She's looking at me. She's looking at me and I don't know why. Her face is a puzzle but instead of putting actual pieces together to make a picture, you're meant to 'read' a face and put together an invisible picture of what she's thinking. I have a feeling that if she wrote down her thoughts right now, I still wouldn't understand.
Nothing has been said for 19 seconds and yet she's still looking at me and I think she might want me to say something, but I'm not certain, so I don't say anything. To me it feels like the safest thing I can do but the air around me is feeling different. It's tension, I've been told. I don't like it but it's my constant companion when I'm here.
She knows something I don't and it's got something to do with me, of that I am certain. This situation is one I have been in many times before, so I know it's something I've done. But every time, what ever I've done wrong is different to the times before, so I can't pick a solution from the other times and apply them here and say exactly what she wants me to. Every time, it's a whole new script and I don't have time to find the pages, let alone learn the words. It's one of the many things I cannot grasp and I'm sorry for it. Especially for all the times when my lines have been left blank so I have to think on my feet. My mind goes blank and so does my face, people have told me. From there, things have only gotten worse:
I had someone talk to me once and get very angry even though I was answering all his questions. I said that all of the technology products had to be purchased in that department because of the security measures they have that other departments don't. Those security measures make sure that people only take what they have bought and nothing else. It seems like all departments should do this too but my manager says it has to do with how much something costs, and how likely it is that other people will want that something even when they can't afford it. Everyone wants flash, brand new technology now so there we have it, the tech products have security tags on them.
The man is wearing lots of international brands and I've told him that he'll have to take his item down to the second floor to buy it. This seems to make him very angry.
"I don't have to. There is no security on this, it's a USB stick. Just put it through."
"I can't. It's a technology item so it has to be bought in the technology department."
"There's no security on it! You can see that can't you? You blind?"
I take a closer look at the stick and there is no tag anywhere on the packaging. This is confusing because I was told that ALL technology items have security tags so they HAVE to be bought in the technology department. This one doesn't. Are there acceptions to this rule? I'll ask my manager later.
"Are you kidding me?"
"I haven't told you a joke."
"You haven't said anything, you've just been staring at it for five minutes!"
"It wasn't five minutes. It was actually closer to one."
"You smart-arse, don't give me that attitude."
The air has changed.
"I don't know what you mean. I was simply pointing out that your estimation of time wasn't as accurate as it should have been."
Then there was nine seconds where he didn't say anything, he simply pushed the stick back at me then said "Put. It. Through."
"It's still a technology product. You need to buy it on the second floor."
"They have a very long line."
"I can't do anything about the line. You'll need to wait in it."
"What!"
"That's how they work. You wait in line until your"
"For fucks sake! I know how lines work, I don't need to be in that one becuase you can sell it to me here! There is no security tag on it so there'll be no problems when I leave will there?"
There's something I should say here. There's something he needs to know about it but I can't remember what. It'll come back to me if I just wait.
"Are you just going to stare at me like that? You're so stupid. How the fuck did you get a job here?"
It's something about the barcode...
"Hello?"
"Greetings are for the beginning of a conversation, not at any other point."
"The fuck you on about?"
"It's not the right time for you to say hello. Are you saying that now because you didn't reply to my greeting you at the start?"
"You really are joking."
"I still haven't told you a joke."
"Where is your manager?"
"On his break."
"That's convenient."
"It is. He gets hungry in the middle of the day."
"I can get you fired Shit-For-Brains, put it through now!"
I see one of my colleagues behind him nod her head at me so I scan the item. The register comes up with a message saying it doesn't recognise the barcode. That's it!
"The computer can't read the barcode. It's from the technology department."
"What?"
"All technology products can only be scanned in the technology department so everyone has to buy technology products from there. Their codes are specific to their department."
"Why didn't you tell me that at the start?"
All of a sudden my mind is whirring and frozen at the same time. I'm trying to think of something to say. Maybe "people bring things with tags so it's always the first thing I say," or "most customers don't ask why they just go to the second floor," or "I don't scan technology barcodes so I forget they can't be scanned here." I wish I knew what was the right one. What I do know is that my mind is frozen because my mouth won't open and I think he's getting annoyed at my silence.
"Fine, just fucking leave it. I'm going to make you sorry you wasted my time here."
"How?"
"You fucking retard! Why don't you shut your mouth!"
"But that's not an answer. How will you find me? Do you work here too?"
"Money talks arsehole."
And with that, he turned and left without answering my questions or taking the USB stick. I've heard lots of his words before.
Like I said before, not exactly something I can use with this lady now:
She asked me a question and I gave her an answer, and yet she's still looking at me.
"I've been up to that floor and they've sent me down here. I am not trudging around this place any more. Where are the handbags?"
"On floor eight."
"They are not, I have been there. They are not the handbags I am looking for."
"That is the department for handbags. They're all there."
"Not the ones I am looking for."
This is where the silence started. I don't know what else to say to her. I've given her all the information she's asked for and added on an extra bit so she knows that they are all there. I've been practicing adding extra bits of information to help keep a conversation going. Dad and I do that. He says it's the best way to keep people talking and you get to say something that you find interesting. You have to stay on topic though. I struggled with that bit for a long time. I was happy to be getting the hang of it recently but somehow it seems like it wasn't the thing this woman wanted to know.
"Which bags were you looking for Ma'am?" My manager steps in. He's a mindreader, of that I am certain. "House brand or international brand?"
"International, of course."
"Very well, they are one more floor down. The third floor. If you go straight into the next room and take your first right, across the room you will see some escalators and that will take you right into the international brand area. The bags will be to your left."
"Thank you very much." Her tone doesn't sound like she's grateful and she looks at me, not my manager, as she walks away. That's very unusual. My dad always told me to look at the person who is talking to you otherwise it's rude and people get upset. But my manager's not upset. There must be exceptions to this rule. I'll ask Dad about them later.
"She didn't tell me which kinds of bags she wanted. I guessed she'd want the house brand ones. She didn't look like she had a lot of money to spend on a handbag and her accent wasn't from here so she's clearly a tourist." This is what I tell my manager.
"Sometimes our guesses aren't always right. Remember to keep asking questions. Tell you what, we're not busy and I think I'm going to close up early. You can go home now." This what he tells me. He lets me go home early quite often. He's very kind.
It's the middle of summer so the sun is only just starting to go down for the evening. That means I can walk home and not take the bus. I like the bus, but in summer I get to see everyone out and about with their children and their dogs and their drinks and their shopping. People are very interesting to me so when I walk home, I get to watch them and that makes my walk very interesting.
You might think I'm autistic. Lots of people have asked me if I am or just tell me that I am without even talking to me about it. Autistic is not a word I'm allowed to say at home. Dad has banned it. "It's not your word, it's theirs and they don't live here. It's not a word we say in this house." Dad said that a lot when I started school.
I get lots of other words too; weirdo, freak, stupid, dumbass, retard. Some people get upset when they hear them, like Dad does, but they've never upset me. I've looked up weirdos, freaks, stupids, dumbasses and retards on the internet and I'm not like them at all, so the people who say them to me are a bit confused. Like a boy in my class when I was nine. He said I wasn't even one of those 'freak geniuses'. Of course not, I'm of average intelligence. I could have told him he wasn't a 'freak genius' either. In fact he had to repeat that school year and have extra tutoring for maths. I'm still trying to figure out why he felt that a comment like that was only relevant to me at the time. It's a fun riddle to try and figure out if I have a spare hour or two.
I'll tell you another reason why I think I'm not autistic. After I looked up the freaks and the stupids on the internet, I looked into the definition of autism. The big difference to me and an autistic person is that the autistic person gets very stressed out by people and likes to be on his or her own a lot. I don't get stressed out by people, I just get confused by them. I'm happy on my own in a crowd or walking home, like I am now, and I'm just as happy to talk to someone at any time for however long they want. I'm still trying to learn when and how to stop a conversation because there was that time I let an old man talk about his grandchildren, and my manager told me he's never so many people waiting in line for so long in the store before. No one seemed happy when the old man left and the line started moving. I told my manager that I thought lots of waiting customers meant business was good. He let out a big sigh and didn't say anything.
When I walk home in the summer, I turn down a small alley way off Church Street. It's a quick shortcut that takes exactly forty-three seconds off my journey at my quickest walk. I like to test myself to see if I can beat that time without breaking into a run (I can't). I turn left into the alley way as usual when something hits the back of my head. I'm on my knees at once and my vision is starting to go blurry when the feeling of my head splitting open streaks right down the middle of my skull. I wonder if anyone else can hear that ringing too. I can't see anything clearly at all and my throat strains to let out a scream of agony and alarm. The ringing is very loud now so I don't know if I'm making any noise.
