Breaking point
I'm not enjoying life at the moment. It's difficult to put into words what's wrong; living in Oxford and travelling home at regular intervals is harder than I ever imagined it could be. My job is not that bad (although a lot less fun than it used to be), and Caro and Jerry are nice enough (but we have our tensions), but when I'm in Oxford I feel empty, alone and miserable, just waiting for the next time I can go home and resume my life. However, when I'm in Aber I'm constantly aware that I've only got a couple of days before I'm back to the grind. It's soul-sapping and it gets harder every time I set off back to England.
It's worse now Christmas is over. I have no more holidays scheduled now, and everything is so uncertain over the next six months that it's difficult to arrange any, so it's just me and this relentless, painful routine indefinitely. I was stranded in Aber for most of this week after I fell sick at the weekend and missed the gap in the weather, but I drove back yesterday in frankly unsafe conditions - ice and patches of blown snow and fog - because I felt guilty that I wasn't here (this is the way my head works - I didn't want to be in Oxford, I wasn't in Oxford, therefore I was a bad person and never mind the fact that it was circumstance that made it so).
Today it got worse still. I found out from someone at work that while I was gone everyone was talking about the fact that I kept finding excuses to stay in Wales, and someone apparently suggested they should write into my contract that I can't go to Aber. I don't think that's likely to happen, but I also don't think the people here, with their dual carriageways and motorways, really understand what the journey is like. If I find myself under pressure to go home less often I'm pretty sure I can't keep this up.
It's worse now Christmas is over. I have no more holidays scheduled now, and everything is so uncertain over the next six months that it's difficult to arrange any, so it's just me and this relentless, painful routine indefinitely. I was stranded in Aber for most of this week after I fell sick at the weekend and missed the gap in the weather, but I drove back yesterday in frankly unsafe conditions - ice and patches of blown snow and fog - because I felt guilty that I wasn't here (this is the way my head works - I didn't want to be in Oxford, I wasn't in Oxford, therefore I was a bad person and never mind the fact that it was circumstance that made it so).
Today it got worse still. I found out from someone at work that while I was gone everyone was talking about the fact that I kept finding excuses to stay in Wales, and someone apparently suggested they should write into my contract that I can't go to Aber. I don't think that's likely to happen, but I also don't think the people here, with their dual carriageways and motorways, really understand what the journey is like. If I find myself under pressure to go home less often I'm pretty sure I can't keep this up.