I peer uncomprehendingly at my screen. Who are we talking about here, Pishka or me? I feel in dire need of both, so I click Yes. I have no idea what I’ve been rescued from, except perhaps a potential face scrub for the third time. It is a sad commentary to find yourself rinsing conditioner out of your hair wondering if you’ve already washed your face, but acutely unable to remember if indeed you actually have. Exploratory fingers on your face don’t send Eureka! screaming down your spine, so you shrug and figure prevention is better than cure and give it a/nother go. Sigh. It’s only been a little over a month since I so momentously hit this decade. Every morning is a curse ridden, panic stricken, clueless poultry imitation through the flat looking for the damn house keys and then the mobile phone, followed by an enthusiastic encore before I am able to crawl into bed. I’d like to think it’s because my mind is overflowing with critically important world altering ideas that don’t include fashioning an excessively eclectic and salty combination of leftover mashed potatoes, sliced beef, tomatoes and Chinese broccoli that has seen better days. Auto recovery prompts me to save this, naturally, under yesterday’s date. Maybe that’s the recovery they were talking about. Either that or the strange manifestation of ‘what a fucking idiot’ that seems to assail all my travel plans.
Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh! My outraged shriek prompts the Hungarian to fumble the phone while yelping back in self defence. I have somehow managed to book myself on a return flight on the Tuesday after the bank holiday! Easy Jet shows no mercy and charges me a extortionate £25 to take it back to Monday. No sooner than my debit card has been charged the offending amount, I call out the dates to my hapless and travel companion and let out another blood curdling scream. I’m booked going out on a Thursday night instead of the friggin’ Friday night! I’m choking with outrage, positive that it’s these slimy low budget carriers than sneak in block dates trapping you into incorrect bookings at throwaway prices and then charging you to change them. Except, I go back to my original booking and instead of a Friday to Monday, it’s blinking back a Thursday to Tuesday. Why? Why on earth would I have booked something like that? I contemplate wrangling a business trip, but the thought of actually having to plan another trip brings me to my knees, and I pull out my debit card with a resigned air. My low cost bank holiday weekend has now turned into a regular ‘oh let’s spend lots of money and go somewhere’ endeavour.
My capitulation comes not from a callous indifference to the state of my bank account, but rather a forlorn acceptance that I now seem to be afflicted by the Sonia syndrome. Before I started booking holidays with her, I never suffered from it, but our woman has on a regular basis booked the same holiday more than once and then had to pay to cancel. I’ve had to rebook my Vegas hotels twice because I didn’t realise that I’d managed to pick the wrong return date for my flight. Naturally, I would only do such a thing if it involved the exchange of legal tender to rectify my fuck up. For people who travel as much as we both seem to, it’s a tad inexplicable how incompetent we are when making these bookings. Dimple romantically booked lover boy and herself from Moscow to St. Petersburg by train, only to give a uh oh start at the simple question, “Did you book us on the Blue Train?” Naturally, she’d booked them on the bullet train, an utterly characterless journey of 3 ½ hours. Wonder if they’ll give her a refund. My holiday budget for the year now needs to incorporate a hefty contingency figure to accommodate these seemingly senile lapses. Clearly, an early retirement is not on the cards.
Another day
The thumping noises continue. Clearly, I'm not alone on this floor. Even more clearly, not such a bright idea to strip to change here instead of in the loo! I can't see anyone, which doesn't make me feel any brighter. It had to be like this, a gorgeous summer day, and a spontaneous combustion of hell in a hand basket means taking a break from an all out 'fix the fucking thing - we will have to reprint the damn pitch' and indulging in contract issues for a new client instead, before realising at 7.30 that the lightheaded feeling is a direct result of an absence of lunch. Guy proffers a negroid banana, and Tony ups the ante with a couple of mandarins. 8.30 and the revised version has finally been sent for printing. I still have a contract to read and a rather interesting, if off the record email to pen about the vagaries of undertaking a major project in Angola and just how much an expat school teacher might get paid there. Naturally, I had confidently assured my client I'd send the email 'later this evening'. Instead, an apology and I copy my skeletal start on to a memory stick. Need to be back here by 8, to see how the printers have fared, finish the note, close out the contract and then head off for a series of meetings between 1-6pm. And that's just off the cuff. Oh - need to be able to fit in a notice to vacate and return some dresses somewhere before the weekend. Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring!