I clasp the back of my head and try to curl up and cover my face. My temperature is rising, I'm beginning to sweat, my hands come unstuck and I think I'll vomit at any moment. All of a sudden something blunt hits my face and my neck snaps back. I hear an audible crack in my mind and liquid pours out of my nose and drips into my mouth. Another object hits my left eye once and then again. Liquid is now seeping into my ear. Through the blur of my right eye, I make out a shape running away from me. I hear "You fucking retard!" from a distance. Everything is quiet.
When I open my eye, it's very late. It's pitch black. In summer, this means its very late. I feel very cold on the concrete and my skin is sticky with dried sweat. Everything is sore. My left eye feels like someone's forced a big stone into the socket and is still pressing it down. Touching it gently sends pain around my face. My nose feels enormous too. It doesn't feel like my nose. My nose doesn't feel squishy and soft like it's full jelly. I try turning my head to look around and see where I am but my neck is screaming at me. The smallest movement up or down feels like a knife is jabbing into the very middle of my neck, the point where it snapped back. But this is nothing compared to my head. A huge crack has opened up from the back of my skull up and over to my forehead. I dare not touch it as I might touch my brain. I don't need to touch it anyway, the throbbing and the aching paints a very clear picture for me in my mind.
My right eye is starting to adjust to the dark. A streetlamp flickers somewhere behind me and I can make out a thin puddle of something around my head. It's very dark and some is dripping from my lips and out of my mouth onto the ground. It's night time and late at night is a time for sleeping. I think I'll do that and get up in the morning.
I'm not on the ground anymore. I'm on a matress and it's day time. I can tell through my eyelids that it's light now. It's not the sun's light though, it must be a normal light. I think I'm inside and that makes sense cause I'm on a matress.
What else can I tell you? There's something beeping beside me. It has a constant pace and rythm to it, I can follow it with my breathing. There's also something on my eye. It's very soft and covers all my eye. It doesn't feel so big anymore. They've done the same thing with my nose and there's a lot around my head. There's something else going around my face and up into my nose. I don't like that as much.
Someone is holding onto my hand and I know who that is. That's Dad. His hands are very big and very warm. He doesn't usually hold my hand for this long though. I'm about to ask him why when I hear someone else talking. Someone I don't know.
"That's all we need for now. We'll be in touch once the DNA results come through."
"What if there isn't any?" says Dad.
"The hits to the face were made by a shoe. We found material from a shoe at the scene. We can get a match from that. We have a pretty good idea of who comissioned the attack in the first place."
"But...why?"
"With people who are...different, there is someone we know quite well who doesn't like different. This is similar to another attack we're investigating right now."
"How can someone do this?"
"Whoever it was was probably paid. I'm very sorry sir. In these circles money talks and everyone listens."
"Money talks."
"We'll leave you now sir. We'll be in touch."
Nobody says anything else. I need to ask Dad something. What is it? I hear footsteps leave and footsteps arrive.
"Things are stable. That's always a good thing." says a woman. A pen scratches on a board. She's close.
"Will...when will...is there a chance..." I've never heard Dad like this before. I can tell he's looking at me.
"Comas are unpredictable. The brain isn't swelling anymore."
"But has it gone down?"
No one says anything else. That's right, I need to ask Dad why sometimes it's okay to not look at the person you're talking to.
Footsteps leave the room again. What day is it? Am I late for work?
We're alone so now's probably a good time to talk to Dad. I open my eye and the light on the ceiling is blinding. A short, sharp shock before something eclipses the light. The form comes into focus. Dad. My mind is whirring with questions but nothing is coming out of my mouth.
Hold on Dad, my words are coming.
Sunday, 31 December 2017
Sunday, 8 October 2017
A Lyrical Conversation
"Hey, what you thinkin'? Penny for your thoughts? Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?"
"I had a dream about a burning house. I'm young and I'm foolish. I've made bad decisions. Last night I saw a burning ferris wheel. The meaning's anybody's guess."
"When I was young I knew everything. Looking at it now, it all seems so simple. It's okay to be a little broken and beat. You're with me, relax. Nothing's the end of the world."
"By and large, I had it coming. I'm in a clique but I want out. And I've got nowhere to go. For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise. We were running for the money and the flesh. And that was called love for the workers in song. Probably still is for those of them left."
"Love isn't all that it seems. You say you know love, but you are just reflecting words you hear. You don't know how lucky you are. Just stop your crying, it's a sign of the times."
"We tried to wash our hands of all of this. I used to think that this was my town. What a stupid thing to think. Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you were. I need them to love me the whole day through."
"You shouldn't spend your whole life wishing for something bound to fall apart. Everybody thought I'd finished strong. I've been on the road that you're on. It didn't get me very far. It's not easy to know, I'm not anything like I used to be."
"You were famous. You're heart was a legend. You clenched your fist for the ones like us, who are oppressed by the figures of beauty. You just turned your back on the crowd. They waited for you in the spot you said to wait. You said you'd meet them out there tomorrow. I guess tomorrow never came."
"Sometimes life just slips in through a back door and carves out a person and makes you believe it's all true. If I had my way, maybe I can go away. 'Cause when the power's out, I'm just another old sensation."
"But I adore you. We gotta get away from here. I know you're tired and you ain't sleeping well. I promise you this, I'll always look out for you. That's what I'll do."
"And I won't let you down. Yeah I will, yes I will. Everyone I know goes away in the end."
"You say love is hell but it's the ghost of love that's made you such a mess."
"I wasn't born to fade. Maybe I'll pray."
"Just stop your crying, it'll be alright."
"Everyone prays in the end. I've never believed in Him no, but I'm going to pray. The stars are lighting up the parking lot now. I'm glad we talked this out. That's all, I don't really think of it that often."
"I had a dream about a burning house. I'm young and I'm foolish. I've made bad decisions. Last night I saw a burning ferris wheel. The meaning's anybody's guess."
"When I was young I knew everything. Looking at it now, it all seems so simple. It's okay to be a little broken and beat. You're with me, relax. Nothing's the end of the world."
"By and large, I had it coming. I'm in a clique but I want out. And I've got nowhere to go. For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise. We were running for the money and the flesh. And that was called love for the workers in song. Probably still is for those of them left."
"Love isn't all that it seems. You say you know love, but you are just reflecting words you hear. You don't know how lucky you are. Just stop your crying, it's a sign of the times."
"We tried to wash our hands of all of this. I used to think that this was my town. What a stupid thing to think. Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you were. I need them to love me the whole day through."
"You shouldn't spend your whole life wishing for something bound to fall apart. Everybody thought I'd finished strong. I've been on the road that you're on. It didn't get me very far. It's not easy to know, I'm not anything like I used to be."
"You were famous. You're heart was a legend. You clenched your fist for the ones like us, who are oppressed by the figures of beauty. You just turned your back on the crowd. They waited for you in the spot you said to wait. You said you'd meet them out there tomorrow. I guess tomorrow never came."
"Sometimes life just slips in through a back door and carves out a person and makes you believe it's all true. If I had my way, maybe I can go away. 'Cause when the power's out, I'm just another old sensation."
"But I adore you. We gotta get away from here. I know you're tired and you ain't sleeping well. I promise you this, I'll always look out for you. That's what I'll do."
"And I won't let you down. Yeah I will, yes I will. Everyone I know goes away in the end."
"You say love is hell but it's the ghost of love that's made you such a mess."
"I wasn't born to fade. Maybe I'll pray."
"Just stop your crying, it'll be alright."
"Everyone prays in the end. I've never believed in Him no, but I'm going to pray. The stars are lighting up the parking lot now. I'm glad we talked this out. That's all, I don't really think of it that often."
Friday, 21 July 2017
To Take My Life
(Let me preface this by saying that this blog has been brought about in the wake of the death of Linkin Park front man, Chester Bennington, who has sadly passed away from suicide. I am one of those terrible people who jumps on a bandwagon and speaks about a well-known person who has died even though I wasn't really interested in them before hand. This happened with Alan Rickman and David Bowie though I didn't go out of my way to write a blog about them and their circumstances under which they passed. When they first died an abundance of people were outed by those who knew them and knew that they were never really a fan in the first place. I feel like I am in this category (as well as this blog post perhaps) though with the amount of information on the Internet how I feel probably won't mean much to the few strangers who might read this. However, something has struck a chord with me after looking into Chester's death and has had me thinking.)
