There was something else I was going to, perhaps, type about this evening, but I forgot what that was when I was confronted with a random flash of possibility. I can’t even remember what that flash was, honestly, other than something on E’s screen that I could see from halfway across the room. But it reminded me of the infinite trajectories my life could take, and the infinite trajectories I’ve already shut down with my choices.

We only get to be one human, and we can’t do everything. But we could do anything. Some things aren’t possible for me anymore. But they’re still possible.

I feel like you can tap into that, to soothe yourself while you confront all the things you have missed out on, and inevitably will miss out on, in your short, limited life. Even if you can’t experience them, they can be experienced. And that’s quite nice.

I like assembling furniture. A few days ago, I put together the baby hammock we bought off Amazon. Today, even though I’ve been feeling exhausted and a bit like I’m on a rollercoaster, I dismantled the double bed in the spare bedroom so we could move some things around and make more space. There were loads of jobs that needed doing that I didn’t feel capable of doing. But the bed job, that had to be done.

There’s obviously a very distinct sense of accomplishment to be gained from such tasks. A pile of things on the floor becomes something useful when you finish. Or, indeed, something useful is returned to a currently-more-desirable pile. You solve the problem.

I also find the nature of the task quite soothing. Even when it gets frustrating, like it did while I was trying to line up all the holes in the curved wooden pieces of the hammock stand perfectly before I could bolt it together. To use both body and mind, I suppose, is what’s so appealing. It keeps me in the present moment. It makes it so that, even if I’m feeling physically and emotionally awful, I can transcend that somewhat for a while.

Or perhaps my enjoyment of rudimentary DIY tasks is simply, in fact, something that was programmed into me as the female child of a single mother. There’s always been a sense of worthiness found from completing more ‘masculine’ activities. Like a defiant statement of ‘I don’t need no man’. Like a badge of self-sufficiency, as unsubstantial or erroneous as it may be.

That’s definitely a part of my character, although I don’t know exactly how much it contributes to my compulsion to build stuff from Ikea. It’s something I’ve tried to be very aware of in recent years, because there’s an element of glorifying the more ‘masculine’ aspects of life that I want to keep in check within myself. And that comes at a cost to the feminine. Which comes at a cost to me.

I wonder how many abandoned blogs exist in this weird space called the internet. Ghost blogs. Gathering digital dust and cobwebs. Odd, inconsequential-seeming little time capsules.

As fascinating as I find abandoned things, I’ve decided to try not to let this become a ghost blog just yet.

Life got intense and, frankly, overwhelming, for a while, and rebooting this endeavour didn’t feel like something I could trust myself to commit to. And so I didn’t. And while I didn’t, it kept niggling at me every so often.

There are plenty of things in my life like that. Lots of creative niggles trying to get my attention. You probably have them too. But life is distracting, and it’s easy to brush them aside.

I think it’s important, though, to let some of the niggles get to you, and to follow through on them. To trust that you want them for a reason; that you’re being propelled in that direction for a reason. That there’s something valuable to be found in the trying, even if not the result.

And so here we are again.

The reality is I just can’t be bothered to type a blog post on my phone. I’ve also been super distracted and busy with holidaying, but really that’s what it comes down to. And that’s okay. I’m muddling through til I get home. Then I’ll get back to my beautiful laptop and flutter away on the keyboard.