Living vicariously

 That's what I've been doing a lot of recently: vicarious living.

I remember coming across that word in the English lessons of Miss Olive Jewitt when I was in my mid-teens. At first, I thought it had something to do with vicars. How wrong I was.

Last week, until things got busy on Friday, I had finished my work by mid-morning, which meant I could devote all my free hours to working on the cross-stitch tablecloth for a friend of mine. A never-ending saga. 

In order to entertain myself, I watched an awful lot of TV again, including some on a channel that is new to me: Smithsonian Channel. Back-to-back documentaries such as Aerial America (1 hour of aerial shots of one state with lots of background details), Aerial Greece (shots of Greece from the air with lots of explanations), three back-to-back documentaries on sharks...you get the picture. Later on in the afternoon, I switch to 5USA and it's one episode after another of Law & Order followed by about 3 hours of NCIS. And on Saturday, as of 2 p.m., it's non-stop Murder She Wrote; Sunday afternoon is time for Columbo.

I am currently living life through these programmes. I get to see the outside world from the air and in the sea. I see parties, travel on planes, go to restaurants, go to conferences etc. through the eyes of Jessica Fletcher and Lieutenant Columbo, Lennie Briscoe and Jack McCoy, as well as Jethro Gibbs, Ziva David and Tim McGee. Just to mention a few of the names whose voices and faces I am most familiar with these days because that's how small my world has become.

The word "vicarious" is defined as "experienced in the imagination through the feelings and actions of another person". It's what I have always done with books and now, thanks to this bloody tablecloth, it's what I'm doing with all these documentaries and crime shows. My life is currently being lived through them.

I want my old life back! I want to have my own experiences again!!!