Linkin Park had a small role in my life growing up as it would have for many people who were at impressionable ages when the band first made it big and hit the radio waves all over the world. I wasn't a fan but I also didn't mind them. I liked a few of their big songs like Numb and In The End, and I can still remember a few lyrics of the choruses in these songs after years of not hearing them. My brother liked them more and got their Cd's as did some of his friends. Given the themes and ideas that the songs covered, I remember it worrying my mother as I'm sure it did with many other parents. What I didn't understand back then was why.
Being so young I didn't hear the heavy and emotional complexities in the songs and why it may have made people so uncomfortable. The subjects in many of the songs that Linkin Park made were not widely talked about, taboo subjects if you will. Things like self-loathing, hating those who care and being angry with the world. These sorts of things are what we are aware of as they are, at times, associated with teenage angst. Maybe because they were sang about in songs by adults is what made people trepidatious about letting their children listen to them. The fear may have been in parents realising that their kids may also feel the same way about the world and are unable to relate. From someones point of view where they feel they can relate to these sorts of songs, there would have been comfort in knowing people whom they admired felt the same way too and that it was okay to be angry and they had a right to feel how they were feeling. With a death from suicide, particularly someone who has been openly honest about his thinking and attitude towards not just the world but also himself in his songs, brings forth the issues that have been raised within his music for so long. Only now are we listening.
I know many different artists of all kinds who are usually extremely sensitive and emotional people who make their creative outlet be the things that allow them to let it all out in a constructive way. Songs, paintings, poems, stories etc. They are the people that battle with themselves as they find it difficult to figure out where they belong in the world and cope with the ugly and sometimes traumatic experiences that life will throw at them. Having spoken to people over the years I have come to a hypothesis that these talented but sensitive people of the world turn to things like drinking and drugs as a way of coping as they don't feel there is any other way of helping themselves. They are both extremely kind and extremely broken. It makes it easier to understand why people in the limelight struggle with these substances as Chester did. What sits in the shadows of drinking and drug use is what we still struggle to speak about - mental health.
For someone to commit suicide, it is an illogical and totally emotional response to what is going on in their head. After many chats with so many different people I have gotten to know over the years, I feel that people who commit suicide are not at all selfish and do feel love for their family and friends. But they are tired. They are exhausted and drained and are desperately looking for some peace.
You cannot know how someone is feeling or how they feel about themselves, not truly. There is always something that we have sitting in our heads that we keep to ourselves and never show to the world. There is an idea that we have three faces: one which we put out to the world, one which we only show our closest loved ones and the one that only we know of when we are alone. It is this final face in which people with mental health problems find the hardest to deal with as only we know it and it can be a dangerous force if it were to become our enemy.
If only words were able to really explain and describe the pain of mental health problems but at their best, they are obsolete and too small to even try and make sense of all the internal wars people are fighting. At the point of suicide, it all has to do with how people feel about themselves and their percieved affect on those around them.
A personal hero of mine is Stephen Fry. A man with unlimited intelligence, humour and grace but has struggled most of his life with bipolar and has attempted suicide on a few different occasions. Speaking openly about his attempts in interviews and in documentaries, he has made it clear that there is no logical reason for suicide because if there were someone could be reasoned out of it. In a television programme, comedian Jon Richardson looked into whether or not he had OCD and the many ways it manifested itself in different people. He met a woman whose son's OCD was so severe that after he spent hours and hours cleaning the house he could not move at all for fear of spreading germs and making everything dirty. He would stay in one spot for the entire day. Even after trying as many different approaches to help him get it under control, in the end he took his life unable to carry on fighting his compulsions and fear of germs. It may seem completely over the top to others that someone willingly died because he couldn't get over his cleaning habits, but there was no one else but himself in his head. Not even his mother truly knew what he was thinking.
Professor Kay Redfield Jamison is at the forefront of psychology and has spent her career researching mental health problems, specifically manic-depressive disorder. She is someone who understands the consequences of such a dangerous disorder as she herself suffers from it severely. She is now retired but was a consulting doctor in UCLA and treated many patients privately too. Surely someone who knows more about this than anyone else about the disorder and has it herself could surely get it under control? Why would someone so intelligent and so aware of the dangers of being unmedicated refuse to take her pills? When it comes to the mind, nothing is straight forward and nothing is in our control.
Kay describes both her manic and depressed episodes as they happen together: "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty...Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-- you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.”( - An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness).
Athletes are among those who are expected to be mentally tough to be able to deal with the extreme ups and downs of their sports. To open up about something like depression and be told to toughen up is not only unhelpful, its damaging. Famous gymnast Shawn Johnson was only 16 when she competed in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and she was well aware of the expectations from her country. For months leading up to the Games she was expected to come back with four gold medals, especially the All-Around (gymnasts compete on all events and the highest score wins, it is the most prestigeous medal a gymnast can ever win). Unfortunately she ended up coming second. She won two more silvers after that and finally won a gold on an individual event but to her it didn't matter. Being handed her All-Around silver medal, the presenter told her "I'm sorry" which reinforced to Shawn that, if everyone knew her as a gymnast and she failed, she failed as a person too. There wouldn't have been a way for someone to reason her out of this perspective of herself.
She went on to train for the London Olympics to make her coach, national team, family and sponsors happy though mentally she fell apart. She spent over 40 hours a week training, ate poorly, didn't sleep and tried to lose weight to get back to her 16 year old size. She cried constantly and her hair started falling out. Fortunately for Shawn, she found an outlet of peace when she found God and retired from the sport. Unfortunately, in a sport where perfection is nigh-on impossible, selfharm such as starvation is not uncommon.
Suicide prevention and mental health awareness is now more avaiable in western culture than it has ever been encouraging people to talk about what's going on in the hopes that this honesty could save their lives. Any kind of social action starts people talking, however talking doesn't help all that much if nothing is done about it afterwards. Trouble is, where do we start?
We still know so little about the brain and everyone is so uniquely different that one solution for one person will not work for the majority. Someone will find the help they need in medication, someone else may find it in their religion, some people find it in their art. The simple fact is that we are, as a society, at an intersection in terms of how to help those with mental health problems and suicidal tendancies as we have so little information so far that a step in any direction could have disastrous consequences. It is unfortunate that only with abnormalities in the brain can we understand a little of what each part does. At this moment in time no-one has an answer and there are those out there who are suffering, some in silence.
“Each way to suicide is its own: intensely private, unknowable, and terrible. Suicide will have seemed to its perpetrator the last and best of bad possibilities, and any attempt by the living to chart this final terrain of life can be only a sketch, maddeningly incomplete ”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
Perhaps Chester can help shed some light on these thoughts:
I don't like my mind right now
Stacking up problems that are so unnecessary
Wish that I could slow things down
I wanna let go but there's comfort in the panic
And I drive myself crazy
Thinking everything's about me
Yeah, I drive myself crazy
'Cause I can’t escape the gravity
You say that I'm paranoid
But I'm pretty sure the world is out to get me
It's not like I make the choice
To let my mind stay so fucking messy
I know I'm not the center of the universe
But you keep spinning 'round me just the same
I know I'm not the center of the universe
But you keep spinning 'round me just the same
Linkin Park had a small role in my life growing up as it would have for many people who were at impressionable ages when the band first made it big and hit the radio waves all over the world. I wasn't a fan but I also didn't mind them. I liked a few of their big songs like Numb and In The End, and I can still remember a few lyrics of the choruses in these songs after years of not hearing them. My brother liked them more and got their Cd's as did some of his friends. Given the themes and ideas that the songs covered, I remember it worrying my mother as I'm sure it did with many other parents. What I didn't understand back then was why.
Being so young I didn't hear the heavy and emotional complexities in the songs and why it may have made people so uncomfortable. The subjects in many of the songs that Linkin Park made were not widely talked about, taboo subjects if you will. Things like self-loathing, hating those who care and being angry with the world. These sorts of things are what we are aware of as they are, at times, associated with teenage angst. Maybe because they were sang about in songs by adults is what made people trepidatious about letting their children listen to them. The fear may have been in parents realising that their kids may also feel the same way about the world and are unable to relate. From someones point of view where they feel they can relate to these sorts of songs, there would have been comfort in knowing people whom they admired felt the same way too and that it was okay to be angry and they had a right to feel how they were feeling. With a death from suicide, particularly someone who has been openly honest about his thinking and attitude towards not just the world but also himself in his songs, brings forth the issues that have been raised within his music for so long. Only now are we listening.
