This is a bit of a break in the usual listy transmission, and a cross posting from my usual place - it just seemed like a very good place to put it. I am having a bad day today - two lots of tears at my desk already. Luckily, no one has caught me. I feel awful. Both physically and mentally. I want to fix things, but I don't even know where to start any more I feel so tired...
The day before my wedding was a weird one. We pretty much had everything under control, I just needed two things from town before heading off for my massage which I had booked – a bit of a treat for my achey body. I got the jobs done, grabbed a coffee and got into the car, which was parked in a car park that was partly a building site at the time. I put the keys in the ignition, and the radio came on. Radio one were airing a live special recording of a Coldplay concert.
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
Suddenly, it all hit me. All those months of planning and sorting and doing and focussing on the bigger goal, and it was all done. All ready. That was it. I’d like to think it was a big wave of relief, but I don’t really think it was. I think that I had been putting all my energies into the wedding, and had totally and utterly ignored how I had been feeling.
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
And, with all the builders looking on at the tall redhead in the swanky soft top, I cried. The tears started falling and I couldn’t stop them. It wasn’t like a huge, sobbing crying, but it was totally uncontrollable. I felt like someone had died almost – like this was the end of me, and my body had betrayed me, and I was never going back to being the girl dancing in revolutions on her own, twinkling and flirting – and part of me didn’t want the last bit particularly but I wanted to be able to – and I wasn’t. And I was never going to have that freedom again that comes with being single – the freedom to pick and choose what to do totally and utterly selfishly; to eat porridge for tea because you can’t be bothered to cook, and to spend money on whatever the hell I wanted once the bills were paid. None of this was actually changing – things had been this way for years. And it wasn’t really that side of it that was bothering me, looking back. I mean, I think I did have a little grieving process about getting married – it is, after all, moving from one passage of your life into another – like leaving school – you’re excited about uni but sad and scared to leave the safety of home behind…
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
More of it though, I think, was to do with my body. I got this weird achey tiredness and the pain and confusion that went with it not long after we got engaged, really, looking back. More precisely, I’d been having low grade episodes for years – even at uni I had what I can now see was a massive flare up of it all. Sometimes it does feel like bright white hot beams of pain inside my bones. Sometimes it’s just like being so tired that you feel drunk. I have – and had – become increasingly useless to my mind (though not to others) and pointless. The wedding was about the only thing holding me together – at no point had I thought past “as long as I can make it to/through the wedding/honeymoon”…
And through it all, Dave has loved me, and wanted to fix me.
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth
He doesn’t care that I can’t always manage a staircase – he loves me - not the casing. Though he thinks the casing is pretty foxy. I can see that it drives him mad to not be able to fix me. He hates that I hurt, and that I get so worn out, and I often think that it must be worse, almost, to see the one you love beyond all others in pain. When I try and turn the tables and imagine him with this, it’s heartbreaking. I still cannot imagine that I deserve a man so good to me, so clever and handsome and caring – that I could possibly deserve this much.
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
But the thing that kills me – and I had no idea at the time – organising the wedding was this awesome time of discovery. Of learning who we, the couple were – and, for me, learning who I was. I’d always just been who people wanted me to be, knowing that it wasn’t really me and feeling uncomfortable with it underneath, deep in my subconscious. But the wedding suddenly shone this big light on it, and let me be the creative, colourful, slightly eccentric person that I’d always been hiding underneath. I came out of my shell and basked, briefly in the glow of it all, knowing that I was safe in the love of my other half and whatever I did would be accepted on the day because no one causes that big a deal on someone’s wedding day if they think she is wearing a funny hat, you know?
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down on your face
And on your face I...
So who am I now? Somehow I am too tired, without a big goal, to continue to wear the hat, and in too much pain to do much more than keep the housework up to date and make everyone’s tea and ferry all these people around when I can. I have no independent means of transport (and shanks pony is unreliable). I am coming to terms with the idea that I will never be a lighting designer up a ladder again, or dance the night away without paying the price horribly the next day. I think I’m getting round to mourning my health these days, and to the realisation that somewhere in all this – this becoming involved with Dave, and the kids, and my body giving up on being good - I have lost me. And it makes me sad.
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down on your face
And on your face I...
And I think I’ve realised that I need to sort it out, and actually do something about it and find me again somewhere in all of this mess before it all gets too late and I’ve screwed things up. Because I do not want to screw things up. I want things to be brilliant, and I want to live my life, not exist it. And I know that this is something that I need to do myself, not that anyone else can do for me. Because as much as others want to fix me, and I want to be fixed, there is only one person who can turn this grey fog around into something better – and that is me. I don’t know where to start at the moment, and I’m feeling all a bit lost and confused and muddled, but I know that I want to start, and that is a lot closer than I’ve been for a long while.
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
PS: If you’ve never heard this song – click here
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