Children all over the world are sending up silent prayers of thanks that I'm not their mother. You wanted a box lunch, that is a damned box lunch. A rough night doesn't agree with either my temper or my constitution, and I survey the luggage under my eyes helplessly. Mere cosmetic repair is pointless, this requires serious surgical intervention. I don't bother trying to address the ravages and start thinking of plausible stories instead if I'm called upon to explain the new look. Hopefully, today's deadline will keep everyone focused elsewhere.
The walk stiffens my spine and my brain kicks in, sifting, analysing, assessing. Ideas, thoughts, plans. The little guinea pigs furiously spinning in their wheels, masking the rising bile of fear. At work, I try and focus but am plagued by indecision, warring with the need to move forward. I just don't know. That's the bottom line. And it's the not knowing that churns my stomach distracting me from my plans of a pre-emptive strike and not very good sandwiches. The ominous dong from the phone perplexes me. Shit! Coffee. This had seemed like a good idea at the time. Why do all my ideas seems like good ideas 'at the time'???!!!!
The walk stiffens my spine and my brain kicks in, sifting, analysing, assessing. Ideas, thoughts, plans. The little guinea pigs furiously spinning in their wheels, masking the rising bile of fear. At work, I try and focus but am plagued by indecision, warring with the need to move forward. I just don't know. That's the bottom line. And it's the not knowing that churns my stomach distracting me from my plans of a pre-emptive strike and not very good sandwiches. The ominous dong from the phone perplexes me. Shit! Coffee. This had seemed like a good idea at the time. Why do all my ideas seems like good ideas 'at the time'???!!!!
Collateral Damage
What didn’t die from being deleted, I killed.. It means nothing. It does nothing. I don’t give a damn.
In the words of Anaheeta, funnily enough, neither do I. My fingers type out responses of their own accord, rhythmically clicking on the send button. I don’t know who I’m writing to or what and I don’t care really. But it’s important to go through the motions. To pretend that everything is ok. There is no choice but to be ok. I did what I had to do. Now it’s his turn and he does do it so much better. I think about what Usha said as we cried together. What goes around comes around. What I took from her, I lost here. The wetness on my face surprises me. I didn’t think I had any tears left to cry. For a woman who doesn’t have many close friends, I’m doing a bang up job of losing the ones I do. Am I incompetent or just utterly stupid? Or am I emotionally and morally stunted without Aashish to anchor me in place? At least now I know why I’ve never had a boyfriend. I don’t know how.
I tap out a text and hit send. But I need an answer now. I type out an email, but natural, T-Mobile has different plans, and keeps returning an error. The third effort pushes me over the edge, and I let the panic attack overtake me, fighting it long enough to punch another urgent text. He’s home and answers, but all I can do is cry. Several minutes and soothing noises later, my breathing stops hitching, long enough to string a few words together. I’m scared. Scared of not having you in my life. Of losing those I love. Of being alone. Of not being able to be with someone. What’s wrong with me? It takes thirty minutes before I calm down enough for us to talk without my voice breaking, nose running or animal wails slipping through. I haven’t been able to get it right since we split. Four years. Three friends. Another ten minutes before I can share a wobbly laugh about my intensity scaring everyone off.