I know many different artists of all kinds who are usually extremely sensitive and emotional people who make their creative outlet be the things that allow them to let it all out in a constructive way. Songs, paintings, poems, stories etc. They are the people that battle with themselves as they find it difficult to figure out where they belong in the world and cope with the ugly and sometimes traumatic experiences that life will throw at them. Having spoken to people over the years I have come to a hypothesis that these talented but sensitive people of the world turn to things like drinking and drugs as a way of coping as they don't feel there is any other way of helping themselves. They are both extremely kind and extremely broken. It makes it easier to understand why people in the limelight struggle with these substances as Chester did. What sits in the shadows of drinking and drug use is what we still struggle to speak about - mental health.
For someone to commit suicide, it is an illogical and totally emotional response to what is going on in their head. After many chats with so many different people I have gotten to know over the years, I feel that people who commit suicide are not at all selfish and do feel love for their family and friends. But they are tired. They are exhausted and drained and are desperately looking for some peace.
You cannot know how someone is feeling or how they feel about themselves, not truly. There is always something that we have sitting in our heads that we keep to ourselves and never show to the world. There is an idea that we have three faces: one which we put out to the world, one which we only show our closest loved ones and the one that only we know of when we are alone. It is this final face in which people with mental health problems find the hardest to deal with as only we know it and it can be a dangerous force if it were to become our enemy.
If only words were able to really explain and describe the pain of mental health problems but at their best, they are obsolete and too small to even try and make sense of all the internal wars people are fighting. At the point of suicide, it all has to do with how people feel about themselves and their percieved affect on those around them.
A personal hero of mine is Stephen Fry. A man with unlimited intelligence, humour and grace but has struggled most of his life with bipolar and has attempted suicide on a few different occasions. Speaking openly about his attempts in interviews and in documentaries, he has made it clear that there is no logical reason for suicide because if there were someone could be reasoned out of it. In a television programme, comedian Jon Richardson looked into whether or not he had OCD and the many ways it manifested itself in different people. He met a woman whose son's OCD was so severe that after he spent hours and hours cleaning the house he could not move at all for fear of spreading germs and making everything dirty. He would stay in one spot for the entire day. Even after trying as many different approaches to help him get it under control, in the end he took his life unable to carry on fighting his compulsions and fear of germs. It may seem completely over the top to others that someone willingly died because he couldn't get over his cleaning habits, but there was no one else but himself in his head. Not even his mother truly knew what he was thinking.
Professor Kay Redfield Jamison is at the forefront of psychology and has spent her career researching mental health problems, specifically manic-depressive disorder. She is someone who understands the consequences of such a dangerous disorder as she herself suffers from it severely. She is now retired but was a consulting doctor in UCLA and treated many patients privately too. Surely someone who knows more about this than anyone else about the disorder and has it herself could surely get it under control? Why would someone so intelligent and so aware of the dangers of being unmedicated refuse to take her pills? When it comes to the mind, nothing is straight forward and nothing is in our control.
Kay describes both her manic and depressed episodes as they happen together: "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty...Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-- you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.”( - An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness).
Athletes are among those who are expected to be mentally tough to be able to deal with the extreme ups and downs of their sports. To open up about something like depression and be told to toughen up is not only unhelpful, its damaging. Famous gymnast Shawn Johnson was only 16 when she competed in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and she was well aware of the expectations from her country. For months leading up to the Games she was expected to come back with four gold medals, especially the All-Around (gymnasts compete on all events and the highest score wins, it is the most prestigeous medal a gymnast can ever win). Unfortunately she ended up coming second. She won two more silvers after that and finally won a gold on an individual event but to her it didn't matter. Being handed her All-Around silver medal, the presenter told her "I'm sorry" which reinforced to Shawn that, if everyone knew her as a gymnast and she failed, she failed as a person too. There wouldn't have been a way for someone to reason her out of this perspective of herself.
She went on to train for the London Olympics to make her coach, national team, family and sponsors happy though mentally she fell apart. She spent over 40 hours a week training, ate poorly, didn't sleep and tried to lose weight to get back to her 16 year old size. She cried constantly and her hair started falling out. Fortunately for Shawn, she found an outlet of peace when she found God and retired from the sport. Unfortunately, in a sport where perfection is nigh-on impossible, selfharm such as starvation is not uncommon.
Suicide prevention and mental health awareness is now more avaiable in western culture than it has ever been encouraging people to talk about what's going on in the hopes that this honesty could save their lives. Any kind of social action starts people talking, however talking doesn't help all that much if nothing is done about it afterwards. Trouble is, where do we start?
We still know so little about the brain and everyone is so uniquely different that one solution for one person will not work for the majority. Someone will find the help they need in medication, someone else may find it in their religion, some people find it in their art. The simple fact is that we are, as a society, at an intersection in terms of how to help those with mental health problems and suicidal tendancies as we have so little information so far that a step in any direction could have disastrous consequences. It is unfortunate that only with abnormalities in the brain can we understand a little of what each part does. At this moment in time no-one has an answer and there are those out there who are suffering, some in silence.
“Each way to suicide is its own: intensely private, unknowable, and terrible. Suicide will have seemed to its perpetrator the last and best of bad possibilities, and any attempt by the living to chart this final terrain of life can be only a sketch, maddeningly incomplete ”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
Perhaps Chester can help shed some light on these thoughts:
I don't like my mind right now
Stacking up problems that are so unnecessary
Wish that I could slow things down
I wanna let go but there's comfort in the panic
And I drive myself crazy
Thinking everything's about me
Yeah, I drive myself crazy
'Cause I can’t escape the gravity
You say that I'm paranoid
But I'm pretty sure the world is out to get me
It's not like I make the choice
To let my mind stay so fucking messy
I know I'm not the center of the universe
But you keep spinning 'round me just the same
I know I'm not the center of the universe
But you keep spinning 'round me just the same
Saturday, 20 May 2017
Channel Missing
My life isn't over, though I didn't know I was dead when I woke up.
You'd probably say I'm watching too much telly. I should be outside enjoying what I can before the sun goes down completely. You'd say my eyes will go square and my bum will flatten out like a pancake. You'd say I'm too young to be so obsessed with something as unimportant as a screen. But you're not here to tell me those things so you don't know what I'm doing. I'm looking for you.
It takes a while to figure out what's going on and to truly understand where you are and why. See Purgatory isn't just for those who are trying to make up for their sins to get into Heaven, it's also for those whose lives are still intertwined with the living. Something in your life is still going on like an investigation to try and find who took your life, perhaps your research partner is using your notes to try and figure out what you did before you passed, or maybe a doctor is using your body for science to learn more about a disease and isn't finished with it yet. Maybe you find out you're waiting for your sister to confess and reveal your secret to your dad that eventually lead to your life spinning so fast you didn't even get the chance to even blink before you died. Or maybe you're like me. I wound up in Purgatory because my death made my grandmother reopen the case of my missing parents.
Needless to say Purgatory is a pretty unusual place. When you wake up, you wake up in your home alone. There is an eerie feeling as though no one has ever been in the house before and you are very much on your own. All your furniture is here, the couches, the chairs, the TV but there are no photos hanging on the walls, no books on the shelves, no pens and no bits of strewn paper on the coffee table. It's as though someone has made a set, a place that should feel familiar to you but it isn't. Outside its your neighbourhood. Exactly as you remember it, but with no signs of life. The Ferguson's house across the street is still a pale green that's faded and flaking though they had been saying for years that they are going to paint over it. Next door on the left is the Pateek's house with the broken rope swing hanging off the branch of the tree in the front garden. From where I stand I can see the front steps and the various hand prints I made with paint once a year to measure my growth, the length of my life. I count 17 hand prints. There will never be 18. The whole place seems as though people have been here but you know there has been no one here at all.
The weather is that of a late afternoon sun in winter, blinking through the grey clouds after the rain has stopped. Looking towards the sun, you can tell that night is not far away, the sun will begin to set at any moment, but I didn't when I first arrived that that will only happen when my life is finished with the living and it is my time to move on. I live in a constant dim light.
A click springs me back into the present and I find myself staring at the television as it flashes my name. I sit in front of it and lean towards the screen as the flashing stops and my name melts away and I read everything I need to know.
