2 years and goodbye

The weather is prosaic.
Dark clouds, with bright sunshine breaking through.
Blustery winds.
On again off again rain showers.
Dampness in the air.

2 years is a long time.
A long time to keep opening up and revealing yourself.
Time and again.
A long time to spend with someone and never really know them.

2 years is a long time to prepare for an ending that you can't really prepare for. It's a long time to have a safety net; how do you prepare for that safety net to disappear overnight?

I sought counselling because I was grieving, angry, and mentally unwell.
2 years later the only part that doesn't remain is the grieving part. Not in the ever present way it did back then.
It's taken 2 years to realise I can't be fixed and be made "whole" and "perfect" the way I so desperately desire.
Knowing that and not desiring it are  as different as fire and water.

Hours of ranting and raging, crying and laughing.
Hours of my life, gone.
Hours of who I was, who I am and who I could be.
Hours that have set me up for this next step; the step after the ending.

What is my life going to be without you?
I'm taking this next step and I know I'll want to tell you. 
And you won't be there for me to tell. 

2 years is a long time to be saying goodbye.

This is me admitting defeat.
This is my body overruling my mind.
This is me giving in.

After months holding as firm as I can against my depression, it is the sickness that laid waste to my life last summer that comes back to destroy my ambitions.

I'm not going to pretend I was ready. Hours of running time taken away by the headaches, muscle knots, foot troubles. My body isn't made for running, with it's tight hips and tense shoulders. And now with its grumbling tummy.
I can barely walk at times the pain is so bad. Stopping to throw up, stopping to double over in pain, puts even walking out of the question.

This is me flying the white flag and surrendering.

This is me wasting no more tears over the missed opportunity and feeling like a failure, because as that race door closes, a door to learning opens. Learning to let go of the frustration. Learning to find a silver lining.

Knowing that there's an answer out there somewhere, Just got to find it. 

In the darkness

In the darkness I write poetry
With my feet.
I pound the pavement and underfoot
Are metaphors for life and love.

I ask silently for peace
And strength.
Learning each day this distorted world
Requires so much of it.

Shadows play across the distance
And scare me.
Confused, I turn down empty roads
Running as if from ghosts of my past.

But I can never run far enough
Or fast enough.
And the pavements carry me along
As I write poetry in the darkness.

Voices

I've been thinking about voices. About having one, and using it. About what it would be like not to have a voice.

Our world is more full of voices than ever. In every conceivable way, online and offline, people are making themselves heard.

Some voices spew bile. It's an undeniable fact that hate speech exists in our world and has even more platforms. Should those voices still be listened to? I think so, but when I listen to them I promptly dismiss them. They're voice is unimportant because they're not helping the world. But this is my bias, not always a helpful way of living and I admit that.


But now I want you to imagine not having a voice. Perhaps literally, more often politically or metaphorically.
How often have you struggled to be heard? How often have you felt ignored?

This has been touted as the reason for Brexit, and for Trump. People feeling as though their concerns aren't being heard by the 'political elite' and using their voice in the one sure way they can: voting. Voting is a fundamental right: you shouldn't have to earn it, nor is it down to you to take it or for someone to give it. It just should be.

What if you can't access it though? From being in prison, being oppressed, being homeless? You need an address to be on the electoral roll, so politically the homeless, those living in shelters or temporary housing, they can't have their voices heard by governments. What if you were trafficked here, or you fled war in your country and you're not a citizen. There are people that making decisions about you, for you. There are laws being written and funding being assigned (or more likely cut), all related to you and your life.

That's where charities and advocacy groups come in. They can give a voice to the voiceless. They can assess the damage done by cuts to social housing, they can look at how a new law tackling sexual exploitation will affect people. They can lobby, advise, inform and educate politicians, lawmakers. They can educate us too. In these times of many voices, I urge you to listen closely. Through the cacophony, to the plight of those in need. That's why charities and advocacy groups are been more important right now and yet some face extinction- they will give you an earpiece to that cacophony.

And if, for whatever reason, you don't feel heard, try to speak up. It's hard, I won't pretend it isn't, but every opportunity to speak up is an opportunity to learn too. Find your voice, and then put it to good use. That includes using it to help the voiceless be heard.

Drinking

There is a truth that you can only have if you've known an alcoholic.

The truth is the effect of alcohol on your life.

It is different from the truth you have if you realise you are an alcoholic. It is different from the truth that you are a binge drinker. It is different from the that when you drink wine/gin/vodka/(insert beverage here) you cry and become melancholy.

It is the truth that even if its not a problem, it could become a problem, and you know what a problem looks like.

That problem is misery. It's forgetting conversations, it's repeating yourself, it's explaining again. It's not understanding. It's also finding things hilarious, amusing, loving the glow you sit in.

Alcohol is a lubricant. It helps loosen you up in social situations, at parties. It helps loosen you up and let go of frustration, exhaustion, tension created by work, family, life. It lubricates your escape from reality. Helps you slide out of yourself into an understanding of the universe free of common angst.

