Wednesday 15 November 2017

#313 Lost for words

"Hurry up Dan!" begged my sister over the phone. I smiled slyly. "I promise I'll look at it on the train" I said. Drat. She was almost fifty points ahead and there can't have been more than twenty tiles left in the bag. Catching up would take nothing short of a miracle.

I'd never expected to beat her at Scrabble. She was the one with the English degree. She excelled at Boggle. Her book was longer than mine.

I'd been ahead for about the first eight turns, then I lost it. Lost my focus. Lost my letters. Lost the plot. I'd been so tired on Monday I could barely fetch my lunch.

It wasn't all because of the housemates any more than losing at Scrabble was because of tiredness. I needed a break though. To get out of the city.

I chatted to my coach for forty minutes about how the room search was going. Fortunately she had a finger or two in the life coaching pie as well as career management.

When choosing Sarah Gonzales, my gut had told me I'd need someone who could do more than offer dumb encouragement and put people through frameworks. She'd lived up to my expectations and had offered a wonderfully practical handful of suggestions and perspectives at short notice.

Hetal had weighed in too, out of kindness, with her ideas about some concepts that she thought might help me. I am very lucky that she has time for me at the moment.

After fifteen minutes of staring at my phone screen, I was no nearer to finding a word to play. Plus my battery was getting low. For the time being, I would have to surrender to circumstances. Once I was out of the city, I could charge my phone, eat some food that hadn't been microwaved for a change and come back to the game. For now though, my sister's Scrabble turn would have to wait.

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