Today I had an allergy testing. Turns out I'm allergic to nearly everything on earth only I just have this occasional strange cough. Turns also out that allergy testing means the doctor's wife fumbling around with a strange piece of metal attached to a wood handle in front of my face while holding little glass thingies (also in front of my face). If the metal swings from top to bottom it means I'm allergic if it swings from front to back it means I'm not.
Yeah.
Has anyone any experience with that? Because it felt weird that a piece of metal swinging in front of me should actually tell what I am allergic to or not. I'm not really questioning the doctor, I'm just wondering.
Anyway, I was late. It was only a couple of minutes, but because my appointment was so late already I decided to call from the bus and tell them. That made me wonder: when do I tell somebody why I am late and when do I not.
In that case I did, I told them I missed the bus. Which was not the full truth, but close enough. (The full truth was that my morning train came ten minutes late, which made me about 15 minutes late for work, which made me leave ten minutes later than I would usually have, which in the end made me miss the bus.)
I think it depends on who I am talking with, what I am excusing myself from and what the reasons are. Sometimes a person doesn't need to know why I am late or won't come at all. Sometimes it's fair you tell them.
There's no real pattern behind it, just a feeling and experience. And sometimes it all depends on what mood I am in.
But there's one thing more, something I just recently started (as you may call it). It's me not making false excuses anymore. It started about half a year ago when I was planning my birthday party and told the husband (back-then-boyfriend) to call a friend first of all others to ask her if and when she could come. She lives in Darmstadt which is about a two-hour train ride from where we live, so chances were she wouldn't come at all.
And she didn't. She told the husband that her past weeks had been so busy she needed a weekend all for herself. I was not in the least bit hurt or anything like that. I could totally understand. I was a little bit sad because I would have loved to see her, but I couldn't blame her for not coming.
That's when I realized. I can totally not come to a party or whatever I'm invited to and I can just say that I am too stressed to come. I don't need to make up false excuses or cancel shortly so as to make it look like I planned to come all along. I can call people and tell me that I had a lot of stress and don't know if I can make it and wouldn't actually bet on it and if it's okay I might just decide spontaneously. If they are sensible enough they will understand and if they're not I shouldn't make it their problem.
It's just that if I don't feel like going out, I don't need to. It's either really important to me or it's not. And I have stopped looking for other excuses than 'Sorry, I just had a really busy week and I might just like to spend Saturday evening at home.'
Because I realized it's perfectly okay to excuse myself without excusing myself.
PS: The photographer who took out wedding pictures was here. I finally have pictures. So be prepared for something of that in the next days.
