Being a home carer is going alright. I enjoy chatting with the clients and carrying out their personal care and tending to other needs, but I’m getting frustrated with how crappy the pay is and how they badger you to do extra shifts. I’m getting much better at saying no but still feel compelled to offer alternative availability, even if I don’t really want to do it. Being part time was supposed to allow me time to unwind and perhaps even continue crafting, but most of my non work time is spent sleeping at the moment so there’s no room for anything else.

I’m not turning my nose up at the extra cash, especially so close to Christmas. I say ‘extra’, but really, if my Dad wasn’t helping me out with fuel and groceries, I probably couldn’t afford to stay in this job and keep renting my house. But it will do for now, and I’ll squirrel away what little savings I can.

For the most part, I love living alone and making this space my own, but my mind does sometimes zone out into a state of blankness about the fact there’s no-one else here to share my successes and stresses with.

Dating in your 30s is hard. You actually have to leave the house. I read a quote once that said, “Even if 99% of the world’s population think you’re unattractive, that still leaves 75 million people who think you are attractive.” Where are they?! Even then, out of those 75 million, you’d have to eliminate all the ones you don’t find attractive, then the ones who have incompatible personalities and life goals, then the ones with undesirable traits such as a propensity towards casual racism/sexism/homophobia.

Eventually that will whittle down to a few hundred thousand of the world’s most compatible people for you, then you’ll have the agonising decision of which single human is worth spending the rest of your life with.

I never expected or wanted to be single at 33, but here I am. On paper having the most fantastic time not giving a shit, and even doing that creepy Elf on the Shelf thing just for my own amusement, but at the same time internally panicking that I’ll never be loved again by another man, and will be trapped in a job I could eventually grow to hate, and never have kids, which would be the perfect excuse to quit a crappy job!

Those days when you just feel sad for no reason. That’s today. But it’s not depression, it’s just a touch of ennui. My fire will be stoked once again. And I know I don’t need a man or a better job to make it happen.