Being told it was inevitable doesn’t ease the starkness of the loss. It was always too complicated, there was never going back after the first moment, the collateral damage, predictable. To take an existing friendship somewhere else is hard to begin with, but to attempt it under duress is begging for failure. I can see that, but I can’t understand how he can retain the equanimity, when it’s killing me. He’s used to losing people he loves, and makes no distinction between where you still have a choice and where you have none. I remember when it ended with Rajesh, I wished him dead, because that would have been easier to deal with, more complete. But I was 24 then. To lose those you love so completely shatters your world. It’s hard to pick up the pieces and carry on, because they were the ones that helped you glue them back together the last time.
He lets me talk. But is unsurprised. I try to muster irritation for his having predicting it, but I’m just too tired, beaten. He knows me like no one does. He is my soulmate. We just can’t be together. A recurring motif as it turns out. This time, my mate, yet not mine. To acknowledge loss is one thing, but to have to deal with the rawness of losing it so completely is devastating. Maybe the box isn’t such a bad idea. He says it’s not my fault, that it was always too tenuous to sustain. Perhaps. All I know is that right now, I don’t want to be alone. I want to matter to someone. To be the most important thing in their life. To be loved, always. Apparently I am to a number of people. Interesting then, isn’t it to be up at 12.30 sobbing into the duvet. I know there are those things that just aren’t meant to be. But the friendships that you had once, those that mattered most to you, they were always meant to be.
My head throbs, my eyeballs ache, and my vision blurs. I’m emotionally spent, physically exhausted, spiritually bankrupt. Do I feel better? The gentle question makes me feel worse, and I feel my eyes well in response. I feel as fragile as spun sugar, but it’s gone 1 am, and he needs to sleep. As do I. Maybe tomorrow.
In the words of Anaheeta, funnily enough, neither do I. My fingers type out responses of their own accord, rhythmically clicking on the send button. I don’t know who I’m writing to or what and I don’t care really. But it’s important to go through the motions. To pretend that everything is ok. There is no choice but to be ok. I did what I had to do. Now it’s his turn and he does do it so much better. I think about what Usha said as we cried together. What goes around comes around. What I took from her, I lost here. The wetness on my face surprises me. I didn’t think I had any tears left to cry. For a woman who doesn’t have many close friends, I’m doing a bang up job of losing the ones I do. Am I incompetent or just utterly stupid? Or am I emotionally and morally stunted without Aashish to anchor me in place? At least now I know why I’ve never had a boyfriend. I don’t know how.
I tap out a text and hit send. But I need an answer now. I type out an email, but natural, T-Mobile has different plans, and keeps returning an error. The third effort pushes me over the edge, and I let the panic attack overtake me, fighting it long enough to punch another urgent text. He’s home and answers, but all I can do is cry. Several minutes and soothing noises later, my breathing stops hitching, long enough to string a few words together. I’m scared. Scared of not having you in my life. Of losing those I love. Of being alone. Of not being able to be with someone. What’s wrong with me? It takes thirty minutes before I calm down enough for us to talk without my voice breaking, nose running or animal wails slipping through. I haven’t been able to get it right since we split. Four years. Three friends. Another ten minutes before I can share a wobbly laugh about my intensity scaring everyone off.
Being told it was inevitable doesn’t ease the starkness of the loss. It was always too complicated, there was never going back after the first moment, the collateral damage, predictable. To take an existing friendship somewhere else is hard to begin with, but to attempt it under duress is begging for failure. I can see that, but I can’t understand how he can retain the equanimity, when it’s killing me. He’s used to losing people he loves, and makes no distinction between where you still have a choice and where you have none. I remember when it ended with Rajesh, I wished him dead, because that would have been easier to deal with, more complete. But I was 24 then. To lose those you love so completely shatters your world. It’s hard to pick up the pieces and carry on, because they were the ones that helped you glue them back together the last time.
