DIY

There's something warm and squishy about building stuff, and since coming to Aberdeen, I'd forgotten about that feeling. With my head perpetually stuck in the books, I guess that's to be expected. But going out, buying some wood, a paint brush, and a saw, and actually making a functional pantry for us gave me such a great sense of accomplishment.

At the same time though, it brought back my profound desire to own a place that I can call 'mine', where I can have a wee workshop and fix the place up to my own standards, where I don't have to ask permission from a landlord. One day, I know... but I'm just so looking forward to it! It'll probably be a while - maybe after a post-doc? But therein lies my internal struggle - my goal conflict if you will. To a certain extent, I see myself as career driven, not for the career itself, but because I enjoy what I do, and getting paid to do this is amazing. But this chosen career path is certainly not the most lucrative of the possible options I could have taken. So on the one hand I'm putting in place the building blocks for a career that will allow me to spend my days getting paid for doing what I love, but the time it takes to establish those blocks push back further the timeline for Leigh and I to get the house and the dog.

But maybe this is just me making unrealistic social comparisons by having expectations for where I 'should' be relative to others that are my age. But whose to say there is a need for a normative way of life - surely my life so far has been pretty far from normal.

In the end, I guess it's about figuring out what 'my' normal is, and keeping my chin up with an eye to the goals that I know I can achieve. The house and the dog will come. Until then, I'll be content with building pantries.