More and more firsts keep piling up this week. It’s been a bit exhausting, but for the first time in a long time I feel exhausted and I can actually identify the myriad different things I’ve been doing over the last few days to induce the tiredness rather than sit here recalling the fact that I made an ill-advised trip to Tesco which has wiped out my week.
Last night, having got home from work – well, picking K up from work – we were exchanging texts with a friend of ours who lives in Luton who was feeling a little down in the dumps, largely due to being left in charge of the dog and having far too much time to himself to think, something which always bodes badly for those of us with slightly brooding dispositions (see previous entries in this blog for my own personal examples).
Naturally, we invited him up for a Friday night of fun and frolics in Bletchley, but since he had the dog to look after and work to be at in the morning, he couldn’t make it. Without having to think about it twice, I immediately offered to drive us down there to take the party to him. No sooner were we off the phone to him than we were in the car and heading South, an option which wouldn’t even have crossed our minds just a few short months ago.
We had a great night, picking up party food on the way, sitting chilling, chatting and catching up, setting the world to rights and coming up with the ultimate in Bat-plans for the coolest of dudes and then kicking back and taking in a flick to top the night off (the improbably brilliant and clever Fracture, which I’d highly recommend).
We didn’t leave Luton till after 11 and didn’t make it home till shortly before 12 – a late night even by current energy standards – but it felt fantastic to have been able to just up and go, to shoot off to be there for a friend in a way I haven’t been able to do for a number of years.
Back in the olden days, five or six years ago at the height of my time front of house at the Theatre, I used to do this kind of thing all the time. Friends would call late at night (usually after a show had finished) and I’d whisk myself round to drink tea and talk things through till all hours of the night. I’ve missed being able to do that for my friends, to be able to be there, wherever, whenever they needed me. I feel like I’ve found another missing part of me and I’m welcoming it back into the whole with open arms and a wonderful excitement.
Just to add to the excitement and general, all-round super-happiness of the week and month and year so far, K got a letter this morning offering her an interview at City University in April, two days after the Tresco marathon. It must be said that after her UCL experience and the rather blunt non-communication from Edinburgh (they informed her of her lack of success through UCAS, without evening deigning to write a letter themselves), K had pretty much given up on City. To be offered an interview had us both grinning from ear to ear this morning and really topped off the week beautifully.
Of course we’re not counting our chickens or other similar jumping-our-guns-type metaphors, but there’s every chance we could be settling in London come September – me to a new start in my long-stalled career and K finally starting down the road she’s been aching to take since her teens.
Life has dealt us both some pretty raw cards over the last few years, but if ever there’s evidence of a deck-stacking Karma at work, 2008 so far has to be it.