"You are here to watch Channel Missing," the TV screen tells me, "You are to watch for the faces of your parents. Every person's face who is missing from around the world will appear on the screen for no more than 5 seconds and will not repeat itself. You may never see the face of one or both of your parents. This may be due to the volume of photos as more are added when someone goes missing or it may be because they have died or have been found. The channel updates without notice. Only when their case has been closed will you be allowed to move on."
With another click the words are gone and are replaced with a photo of a middle aged gang member with neck tattoos. I try to take in every detail of him, the different tones of blue in his eyes, where his hair starts, whether his ears are large or small. I try to note anything I can but I'm too slow and the photo switches to that of a young Asian boy. No, that man wasn't familiar, I didn't know him. Then again, I don't know what my own father looks like. Surely I'll know him when I see him, won't I? I won't need more than half a second to recognise you.
My world revolved around you. You, who would sooth me when I couldn't breathe through my tears. You, who would hug me so softly I thought I must be dreaming. You, who smelled of flowers and Summer so much that even in winter., our home was warm. You, who would get me to yell NEVER COME BACK! at all the monsters at night. Because of you I was ten feet tall. But you had one monster who did come back.
I remember almost nothing of him. I was too small when he was living with us to have any clear memories of him, but I get flashes every so often of that time.
I remember how the house would tremble underneath his feet as he'd pace the floor, as if the creaking noises was the house desperately trying to be quiet so he wouldn't get angry. Every once and a while a new hole or broken window would decorate the house, so I guess it didn't work.
I'd know his smell anywhere. Clean. Sharp. A musk that would hang in the air after he'd gone. It would linger like the smell of smoke before you realise there's a fire.
I remember his voice. A low rumble. Only a few words at a time and a pregnant silence that would drown the rooms when he wanted the conversations to stop. It wasn't a monotone because I can recall once or twice a moment when he got loud and took all the air away from you. Its like you were suffocating without him being anywhere near you. His voice would say things to me, things that adults are meant to say to children, asking questions about favourite colours and animals. Questions about what I did at kindergarten and what I wanted for dinner. Questions about what happened when I went to visit your mother. The voice lacked any kind of sincere interest and it never said "I love you".
The last thing I remember are his hands. Big, wide hands with long, slender fingers and pronounced knuckles. Perfectly kept nails and deep lines across his palms as if ravines had been carved into his skin. I would watch the way his hands moved slowly with grace and with ease in everything that he did. Clutching the handle of the refrigerator and forcing it open. Gripping letters and crushing them into balls with such intensity it was like he wanted to hear the paper twisting and crackling so whatever it said was too distorted and broken to upset him. I watched his hands take hold of another, a man's hand that was the opposite to his. A hand that was stubby, burnt, scarred and covered in tattoos that were poorly done. Pictures couldn't be deciphered the ink was so smudged. I found it odd even at that age that his handshake would be so welcoming and friendly when it was never like that towards us. Now I know it was because he needed that man and he didn't need us. We just got in the way. The last time I saw his hands, a chain of deep bruises spread across his knuckles. He said nothing when he saw me looking at them.
But his face. That is the one thing I can't remember.
A shrill BBBRRRRIIINNNNGGG pulls me back from my daydream and forces me to really look at the photos flashing in front of me. The noise forces me to focus as a few of the photos are seeming familiar though I can't name them. I never thought I would be happy to hear a phone ring. Wait, the phone is ringing?
I can't believe it when I watch the phone light up as it rings. I still can't believe it when I glance outside to see that everything is just the same as when I woke up. I still don't believe it when I answer and hear the loud and happy sigh of relief from an old man.
"Well blow me down! A new neighbour! Hello darling."
This has to be a joke. Running over to the window I try to peer into the windows of all the neighbouring houses but I see no one.
"Come on now, you must know where you are. You're going to have to say something eventually, you've got no one else to talk to."
He's getting impatient already and I can hear the drumming of a finger on a table. I mutter some nonsense sounds trying to think of something to say.
"You're going to have to work on your words girly, I'm afraid I don't know what ugh, durf and buh mean."
"Who is this?" I say quietly.
"My name is Martin."
"How are you ringing me?"
"My phone started blinking a 9 at me so I pressed it, it rang and here we are. That's how this works."
"How what works?"
"Purgatory dear. We all need someone to talk to so someone rings you and you have a friend until one of us is finally allowed to leave."
"Then the one who stays is left alone?"
"Oh no. Haven't you been listening? Your phone will flash a number for you to ring and talk to someone whose just arrived."
My head is spinning with questions and my heart is beating in my ears. It's all too much.
Martin waits a moment before he talks again. His voice is soft, "It's a lot isn't it."
"I don't know what to think."
"Believe it or not, you'll get used to it."
"How long have you been here?"
"The last year I remember was 2004."
"You've been here for 13 years!"
"Has it really been that long? Oh, that wife of mine. I'm not all that surprised though."
"You're okay with your wife being missing for 13 years? That's not cool!"
"Hmm? Oh, you must have Channel Missing. Not everyone is here for the same reason dear. I've got Channel Loss"
"What does that mean?"
"My wife you see, she still hasn't come to terms with my death and can't get past her grief."
"And what does the channel show you?"
"Similar to yours, it shows me all the people who are grieving and the happy times before someone's death."
"That's heart warming."
"Love runs deep my darling. It is both a blessing and a curse."
"Have you seen your pictures?"
"I have actually, a couple of times. It makes me happy in a way. Seeing her again."
"What was her name?"
"Dorothy. I called her Dotty."
"She sounds like she has a lot of cats,"
He laughs "You're not wrong there girly. Enough about me, how did you get here?"
I tell him everything I possibly can about myself and my life. I start with the very basics; name, birthday, hometown etc and I do my best to match up my memories with the information and go on from there. Martin is extremely patient and is the perfect listener (obviously we've both got a lot of time). He doesn't seem to mind when I get things wrong or stumble over my words because I have to say so much and have to start again. Even as I'm speaking I can tell that my memories are not in order or even whole. Bits are missing from most of them and they're starting to sound like they're splintered and smashed. Jigsaw pieces that have no conjoining parts. Have I made them up? Has someone told me things that happened and I believed them though I have no recollection of anything that's been said? It's overwhelming but I eventually make it to my final night with the Living.
Martin is quiet, I can only hear his breathing.
"Martin?"
"My dear," he whispers, "I'm so sorry."
"Shit happens."
He chuckles. "I'm glad I got to call you."
For the first time since I woke, I smile.
"It's your turn now Martin. Everything in 3, 2, 1."
And he does, he tells me everything. He tells me when he was born and how he met his wife when they were only 3. He tells me what it felt like to hear her say 'I do' and how she glowed with each of her pregnancies. He tells me about all the vegetables he hated as a child and how all of his kids hated the same ones! He tells me that listening to me reminds him of his only granddaughter ("Six grandsons! Even I think that's too many boys in one family"). He tells me how he wasn't sad to die, not really because he had a life that was lived and he got just as much love as he gave. "There is no other purpose in life my darling." I can't help but feel a weight on my chest grow heavier as I realise how much I've missed out on.
We're on the phone for hours while we watch our channels. He answers all my questions and explains that you know you're about to leave as night comes in and that you don't ever feel tired or need to eat so you don't miss anything on the TV. You can pause it for a break but only for an hour at a time then it starts up again on your own and you won't know if you missed your picture.
"Can I ask you one more thing Martin?"
"Of course."
"How come we get to talk to each other?"
"Purgatory is neither Heaven nor Hell. We still have our wits about us and need some help to keep our sanity. That's my theory anyway."
"I like that theory."
"I'm glad."
In that moment we find, for now at least, we have nothing more to say except goodbye.
Your smile, that was what changed when we moved house. A brand new house with no holes, no broken windows and no him. You gathered me up in the middle of the night and we went to Grandma's. I never saw him again and you wanted to keep it that way.
It was like you had a new face. I remember thinking your eyes were made of glitter cause they looked like they sparkled and your smile was bigger, wider and sincerely happy. You walked tall and gave me a home that we both needed. It was full of colour and light and music and laughter. You had friends that would come round with their children who became my friends almost immediately. You would come to my school productions early so you could get a seat with a good view of the stage for your camera. You built forts with me and danced around in your pyjamas on Sunday mornings. You got promoted a few times and to treat yourself you went to try out new classes you thought would be fun; pottery, flower pressing, baking. You brought of these into our home and I knew that the neighbourhood was envious of us.