He lets me talk. But is unsurprised. I try to muster irritation for his having predicting it, but I’m just too tired, beaten. He knows me like no one does. He is my soulmate. We just can’t be together. A recurring motif as it turns out. This time, my mate, yet not mine. To acknowledge loss is one thing, but to have to deal with the rawness of losing it so completely is devastating. Maybe the box isn’t such a bad idea. He says it’s not my fault, that it was always too tenuous to sustain. Perhaps. All I know is that right now, I don’t want to be alone. I want to matter to someone. To be the most important thing in their life. To be loved, always. Apparently I am to a number of people. Interesting then, isn’t it to be up at 12.30 sobbing into the duvet. I know there are those things that just aren’t meant to be. But the friendships that you had once, those that mattered most to you, they were always meant to be.
My head throbs, my eyeballs ache, and my vision blurs. I’m emotionally spent, physically exhausted, spiritually bankrupt. Do I feel better? The gentle question makes me feel worse, and I feel my eyes well in response. I feel as fragile as spun sugar, but it’s gone 1 am, and he needs to sleep. As do I. Maybe tomorrow.
Single, footloose and fancy free
Achingly glamorous in New York. Undeniably glamorous when you skydive, even if you tack on a 40 somewhere in there. So why then is it that that I’m sashaying around the house like a moribund chicken in search of yet another elusive dongle? Granted, 11 years with Aashish was pretty much guaranteed to send my nerd quotient to new heights, but really, this is getting quite ridiculous. The smooth male voice crooning ‘battery low’ in my ears does little to assuage my frustration, but dongle #754 refuses to play. Great, this pod has all the songs I want and no battery, poddy II has a mains charger, but I can’t find it’s corresponding dongle #821 that would allow me to fill it with different music, which leaves me with my last pod (miraculously a dongle free version!), with minimum memory and no headphones.
Deep breath in, deeper whooshing sigh out. Now to the real issue. It’s suddenly summer again today, and the metrological department insists its going to stay this way. Wonderful. The intervening chill has made it impossible to acknowledge summer without shaving my legs. Hardly a Herculean task one would have thought. Hardly. But then, that was before I showered in this flat. I have figured out that the light actually gets brighter after a bit (I’m pretty sure it’s not my vision that’s improving), and while the shower is deliciously powerful and hot, three and a half minutes is the signal for the steam to gently start swirling around you, misting up the entire bathroom to sauna proportions, obscuring not just the looking glass, but any glasses that might be of aid when it comes to the perilous task of drawing blade against skin. Contact lens might overcome this hurdle, but attempting to shave in the midst of a cloud of steam is hardly conducive to smooth, sexy legs. Not before 2012 at any rate. Besides, I have no clue where my lens case is.
Right. Plan B. I resist the urge to smack the voice in my ear and contemplate my wardrobe. What on earth can I possibly wear that is light, airy and covers a multitude of sins? Oh, it might help if it’s appropriate for work as well. Although, why I bother I don’t know given today’s display of checked tights under shorts at work day. I could get away with dark tights, but then I’d have to be garbed like that for dinner. This then brings me back to my initial quandary, smooth legs or lack thereof. How tragic a story would it make: single, footloose and fancy free – doomed to a sexless as her new abode is hostile towards all attempts to shave her legs and catastrophically, ‘tis no longer the season for suspenders and bits.
She’s alright she’s alright she’s alright… Cocaine. Perhaps that is the answer. Then again, tomorrow is only a first date. Maybe I’ll be able to leave early on Wednesday for a first stab at operation silky smooth. Best get on with operation seek and retrieve then.
Deep breath in, deeper whooshing sigh out. Now to the real issue. It’s suddenly summer again today, and the metrological department insists its going to stay this way. Wonderful. The intervening chill has made it impossible to acknowledge summer without shaving my legs. Hardly a Herculean task one would have thought. Hardly. But then, that was before I showered in this flat. I have figured out that the light actually gets brighter after a bit (I’m pretty sure it’s not my vision that’s improving), and while the shower is deliciously powerful and hot, three and a half minutes is the signal for the steam to gently start swirling around you, misting up the entire bathroom to sauna proportions, obscuring not just the looking glass, but any glasses that might be of aid when it comes to the perilous task of drawing blade against skin. Contact lens might overcome this hurdle, but attempting to shave in the midst of a cloud of steam is hardly conducive to smooth, sexy legs. Not before 2012 at any rate. Besides, I have no clue where my lens case is.
