Little Odd Stories

There are people in my life with whom I am never done talking. Never. Not even in theory. If we were stranded on a deserted island together, with no WiFi, no coffee, no social media, and absolutely nothing new happening, we would still manage to have conversations about coconuts, the color of sand, or why seagulls always sound personally offended. We would probably even end up discussing whether a coconut is actually a nut. (It is not. Go check it.) That is the first category of people: the ones with whom silence simply does not exist.

The day I became a professional tag player in a very different kind of game. I thought adulthood would look different. On my respectable age, I thought life would be more… dignified. I am deliberately not naming a number here, but let’s just say I am old enough to always know where the scissors are, and young enough to not need ointment for everything yet. In my imagination, I would be doing very grown-up things. Working a bit. Reading quietly in a peaceful home. Quietly, I repeat. And my children, now fully capable of speaking in complete sentences, would occasionally send me messages like: “Hey mom, how are you?” Spoiler alert: that is not how it works.

“With all due respect…” The moment a sentence starts like that, you just know. This is not going to end in warmth, kindness, or mutual understanding. This is going to be a carefully wrapped piece of verbal aggression, served on a plate of fake politeness.

Dear people, I tried something new again. I promised I would write about it, so here we are. It was one of those things where I thought beforehand: what could possibly go wrong? The answer is simple. Everything. And yet, it is fantastic. Let me introduce you to my latest athletic adventure: aquapole kickboxing.

Sometimes it catches me off guard. Sitting in the car at a red light. Or standing there with a measuring tape in my hands, suddenly unsure if I needed forty or fifty centimeters. And then I feel it again. The absence. The quiet. A kind of emptiness that is not really quiet at all, because it is filled with him. My father.

There are mysteries in life that keep us up at night. How does gravity really work? What is the meaning of life? And perhaps the most urgent one of all: why do so many people smell so bad on public transport? Seriously. Between the stops of tram line 5 or 19, there exists an entire hidden world of scent profiles. A kind of olfactory safari. An aromatic adventure. Just without a guide and with far too little ventilation. Let me be clear. I am not the smell police. I understand that not everyone can smell like lavender and spring fields all the time. But come on. Some smells are no longer accidental or human. They are a direct violation of basic nose rights.

Okay, quick recap for those of you who just got here and are wondering what on earth “phase three” means. Yes. Phase three. Because in this house, we do not renovate in one go. That would be too easy. Too normal. And honestly, far less entertaining to write about.

I Thought I Was Social. I Was Wrong. I used to think I was a social person. Turns out, I wasn’t. Or well… “social” is a big word. Let me put it like this: I can be social. I have the skills. I know how to ask questions, nod at the right moments, laugh at things that are only mildly funny, and keep a conversation going about a topic I don’t care about at all. For years, I thought that was my personality. That this was me. Social. Easygoing. Always up for a chat. But the truth is different.

Somerwhere between nursery school and the mortgage, we stopped. There was a time when I just danced. For no reason. Without music sometimes. Just because my body felt like moving and standing still was boring. In the living room. In the supermarket. On the pavement outside school. It didn't matter where I was or who was watching. I just danced.

He's 14. He's sitting exams. And I'm just his mum, standing slightly to the side of all of it. Two weeks ago I wrote about my fifteen-year-old daughter and her maths exam. About Pythagoras and angles of inclination and a maths teacher with the patience of an actual saint sitting at my kitchen table. About exam stress and chocolate on the counter and maternal pride that makes absolutely no sense but exists anyway.

Welcome to your new job. There is a moment in every pet owner’s life when reality quietly taps you on the shoulder and says, congratulations, you no longer run this household. It usually happens somewhere between carrying a twelve kilo bag of cat litter up the stairs like an exhausted Olympic athlete and whispering “sorry” after accidentally sitting in your own spot on the couch because the cat was already there.

For those who know me: you already know I enjoy trying something new every now and then. I’ll soon be sharing my adventures in the world of aquapole boxing as well yes, that’s a real thing, and yes, I did it but today’s story is about music.Yesterday, I had my very first saxophone lesson.