C’est la vie!

I live in a world that I am increasingly growing tired of. One in which the societal pressures of accepting and adhering to the status quo seem to outweigh all others.

My own body has evolved in such a way that my immune system attacked itself. I am diabetic and forever connected to an insulin pump. By own psychology is so hectic right now that getting out of bed is a big thing, let alone sorting my sh*t out.

I am watching my family grapple with their own health problems too. My grandmother is flirting with dementia and is narrowing in on the point of a messy divorce with it. Now my other grandmother is making this a messy love triangle.

This is without mentioning the leukemia, the emphysema, the heart disease, or the fact that we could run a black market pharmacy with the medications that we collectively take.

Evolution. Life. Mother nature. God. Superman. Whatever. We naturally have enough obstacles to overcome — some we contribute to, but others just seem to happen. And yet, in amongst all of this, some beurocratic bast*rd wants to make it that bit more difficult.

At this point you could be forgiven for thinking that I’m going to go on some sort of tirade about the future of the NHS, or the state of schools and academisation. But I’m not. That’s too deep for 4 a.m, at least tonight.

I’m actually sweating the small stuff. Namely passport fees. Yes, that’s right. Petty passport fees.

I paid, in January, the fee for a passport. I then proceeded to forget about it for a while. Because, you know, life.

It’s somewhat difficult to give a monkey’s about that passport you paid for when you’re arranging hospital visits, medication, meals, and the like, whilst juggling your own bloody health.

And then I remembered, cos, you know, I paid money. So began the laborious task of finding a countersignature — the bit where someone who has known you for X years and has job Y (of a professional manner) says “this photo of Z is indeed a photo of Z and even looks like him and everything”.

In particular this is the bit where the person needs to have know you for a million years, shared at least eighty two meals with you, have no more than ten fingers, and no fewer than two eyes, needs eleven degrees, three drivers licenses from four countries, has travelled to space, and once saw Beyoncé at the airport. That bit.

That’s the bit where you seek a friend that you haven’t spoken to in a while and ask them for their help, working around your busy schedules — that is because whilst there are still schools then teachers are still expected to work 51 hours per day. This also becomes the point that you realise you don’t actually talk to anyone who you once saw every day. So begins the existential crisis that inevitably features in your week.

Then you send off your application. This is for a passport that you are required to have in order to travel to a foreign land, because they say you need one (at this point please note that I know why we have passports). And you know, because you paid for it, after they told you it was needed. Again I see why we need to CONTRIBUTE to the costs incurred.

Then they send your stuff back, because you were too late with the application. Despite life being unusually filled with hospitalisations in that period you can’t get an extension. No, that would be sensible. No, now you need to pay again if you want a passport. Because, logic…

This is the bit that really bothers me. I want to travel to a foreign country but have an out of date passport. Now I need a passport because somebody else, somewhere, decided that’s how it’s done. Okay. No problem. I’ll just update my passport, maybe pay a small fee for the paperwork and “trouble” of it all.

Why then do I have to pay again, given that they didn’t even give me one for the last lot of money they got from me? Let’s face it, the principal activities here can be done by a computer, running on an algorithm. But hey,

That’s life!

I feel obliged at this point to apologise for the sh*t you’ve just read from me, it may not even make sense (I’m tired). But I should also say that doing this helps me, I get to vent and try my hand at being articulate at the same time.

So yeah, if you got to the end, thanks (and sorry!).