Journalled on Friday, 29 August 2025 | Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 24 degrees, warm and overcast.
It is Friday, the end of a good and productive week, and Yasmin is travelling through the interior of Brazil by plane. She will return on Sunday.
I am free for the weekend, or so I thought.
I received a message from Nalva asking me to visit her tomorrow to discuss Yasmin. They haven’t been getting along for the past month or two, and matters have worsened notably since she decided to implant an anti-contraceptive device in her arm without informing her mother first.
I don’t really want to go; I don’t want to get upset, and my free time on the weekend is very precious to me. What can I do?
Fridays have always been light days for me, but even more so these days; it’s a time to do whatever is necessary or whatever I wish to do without any rush. I like to go at my own pace and stay calm.
Because of that, I took two large bags of dirty laundry to the launderette inside the condominium. I don’t think I’ve been to the launderette in over ten days. I dislike dirty laundry piling up, just like anything else in my life: debt, dirty dishes, work, going without exercise for a long time, etc.
I don’t like anything piling up in my life because usually, when it does, it means it is already out of control.
Daily maintenance to uphold obligations, duties, workloads, money management, and even friendships and relationships is all-important. Once a gap of some sort develops, recovery becomes difficult, almost impossible at times, but not entirely.
We are discussing limits, setting them, and sticking to them because, if we don’t, we might get caught out unexpectedly, bitten in the backside or knocked to the ground when we least expect it.
There in the launderette, I met an old lady whom I had seen several times walking around the condominium, smoking like a chimney while I was skipping at the back.
She has a very attractive middle-aged daughter whom I have spoken to a couple of times when we crossed paths in the corridors, lifts, or the courtyard. The conversation with her mother was very pleasant.
I had to do two loads of laundry and then put both washes in one dryer. A load takes 35 minutes to wash and 45 minutes to dry. This amounts to roughly an hour and a half of waiting, which I spend journaling.
Time is precious, so it must be used wisely.
While waiting, I am making the most of it by catching up on my journaling. I managed to make two very good entries during this time, without wasting it on doomscrolling of any kind.
I have, for the last week, given social media platforms a break; for me, they are too much of a distraction and a source of noise in one’s life. I am only really focusing on YouTube because of the channel, and that is not really a social media platform.
Facebook and Instagram, I have put on hold; I haven’t accessed them or my accounts or profiles since last weekend, and I’m not missing them at all.
Too much noise, bullshit and distraction voluntarily injected into one’s mind is pure mental poison in itself. I have felt a general change in quality from not accessing the platforms, whilst also being more disciplined, focused, and productive with my work than I was before.
If you’re not paying, then you’re the product!
In the afternoon, I went out for a walk to complete my exercise programme for the day, and later attended the condominium’s first-anniversary party.
I was not planning to go, but my curiosity was stronger than my self-control. It was in the main event space where the gym is situated, and the whole complex had been opened a week earlier.
It was raining, I wore a black V-neck T-shirt, loose linen trousers, and flip flops, very casual but nice. There were many people there. I chatted with those I knew, drank a couple of beers, had some snacks, listened to the speeches, and within 45 minutes, I was home. That was enough for me.
In bed by 10 pm.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
