emanix | Sometimes Luxury is a Necessity

I was at Sainsburys, buying bits and bobs to top up my first aid box, and I couldn't resist getting one of these:

Sometimes luxury is a necessity. (Image of an 'Emergency Chocolate' bar)

Sometimes luxury is a necessity. (Image of an 'Emergency Chocolate' bar)

I'm walking through the park on my way home and it's raining out of an almost blue sky. Not heavily, just a few drops, enough to get my hair a bit damp and make my bad knee tighten up. It feels somehow apt, as I think about the state of my life. Things are wonderful, and look likely to stay that way, I'm just a bit grumpy today because it's the start of my period and I have the worst cramps of my entire life, to the point of making me actually nauseous.
This morning I saw off an extremely belated tax return. I am certain I didn't owe anything for the year concerned, but the difficulty of finding my paperwork after so many unwanted house moves, and the psycho ex, my bank messing me around, and the flashbacks every time I tried to deal with it before made it impossible to deal with until now. I know I really didn't have any option, but I still feel guilty. On the other hand I feel like I'm finally making progress for the first time in far too long. Actually making steps towards where I want to be. Living, and not just subsisting. Taking steps back towards having a career again, and not just a job that pays the bills.

I return home with a bag full of choice junk food - sugar, starch, fats, vitamin C - along with almond and coconut bath milk, and a sparkly body oil. My body is demanding all of these, and there are days when luxury is a necessity. Soaking in mounds of bubbles until the water goes cold, a tall mug of ginger tea in one hand, a book in the other, and unusually for me, a bar of chocolate on the side (I normally don't even like it), which I savour, melting on my tongue. I waste a couple of hours enjoying the sensuality of it all. Even more decadent, after the bath is too cold to be comfortable any longer, I turn on the shower to warm up and rinse off. It's wasteful of water, but this happens maybe once a year at most.
Some time later, I rise up smelling like a confectioners shop: chocolate, coconut, marzipan, cherries and ginger. Appropriately the book I'm reading is Chocolat. I've not read it before, but I saw the film, back in another life. Then, I'd needed something to cry at, and it suited perfectly. Now, I find myself seeing the lead character as an activist, finding it comforting and hopeful. Perhaps it is possible to make the world just a little bit better, by being good to people.

I finally feel like tackling the un-built shelves that have been staring at me for some time, and the final few boxes of stuff that I still haven't managed to unpack since the move at the start of the month.

But maybe a little more chocolate, first...