while wfh, then she goes back to them from the 28th to the mid-first week of september (we have a wedding up in the north, and then j is going to nyc for work). maybe i’ll take the second week of september off, go chill with my father by the beach, if i’m done writing, to handover the draft for my dad and j to take a look, and have a break before the final revision (with fresh eyes) prior to handing it over to my supervisor. in late september we have another wedding. i hope to submit the thesis to my supervisor by the final days of september for him to go over it. then it’s the high holidays; rosh hashanah in the first days of october, and i hope to have the dissertation finally officially submitted with the university between then and yom kippur. 5784 ends, and in the next jewish year i hope to BzH formally become jewish (with a!) and become a doctor!
if all goes well (please, G-D), next term i will be off teaching, so i will have plenty of time: for any phd revisions that turn up necessary, for taking up ivrit again, for restarting giyur classes, for being really mindful for the high holidays, for reading all the jewish theology, and other fiction books i want to read, uninterrupted, for resting, for having full weekends, catching up with friends, for taking j to an island getaway to celebrate his 36th, for planning and celebrating a’s 4th, for going to dublin with my not-so baby sister a, for celebrating my 33rd, BzH maybe another baby, more traveling, more relaxing, home organizing, home improvement and changing rooms, trying new sports and workout classes… maybe start planning on buying the plot of land and putting up our tiny wooden house for weekend getaways in the mountains… and, ofc, lotsss os academic stuff (courses, conferences, etc, which i enjoy) — so, bliss!
i still get anxious that by writing these things and speaking them aloud, of how i feel thank G-D healthy and happy, that my family and loved ones are fairly good, that i feel very aligned and content with things in all of my spheres, family, professional&academic, spiritual, social etc, i might break the spell. jinx them. or, that this period of calm and bliss anticipates a mighty storm.
i know hardship will come, as problems always do. and i am still trying to deconstruct my way of thinking, and not let anxiety get the best of me and take away any enjoyment out of being present and savoring the moment. i really feel like this is a special time of happiness and fulfillment in my life. and not only that, the best is yet to come. and it is so so close! i see the tree flowering. i can almost taste the fruit. i just have to keep watering it, and pray for favorable weather.
also, feeling pretty thankful and happy to hear the joyous news of our dear friend f’s (most hoped and prayed for) marriage having taken place earlier this summer. can’t wait to meet his wife!
i hope you are all well, and know that your continued prayers and suppport are very much appreciated
shabbat shalom
f