It helps you celebrate and cope. Cope with anger, upset, grief, disappointment, betrayal.

As the daughter of an alcoholic, I am hyper aware of my drinking. That doesn't mean I don't drink or that I don't enjoy drinking. But I am aware when I drank for 5 days straight, most of it at home, on my own. I know it's not right. I know it's not right when going one night without a drink is a struggle. I know that I've started something that might be difficult to stop. I know the longer this goes on the harder it'll be to resist. I know I'm damaging my body with drinking at all let alone so consistently. I know that I will be able to sleep without a drink, I know that I can find other ways to cure my boredom, but I know I haven't bothered to try. Throwing up booze is only mildly more unpleasant than throwing up most other things.

I sit on a train drinking a gin and tonic and every mouthful hurts. The pain itself in my abdomen is nauseating, adding to the nausea I was trying to drink away. 
I am the Girl on the Train.

But I am strong and I can stop. I want to stop. I will stop. That's the truth of being a daughter of an alcoholic: at the first sign of rouble, alcohol is not the answer. I have to face up to the trouble, then I won't have to drink to solve it. The truth is knowing the answer can be found sober.

I'm just not ready.

Being topless

As a woman, my chest stays covered up in a way that men do not need to adhere to.
Just the other day I walked past a group of men pouring concrete. One of them took off their top in order to deal with the heat of hard work and sunshine.
Now, I couldn't do that. If I were on a beach, or maybe in a park, and I was wearing a bikini top, then perhaps I could.
But my bra? Nah, forget it. It's indecent.

Friday night I walked down the corridor in my boyfriend's flat to the kitchen in joggers and my bra. We didn't encounter any of his flatmates and as far as I know no one saw me. Then on Saturday his landlady asked me not to do it again. Because there are "single men" in the flat and it's "not nice".
I'm aware I don't live there. I don't pay rent for that room or contribute at all so I am happy to abide by the rules laid down by the landlady; I'm not about to try and cause problems for my bf.

But why is my chest, covered by a bra, a problem when my boyfriend's chest, completely uncovered, is not??

Because my chest is sexualised.

Boobs are sexy. Breasts are erotic. Tits are titillating.

This is a double standard that has existed for, well, since we learned to make clothes and start policing women's bodies. There's an organisation, GoTopless, that campaigns for equal bare-chested rights. And why shouldn't we? We are caught in a catch 22 of women being seen simply as child-bearers and our breasts are milky-life-giving-machines, and being objectified and sexualised and our breasts are something to grab and lick and maybe even make a mess on.


I present to you the difference in attire, for your own perusal. 

Please see Exhibit A: The bra I was wearing Friday night.

Exhibit B: My bikini.

This is the bikini top I own. Perhaps it's a bit demure. I mean, it definitely is compared with this:

Or this:

What is it about sand & sea (or pebbles and desperation on the UK coast) that allows boobs out and about with some barely structured fabric over them? 

These days, there is an added layer of policing for women's bodies: the internet. Social media giants Facebook have been learning the hard way that nipples are not sexy, that they do not need to be covered up.

Exhibit C: Breastfeeding.
Exhibit D: Napalm Girl.

So if Facebook, more and more dominant in our lives and technology beyond status updates and selfies, is telling us that nipples are naughty, what hope do we have that individual humans might think differently?

Perhaps if I lived in the block of flats with my boyfriend, if I paid rent, had rights, the landlady would not have asked me to curtail my body's freedom in the same way? To me, it's irrelevant.

Tits are tits, and whether you have them or not, you should just get used to them. 

Passing

*This blog was written on 17th June 2016, when I found out I had passed my second module of my qualification. I've now passed my third, so I've completed the course. With that and my ongoing illness, I felt like now was the time to post this*

Moments after I emailed someone to say I was expecting the mark this month, it arrived. 12-24 hours earlier than I was anticipating.

I passed.

My eyes were drawn instantly to the percentage. I had high hopes; I'd scored 98% in my exam.

At that moment my brain challenged that established fact, making me wonder if that was a mistake.

I had high hopes despite the deep seated knowledge that it was by no means my best piece of work. I'd tried, I'd really tried. But the whole four months working on this assignment I went through disordered eating, depression, anxiety, self harm and suicidal thoughts.

I hated that assignment but not as much as I hated myself and my life. I persevered with both.

I could have deferred. Perhaps I should have.

But you can't defer life and this pass mark feels symbolic. Of course I'm going to be disappointed because that's my nature; I am never good enough. But actually this time the disappointment is buffered by relief, and the relief is winning out. Because I did the very best I could do. I know I did. I can see that the fact that I am still here and that I passed this module despite everything, that I am doing the best I can do and I am enough. Just enough.

So I'm going to continue trying my best in everything I do. That's all I can expect from others and myself.