One morning in particular sticks out to me. It had been a couple years since we moved out and you were signing and dating some very important looking forms. I have never seen a smile so big. It looked like you were trying to stop your feet from dancing as you were writing with great loops and swishes across the papers.
Putting the papers into a big envelope you turned to find me watching you.
"The people we chose to have in our lives is such an important decision. Be wiser than me my angel."
And you glided out the door to drop the envelope into the post box on the corner.
That morning sticks out to me because two days later I went to bed and woke up at Grandma's house, and you were gone.
Thank God for Martin. With every photo that passes I find myself truly believing in Martin's theory that we help keep each other sane. I spend long periods of time watch the TV that gets interrupted every so often with a call from Martin. We talk about everything. I tell him all the important events that occurred over the past 13 years (including when Daniel Albright told me he didn't really love me after all and I painted his bike pink) and he speaks to me about what life was like before I was born. All the music, all the wars. He even gives a entire rendition of 'Rebel Without A Cause' which he memorised line by line after he saw it as a teenager. He goes into incredible detail about all the different decades he lived through and how drastically he saw the world change. I listen as closely as I can trying to ignore the voice in the back of my that I don't know if either of them are dead, missing or have been found. I haven't seen either of their photos yet and there's only so long I can last before I lose it.
Grandma's house was nothing like ours. It never felt like home. She took care of me like you would've expected her to. She made me meals and helped with my homework and attended all school productions and sports games. She smiled and baked and gardened and took a genuine interest in what I did during the day while we ate dinner. She only let me have junk food on special occasions and cooked every single night. I can't remember a single time she ever ordered takeout. While living with her I was disgustingly healthy and breezed through my years at school. It was a picture perfect life with a gap where you had been erased. I always dreamed that tomorrow would be the day you would walk back into my life and I could draw you back into the picture. In some ways you did.
Every birthday and Christmas, a parcel would arrive for me. Only me. They were the ones I would hide away from Grandma, it was none of her business. This was between us. I'd take the box from the postman and run to curl up in my fort in the corner of my room. Tearing through the paper I would find a small, handmade pot with long loops and swishes around the side. Or sometimes it would be a pressed flower in a frame that had been sprayed in your perfume. I'd hide these in a chest with a lock under my bed so only I knew where to find you when everyone else had given up.
On one birthday afternoon, I wandered home from school to find a detective in the living room speaking with Grandma. They didn't know I was there so I waited and listened by the door.
"I'm sorry ma'am," she said "there are no more leads. We have to close it."
I heard Grandma's soft sobs and thought of the hidden treasures in my room that would prove otherwise, but I was stupidly biding my time until I could find you on my own. I shouldn't have waited.
I had convinced Grandma to go away with her friends for the weekend and used every trick in the book to get her to make her realise I was approaching my late teens and was perfectly capable of looking after myself so she had nothing to worry about. To my amazement it worked and I spent the whole Friday night planning what junk food I was going to buy on Saturday that would put me into a food coma and how I would get rid of the evidence on the Sunday before she returned. It was a plan that was fool proof and everything on Saturday went exactly as I had planned right down to when I would fall asleep on the couch watching Legally Blonde after I had ingested copious amounts of chocolate. It was perfect and I woke up in a dark room close to midnight to struggle my way up to bed but something felt wrong. Standing up I caught a whiff of something that made my hair stand up. It was something that clean, sharp and it lingered in my nose for a moment too long. My heart sped up and tried to calmly walk to my room. Making it to the hallway the smell had disappeared and I told myself I had made it up.
I made it to my bed and curled in for a very deep sleep. A peaceful one I wish but soon something was worming its way down my throat, closing up my airways and my body started screaming for air but I noticed it too late. Whatever it was had bled its way into my body and suffocated my insides so once I knew what was happening I couldn't move. In my mind I was clawing and scratching and screaming trying to wake myself up but I felt weak and heavy, like I was trying to swim in a metal suit. Little by little my body was losing oxygen and I felt myself fade. Down, down, down. And then I woke up in our living room.
Martin's on the phone telling me he's going. "My sun is starting to set my darling, I'm on my way out."
"I'm happy for you, really. She's finally let you go."
"Hah! If I know anything about my Dotty, I know she hasn't done that. I'm on my way to see her my dear."
"You sound happy Martin."
"You come and find me when you get there won't you. You'd love Dotty."
I can't think of what to say next, goodbye is too small.
"I'll miss you girly."
To my surprise my eyes well up and I suck in my breath to keep them from falling.
"Good." I say.
"Ha ha! You're one of a kind. Goodbye my dear."
There is nothing left now so I hang up the phone and let the tears fall freely.
My first day in Grandma's house I wandered into the kitchen just as Grandma was putting down the phone. Her eyes were red and her face was swollen.
"Where's Mummy Grandma?" I said.
"I don't know" she replied. I never asked her about you again.
It must be a couple of hours before my phone starts to blink. 7....7....7....7. I could push it, but I don't really feel like it right now. I leave it to blink and carry on watching Channel Missing.
To my angel,
There is so much I need to tell you but it will take more than one letter and I don't have a lot of time right now. I figured with this milestone birthday you're old enough to know a few things.
When I had you my whole world changed. I loved you intensely and still do, but the moment you were born I felt utter guilt bringing you into this world with this man who I knew would never love you. I could never make that up to you and I let that feeling hold me down while I raised you around him and the company he kept.
I know it was only a few years we were living with him but it was a few years too many and I will apologise for the rest of my days for letting you get to know a man like him.
I'll get straight to the important bit when I finally got the courage to leave.
It was a late night when I overheard him talking to one of his friends, one of his many tattooed friends, about what they had just done. I didn't catch all the reasons as to why they did what they did to someone else but I did hear all the details of what they did and how it felt. I won't tell you any more than that. I never want you to know what I heard that night, no one should. But as I was listening my heart dropped and I had no choice but to leave. To get us both away from him and safe somewhere else.
He heard me moving in the house and had me against the wall before I saw him. He demanded to know what I heard him saying so I told him and made the split second decision to offer him a deal. Let you and I go and I won't tell a soul what I knew. He would never see us again. That night he got what he wanted and I finally became the mother you needed. Soon we had the life I could only dream of and I never thought I would have it so good. I got so confident that I did something I shouldn't have. I filed for divorce and he came back.
Two nights later duct tape was slapped onto my mouth and he held me down in bed while he bound my arms and feet before picking me up and throwing me in his car. He didn't say anything as he drove me out of town away from you.
Years have passed I wonder how beautiful you must be now. I know Mum is taking good care of you and I hope you're being good for her. I have a new life now, a new name, a new hair cut and a new job but my husband is the same. He is better towards me now though he has chosen my life for me and knows everything. Two days ago he found out about my gifts to you and he went into a bigger rage than I had seen in years. I was shoved and locked in the bathroom while he left the house for over a day. He's back now and at work but will be home shortly so I'm going to warn you.
One of the things he does very well is make things look like accidents, especially fires. He is an expert at making them look like electrical faults so I need you to be aware! Please get Mum to put in security lights and cameras. Make sure you have ways out of the house on both floors and keep in mind that, if you're asleep, the heat of the fire won't wake you up because smoke inhalation and suffocation gets to people first and is the main cause of deaths in fires. I don't mean to scare you but the world is not filled with good people. You have to be weary.
I promise I will find a way out of this mess and I will find you.
I love you, never forget that.
Mum xx
P.S In fact, just move. That will give me peace of mind. I've also been able to set up a secret email account. It's written on the back so email me as soon as you get this! My angel, I think about you always.
You'd probably say I'm watching too much telly. I should be outside enjoying what I can before the sun goes down completely. You'd say my eyes will go square and my bum will flatten out like a pancake. You'd say I'm too young to be so obsessed with something as unimportant as a screen. But you're not here to tell me those things so you don't know what I'm doing. I'm looking for you.
It takes a while to figure out what's going on and to truly understand where you are and why. See Purgatory isn't just for those who are trying to make up for their sins to get into Heaven, it's also for those whose lives are still intertwined with the living. Something in your life is still going on like an investigation to try and find who took your life, perhaps your research partner is using your notes to try and figure out what you did before you passed, or maybe a doctor is using your body for science to learn more about a disease and isn't finished with it yet. Maybe you find out you're waiting for your sister to confess and reveal your secret to your dad that eventually lead to your life spinning so fast you didn't even get the chance to even blink before you died. Or maybe you're like me. I wound up in Purgatory because my death made my grandmother reopen the case of my missing parents.
