Am I Blue

Thursday my thoughts drifted to me leaving this place, and got stuck there. Another dark wet day spent at the Forum working on my computer. Everything about Wageningen depressed me. The weather. The small bar we played at the previous night where lonely students drink too much. How badly we played as a group. Rob trying to deal with his friend's suicide. The perpetual mess in our kitchen and the amount of time I spend in their washing dishes, putting away dishes, making meals, and organizing the food on our shelves, overflowing with spider-web-filled packages. The housemate suffering from depression - a permanent fixture of the living room. The quasi-functional, bare-of-comfort bedroom with a cow-shit anerobic digestor and piles of stuff related to it. Spider-webs and big spiders filling the corners of our room, too many for my comfort, but not enough to make a dent in the little squirmy silver bugs that crawl on the wall and floor at lightning speed and particularly love to hang out in our piles of books and papers. A boyfriend who is forever disappointed at how late he sleeps-in, sighs frequently and is generally in a state of stress and disatisfaction. An old out-of-tune piano that I can't tune to a point that it is enjoyable to play. A lack of inspiration for music or work. My own apathy at finding a job is maybe the most depressing of all.

Friday night and Saturday night we had snow and during the day periods of blue skies. Saturday Kealan helped me move the furniture around in our room and moved most of his AD equipment into the shed before going to school. I dismantled our bed and our bookshelf made of bricks up in the loft, swept, hauled the vaccum cleaner up the ladder and vaccumed, washed the walls of the streak marks left from the last tenant and the smudges of dead bugs, washed our sheets before putting the bed back together, and shook the bugs out of our books before putting the book shelf back together. I biked to Emmaus, the second-hand store, and bought a small leather sofa for €20 and a skirt and some necklaces for the Fossil of the Day ceremony. I borrowed Emmaus' trike-bike with the big platform on the front to bring the sofa home, an enjoyable journey across town on a beautiful day with that fresh feeling of snow, and cool air that doesn't bite at you but invigorates you. I vaccumed our downstairs and when Kealan came home we moved the couch around until we found a way to fit it in that allowed space for his instruments and also angled it towards the window. Kealan went for a run while I cleared a space on the desk for him to work and organized some of our stuff in the closets and on the surfaces, still wishing for more drawers or shelves, but much happier with the look and feel of our room. Kealan came home with food from the dumpster and got to work. I made some dinner and Ricardo and two girls came home in time to join us, and brought ice cream with them. After dinner I curled up on our new couch and dove into my new book - Inside the NO by Myrna Lewis - a description of Deep Democracy and how to apply it. Aftab recommended it and I am really excited to read it and put it to use in my personal life, and potentially in my professional life when I have one.

It is 5-days until I leave for Poland. When I return I will not have a UN conference to prepare for, and it will be time for me to find more premanent work. While I am tempted to flee to France for the sunlight and the French, I know that I would be at least as lonely there. I want to conquer the loneliness and depression I feel in this place, turn it into a place where I can develop personally and professionally. I can choose to do that.