A tight-rope

The smallest things cause me huge amounts of stress these days.

Some of you may recall that we've had a leak in our apartment (see my post here). Well, we had a temporary fix done in May, and (until today) we had no further problems.

But today it rained. Quite heavily. And our leak returned. It moved about 1 metre to the right in our ceiling, but it's back.

Back in May we had agreed with our co-operative owners that we would get a temporary fix and also obtain some quotes for a roof replacement. But we'd heard nothing of the progress. So Craig rang our fix-it man today to find out what was happening. I won't go into all the details, but suffice to say that nothing is happening.

You may have heard that the Dutch are notoriously tight with their money. Stingy. Penny-pinchers. You get the idea. Well one of our apartment building's co-owners acts as chair-person of our little co-owner group, and he sometimes takes it upon himself to "save money". He is the stereo-typical Dutch tight-arse. It appears that he feels that getting (i) a quote and (ii) a roof replacement, will be too expensive so he's apparently decided to not go ahead with either. Without consultation with any of the other three co-owners. Right. (By the way, I am Dutch, as well as Australian, and I've grown up with stereo-typical Dutch tight-arses, so I can say these things without meaning to cause offense. It's just the way it is.)

So we're staring right at autumn and winter with a (once-again) leaking roof.

I'm a bit over it. Actually, I'm a lot over it.

I feel like I'm walking a tight-rope at the moment. Every little thing which is out of the ordinary stresses me out. Every. Little. Thing.

For the last few days I've had a recurring head-ache and I swear it's stress related. It first appeared when we went to the hospital very late on Saturday evening because I was concerned about some fluid loss. Then it returned the next day when I had more fluid loss so went back to the hospital. Yesterday it came for no apparent reason, and this morning it came back again. (By the way, the fluid loss appeared to be nothing more than a pea-sized bladder over which I have zero control any more. Perhaps because there is an enormous head constantly pushing into it.)

I can't cope with anything out of the ordinary. I can't answer the telephone. I can't answer the door. Email is about the only form of communication which works for me at the moment because there's no pressure, no confrontation, no requirement for an immediate response.

My life is a bit like walking a tight-rope at the moment. Everything is so finely balanced, that it doesn't take much to make me a bit wobbly. Or much to make me fall. And if I didn't have security of knowing that Craig was there to hold on to me or to catch me if I fall, I think I'd go mad. Completely.

And now I worry about our roof. That our bloody roof will topple me.

I will want to go back to Australia at some stage, and that might be sooner than we think. And I can't sell this bloody apartment when it has a bloody leaking roof!! You should see the ceiling in our lounge room -- about two square metres of yellow marked ceiling and wall where the water has left stains.

I really don't need this right now. Living in an apartment sucks. I've done it now for about 10 years (in Australia and here in Amsterdam) and I'm over it. I want my own house with my own walls and my own roof and my own property. I want to be able to make my own decisions about what I want to do and when I want to do it. At least then the stress is about something that (hopefully) I can control.

Today is Tuesday. Bring on Friday. Please. I want to get off this tight-rope.