Needless to say Purgatory is a pretty unusual place. When you wake up, you wake up in your home alone. There is an eerie feeling as though no one has ever been in the house before and you are very much on your own. All your furniture is here, the couches, the chairs, the TV but there are no photos hanging on the walls, no books on the shelves, no pens and no bits of strewn paper on the coffee table. It's as though someone has made a set, a place that should feel familiar to you but it isn't. Outside its your neighbourhood. Exactly as you remember it, but with no signs of life. The Ferguson's house across the street is still a pale green that's faded and flaking though they had been saying for years that they are going to paint over it. Next door on the left is the Pateek's house with the broken rope swing hanging off the branch of the tree in the front garden. From where I stand I can see the front steps and the various hand prints I made with paint once a year to measure my growth, the length of my life. I count 17 hand prints. There will never be 18. The whole place seems as though people have been here but you know there has been no one here at all.
The weather is that of a late afternoon sun in winter, blinking through the grey clouds after the rain has stopped. Looking towards the sun, you can tell that night is not far away, the sun will begin to set at any moment, but I didn't when I first arrived that that will only happen when my life is finished with the living and it is my time to move on. I live in a constant dim light.
A click springs me back into the present and I find myself staring at the television as it flashes my name. I sit in front of it and lean towards the screen as the flashing stops and my name melts away and I read everything I need to know.
"You are here to watch Channel Missing," the TV screen tells me, "You are to watch for the faces of your parents. Every person's face who is missing from around the world will appear on the screen for no more than 5 seconds and will not repeat itself. You may never see the face of one or both of your parents. This may be due to the volume of photos as more are added when someone goes missing or it may be because they have died or have been found. The channel updates without notice. Only when their case has been closed will you be allowed to move on."
With another click the words are gone and are replaced with a photo of a middle aged gang member with neck tattoos. I try to take in every detail of him, the different tones of blue in his eyes, where his hair starts, whether his ears are large or small. I try to note anything I can but I'm too slow and the photo switches to that of a young Asian boy. No, that man wasn't familiar, I didn't know him. Then again, I don't know what my own father looks like. Surely I'll know him when I see him, won't I? I won't need more than half a second to recognise you.
My world revolved around you. You, who would sooth me when I couldn't breathe through my tears. You, who would hug me so softly I thought I must be dreaming. You, who smelled of flowers and Summer so much that even in winter., our home was warm. You, who would get me to yell NEVER COME BACK! at all the monsters at night. Because of you I was ten feet tall. But you had one monster who did come back.
I remember almost nothing of him. I was too small when he was living with us to have any clear memories of him, but I get flashes every so often of that time.
I remember how the house would tremble underneath his feet as he'd pace the floor, as if the creaking noises was the house desperately trying to be quiet so he wouldn't get angry. Every once and a while a new hole or broken window would decorate the house, so I guess it didn't work.
I'd know his smell anywhere. Clean. Sharp. A musk that would hang in the air after he'd gone. It would linger like the smell of smoke before you realise there's a fire.
I remember his voice. A low rumble. Only a few words at a time and a pregnant silence that would drown the rooms when he wanted the conversations to stop. It wasn't a monotone because I can recall once or twice a moment when he got loud and took all the air away from you. Its like you were suffocating without him being anywhere near you. His voice would say things to me, things that adults are meant to say to children, asking questions about favourite colours and animals. Questions about what I did at kindergarten and what I wanted for dinner. Questions about what happened when I went to visit your mother. The voice lacked any kind of sincere interest and it never said "I love you".
The last thing I remember are his hands. Big, wide hands with long, slender fingers and pronounced knuckles. Perfectly kept nails and deep lines across his palms as if ravines had been carved into his skin. I would watch the way his hands moved slowly with grace and with ease in everything that he did. Clutching the handle of the refrigerator and forcing it open. Gripping letters and crushing them into balls with such intensity it was like he wanted to hear the paper twisting and crackling so whatever it said was too distorted and broken to upset him. I watched his hands take hold of another, a man's hand that was the opposite to his. A hand that was stubby, burnt, scarred and covered in tattoos that were poorly done. Pictures couldn't be deciphered the ink was so smudged. I found it odd even at that age that his handshake would be so welcoming and friendly when it was never like that towards us. Now I know it was because he needed that man and he didn't need us. We just got in the way. The last time I saw his hands, a chain of deep bruises spread across his knuckles. He said nothing when he saw me looking at them.
But his face. That is the one thing I can't remember.
A shrill BBBRRRRIIINNNNGGG pulls me back from my daydream and forces me to really look at the photos flashing in front of me. The noise forces me to focus as a few of the photos are seeming familiar though I can't name them. I never thought I would be happy to hear a phone ring. Wait, the phone is ringing?
I can't believe it when I watch the phone light up as it rings. I still can't believe it when I glance outside to see that everything is just the same as when I woke up. I still don't believe it when I answer and hear the loud and happy sigh of relief from an old man.
"Well blow me down! A new neighbour! Hello darling."
This has to be a joke. Running over to the window I try to peer into the windows of all the neighbouring houses but I see no one.
"Come on now, you must know where you are. You're going to have to say something eventually, you've got no one else to talk to."
He's getting impatient already and I can hear the drumming of a finger on a table. I mutter some nonsense sounds trying to think of something to say.
"You're going to have to work on your words girly, I'm afraid I don't know what ugh, durf and buh mean."
"Who is this?" I say quietly.
"My name is Martin."
"How are you ringing me?"
"My phone started blinking a 9 at me so I pressed it, it rang and here we are. That's how this works."
"How what works?"
"Purgatory dear. We all need someone to talk to so someone rings you and you have a friend until one of us is finally allowed to leave."
"Then the one who stays is left alone?"
"Oh no. Haven't you been listening? Your phone will flash a number for you to ring and talk to someone whose just arrived."
My head is spinning with questions and my heart is beating in my ears. It's all too much.
Martin waits a moment before he talks again. His voice is soft, "It's a lot isn't it."
"I don't know what to think."
"Believe it or not, you'll get used to it."
"How long have you been here?"
"The last year I remember was 2004."
"You've been here for 13 years!"
"Has it really been that long? Oh, that wife of mine. I'm not all that surprised though."
"You're okay with your wife being missing for 13 years? That's not cool!"
"Hmm? Oh, you must have Channel Missing. Not everyone is here for the same reason dear. I've got Channel Loss"
"What does that mean?"
"My wife you see, she still hasn't come to terms with my death and can't get past her grief."
"And what does the channel show you?"
"Similar to yours, it shows me all the people who are grieving and the happy times before someone's death."
"That's heart warming."
"Love runs deep my darling. It is both a blessing and a curse."
"Have you seen your pictures?"
"I have actually, a couple of times. It makes me happy in a way. Seeing her again."
"What was her name?"
"Dorothy. I called her Dotty."
"She sounds like she has a lot of cats,"
He laughs "You're not wrong there girly. Enough about me, how did you get here?"
I tell him everything I possibly can about myself and my life. I start with the very basics; name, birthday, hometown etc and I do my best to match up my memories with the information and go on from there. Martin is extremely patient and is the perfect listener (obviously we've both got a lot of time). He doesn't seem to mind when I get things wrong or stumble over my words because I have to say so much and have to start again. Even as I'm speaking I can tell that my memories are not in order or even whole. Bits are missing from most of them and they're starting to sound like they're splintered and smashed. Jigsaw pieces that have no conjoining parts. Have I made them up? Has someone told me things that happened and I believed them though I have no recollection of anything that's been said? It's overwhelming but I eventually make it to my final night with the Living.
Martin is quiet, I can only hear his breathing.
"Martin?"
"My dear," he whispers, "I'm so sorry."
"Shit happens."
He chuckles. "I'm glad I got to call you."
For the first time since I woke, I smile.
"It's your turn now Martin. Everything in 3, 2, 1."
And he does, he tells me everything. He tells me when he was born and how he met his wife when they were only 3. He tells me what it felt like to hear her say 'I do' and how she glowed with each of her pregnancies. He tells me about all the vegetables he hated as a child and how all of his kids hated the same ones! He tells me that listening to me reminds him of his only granddaughter ("Six grandsons! Even I think that's too many boys in one family"). He tells me how he wasn't sad to die, not really because he had a life that was lived and he got just as much love as he gave. "There is no other purpose in life my darling." I can't help but feel a weight on my chest grow heavier as I realise how much I've missed out on.
