The Bionic Woman

So I'm in my new place.  Give or take the odd creepy neighbour, it's nice.  "Nice" is an anodyne word, I grant you, but it's all I can muster at the moment.  Well, that and the fact that I had a good feeling about the place as soon as I saw it.  I can only hope that good feeling can last at least as long as the tenancy agreement.

There's something about moving that makes life feel a bit fresher, because you're clearing all the clutter away while you pack up your worldly goods.  In particular if you're going somewhere smaller than before...everything counts.  Now the boxes are mostly unpacked, I can honestly say all the things I own now are the things I really want to own; they're the things I genuinely appreciate having around me.  I should enjoy that feeling whilst it lasts, really; being a natural hoarder it won't be long before there's a myriad of meaningless cluttery things I never would have thought to find space for, stuffed down the back of the sofa and behind the wonky towel rail I put together all by myself.

But the really funny thing about all this mad upheaval is that I'm suddenly better at stuff.  Everything's sharper all of a sudden.  Now when I do my Russian studies I'm better at speaking and composing sentences than ever before; even my accent's better.  During my last lesson, my teacher marvelled at my sudden improvement and congratulated me on all the extra work I'd been doing.  I'd done absolutely nowt.  Then I went to the gym, got on the treadmill and ran...and ran...and ran...until I noticed I'd run 20k in about an hour and 45 minutes.  I hadn't noticed the time or distance until then; the man on the treadmill next to mine offered me a sweaty-sounding "Wow, that was impressive!" when I finished.  I'd hardly broken a sweat.  I could have run another 20k, in fact.

I concentrate more when I'm reading.  My memory is clearer and sharper.  I daydream less.  Things that used to irritate me now seem trivial.  In short, everything's suddenly very different and it's unnerving; I have no idea what's going to happen next.