Right. Plan B. I resist the urge to smack the voice in my ear and contemplate my wardrobe. What on earth can I possibly wear that is light, airy and covers a multitude of sins? Oh, it might help if it’s appropriate for work as well. Although, why I bother I don’t know given today’s display of checked tights under shorts at work day. I could get away with dark tights, but then I’d have to be garbed like that for dinner. This then brings me back to my initial quandary, smooth legs or lack thereof. How tragic a story would it make: single, footloose and fancy free – doomed to a sexless as her new abode is hostile towards all attempts to shave her legs and catastrophically, ‘tis no longer the season for suspenders and bits.
She’s alright she’s alright she’s alright… Cocaine. Perhaps that is the answer. Then again, tomorrow is only a first date. Maybe I’ll be able to leave early on Wednesday for a first stab at operation silky smooth. Best get on with operation seek and retrieve then.
Ghosts
I start and it feels like a ghost just whispered across my back. I don’t know who the boy is, but his gait as he walked through the door, the tilt of his head made me think it was JT. Except JT’s dead. His memorial services saw unprecedented numbers from C&W. Not surprising, given the man he was, and the goodwill, if not affection, he engendered amongst those whose lives he briefly touched. It’s not children, money or notoriety; It’s the lives you touch, however fleetingly, that are your legacy. We are his.
Inevitable
It’s funny, but when the inevitable finally happens, it doesn’t have the earth rattling impact that you thought it would. It’s more like a quiet drop somewhere low in your abdomen. The only thing maturity seems to have offered is a quicker realisation to getting to that point. Apart from that, the parallels are classic history unfolding in front of you, just in hindsight. Heart rending farewells outside the airport. Gut wrenching loss of losing a friend. Neuroses personified as you turn into someone deeply unattractive; desperate, clingy, angry, hurt, unable to see anything beyond yourself. Gradually, but surely turning into someone you don’t even recognise anymore. Then one day, something snaps. The proverbial last straw, and you finally just unclench your fists and let it go, only to be haunted by the questions it always leaves behind. Clawing at you, eating away inside you. That’s the difference. The wisdom perhaps, certainly the knowledge and experiences that bring the perspective back sooner. That let you see yourself and those around you more clearly, bringing back the equilibrium, erasing the fear and insecurities. But you had to let it go to be able to let go of the anger and fear as well. An amputation, swift, sharp and merciless, before you can find yourself once more through the morass of emotion. Not to lash out in anger and pain or curl up, all weak and snivelly. To be able to look back and remember the good things. Not just to say the words, but realise that life really is too short to let go of those that matter to you, that there are those things that just can maybe never be fixed, but you can’t not give it your everything to try. But it’s a realisation that needs strength. The strength of a woman, not a confused child. Strength you can only find when you find yourself again.
Many lives, many dimensions, many parallels. But we just have this one to remember. This morning I got asked if I thought of dying at any moment during the sky dive. It's funny, but it never crossed my mind. Even when we fell out of the plane, I never thought of what might happen if the chute failed to deploy. All I could feel was the scream of pure adrenalin, the sheer exultant joy of the experience. If I could pick a way to die, this would be it. Hurtling down 15,000 feet at terminal velocity, body smashing into a million pieces.
Short, sudden and spectacular. It's the only way to go.
Many lives, many dimensions, many parallels. But we just have this one to remember. This morning I got asked if I thought of dying at any moment during the sky dive. It's funny, but it never crossed my mind. Even when we fell out of the plane, I never thought of what might happen if the chute failed to deploy. All I could feel was the scream of pure adrenalin, the sheer exultant joy of the experience. If I could pick a way to die, this would be it. Hurtling down 15,000 feet at terminal velocity, body smashing into a million pieces.
Short, sudden and spectacular. It's the only way to go.
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