We're on the phone for hours while we watch our channels. He answers all my questions and explains that you know you're about to leave as night comes in and that you don't ever feel tired or need to eat so you don't miss anything on the TV. You can pause it for a break but only for an hour at a time then it starts up again on your own and you won't know if you missed your picture.
"Can I ask you one more thing Martin?"
"Of course."
"How come we get to talk to each other?"
"Purgatory is neither Heaven nor Hell. We still have our wits about us and need some help to keep our sanity. That's my theory anyway."
"I like that theory."
"I'm glad."
In that moment we find, for now at least, we have nothing more to say except goodbye.
Your smile, that was what changed when we moved house. A brand new house with no holes, no broken windows and no him. You gathered me up in the middle of the night and we went to Grandma's. I never saw him again and you wanted to keep it that way.
It was like you had a new face. I remember thinking your eyes were made of glitter cause they looked like they sparkled and your smile was bigger, wider and sincerely happy. You walked tall and gave me a home that we both needed. It was full of colour and light and music and laughter. You had friends that would come round with their children who became my friends almost immediately. You would come to my school productions early so you could get a seat with a good view of the stage for your camera. You built forts with me and danced around in your pyjamas on Sunday mornings. You got promoted a few times and to treat yourself you went to try out new classes you thought would be fun; pottery, flower pressing, baking. You brought of these into our home and I knew that the neighbourhood was envious of us.
One morning in particular sticks out to me. It had been a couple years since we moved out and you were signing and dating some very important looking forms. I have never seen a smile so big. It looked like you were trying to stop your feet from dancing as you were writing with great loops and swishes across the papers.
Putting the papers into a big envelope you turned to find me watching you.
"The people we chose to have in our lives is such an important decision. Be wiser than me my angel."
And you glided out the door to drop the envelope into the post box on the corner.
That morning sticks out to me because two days later I went to bed and woke up at Grandma's house, and you were gone.
Thank God for Martin. With every photo that passes I find myself truly believing in Martin's theory that we help keep each other sane. I spend long periods of time watch the TV that gets interrupted every so often with a call from Martin. We talk about everything. I tell him all the important events that occurred over the past 13 years (including when Daniel Albright told me he didn't really love me after all and I painted his bike pink) and he speaks to me about what life was like before I was born. All the music, all the wars. He even gives a entire rendition of 'Rebel Without A Cause' which he memorised line by line after he saw it as a teenager. He goes into incredible detail about all the different decades he lived through and how drastically he saw the world change. I listen as closely as I can trying to ignore the voice in the back of my that I don't know if either of them are dead, missing or have been found. I haven't seen either of their photos yet and there's only so long I can last before I lose it.
Grandma's house was nothing like ours. It never felt like home. She took care of me like you would've expected her to. She made me meals and helped with my homework and attended all school productions and sports games. She smiled and baked and gardened and took a genuine interest in what I did during the day while we ate dinner. She only let me have junk food on special occasions and cooked every single night. I can't remember a single time she ever ordered takeout. While living with her I was disgustingly healthy and breezed through my years at school. It was a picture perfect life with a gap where you had been erased. I always dreamed that tomorrow would be the day you would walk back into my life and I could draw you back into the picture. In some ways you did.
Every birthday and Christmas, a parcel would arrive for me. Only me. They were the ones I would hide away from Grandma, it was none of her business. This was between us. I'd take the box from the postman and run to curl up in my fort in the corner of my room. Tearing through the paper I would find a small, handmade pot with long loops and swishes around the side. Or sometimes it would be a pressed flower in a frame that had been sprayed in your perfume. I'd hide these in a chest with a lock under my bed so only I knew where to find you when everyone else had given up.
On one birthday afternoon, I wandered home from school to find a detective in the living room speaking with Grandma. They didn't know I was there so I waited and listened by the door.
"I'm sorry ma'am," she said "there are no more leads. We have to close it."
I heard Grandma's soft sobs and thought of the hidden treasures in my room that would prove otherwise, but I was stupidly biding my time until I could find you on my own. I shouldn't have waited.
I had convinced Grandma to go away with her friends for the weekend and used every trick in the book to get her to make her realise I was approaching my late teens and was perfectly capable of looking after myself so she had nothing to worry about. To my amazement it worked and I spent the whole Friday night planning what junk food I was going to buy on Saturday that would put me into a food coma and how I would get rid of the evidence on the Sunday before she returned. It was a plan that was fool proof and everything on Saturday went exactly as I had planned right down to when I would fall asleep on the couch watching Legally Blonde after I had ingested copious amounts of chocolate. It was perfect and I woke up in a dark room close to midnight to struggle my way up to bed but something felt wrong. Standing up I caught a whiff of something that made my hair stand up. It was something that clean, sharp and it lingered in my nose for a moment too long. My heart sped up and tried to calmly walk to my room. Making it to the hallway the smell had disappeared and I told myself I had made it up.
I made it to my bed and curled in for a very deep sleep. A peaceful one I wish but soon something was worming its way down my throat, closing up my airways and my body started screaming for air but I noticed it too late. Whatever it was had bled its way into my body and suffocated my insides so once I knew what was happening I couldn't move. In my mind I was clawing and scratching and screaming trying to wake myself up but I felt weak and heavy, like I was trying to swim in a metal suit. Little by little my body was losing oxygen and I felt myself fade. Down, down, down. And then I woke up in our living room.
Martin's on the phone telling me he's going. "My sun is starting to set my darling, I'm on my way out."
"I'm happy for you, really. She's finally let you go."
"Hah! If I know anything about my Dotty, I know she hasn't done that. I'm on my way to see her my dear."
"You sound happy Martin."
"You come and find me when you get there won't you. You'd love Dotty."
I can't think of what to say next, goodbye is too small.
"I'll miss you girly."
To my surprise my eyes well up and I suck in my breath to keep them from falling.
"Good." I say.
"Ha ha! You're one of a kind. Goodbye my dear."
There is nothing left now so I hang up the phone and let the tears fall freely.
My first day in Grandma's house I wandered into the kitchen just as Grandma was putting down the phone. Her eyes were red and her face was swollen.
"Where's Mummy Grandma?" I said.
"I don't know" she replied. I never asked her about you again.
It must be a couple of hours before my phone starts to blink. 7....7....7....7. I could push it, but I don't really feel like it right now. I leave it to blink and carry on watching Channel Missing.
To my angel,
There is so much I need to tell you but it will take more than one letter and I don't have a lot of time right now. I figured with this milestone birthday you're old enough to know a few things.
When I had you my whole world changed. I loved you intensely and still do, but the moment you were born I felt utter guilt bringing you into this world with this man who I knew would never love you. I could never make that up to you and I let that feeling hold me down while I raised you around him and the company he kept.
I know it was only a few years we were living with him but it was a few years too many and I will apologise for the rest of my days for letting you get to know a man like him.
I'll get straight to the important bit when I finally got the courage to leave.
It was a late night when I overheard him talking to one of his friends, one of his many tattooed friends, about what they had just done. I didn't catch all the reasons as to why they did what they did to someone else but I did hear all the details of what they did and how it felt. I won't tell you any more than that. I never want you to know what I heard that night, no one should. But as I was listening my heart dropped and I had no choice but to leave. To get us both away from him and safe somewhere else.
He heard me moving in the house and had me against the wall before I saw him. He demanded to know what I heard him saying so I told him and made the split second decision to offer him a deal. Let you and I go and I won't tell a soul what I knew. He would never see us again. That night he got what he wanted and I finally became the mother you needed. Soon we had the life I could only dream of and I never thought I would have it so good. I got so confident that I did something I shouldn't have. I filed for divorce and he came back.
Two nights later duct tape was slapped onto my mouth and he held me down in bed while he bound my arms and feet before picking me up and throwing me in his car. He didn't say anything as he drove me out of town away from you.
Years have passed I wonder how beautiful you must be now. I know Mum is taking good care of you and I hope you're being good for her. I have a new life now, a new name, a new hair cut and a new job but my husband is the same. He is better towards me now though he has chosen my life for me and knows everything. Two days ago he found out about my gifts to you and he went into a bigger rage than I had seen in years. I was shoved and locked in the bathroom while he left the house for over a day. He's back now and at work but will be home shortly so I'm going to warn you.
One of the things he does very well is make things look like accidents, especially fires. He is an expert at making them look like electrical faults so I need you to be aware! Please get Mum to put in security lights and cameras. Make sure you have ways out of the house on both floors and keep in mind that, if you're asleep, the heat of the fire won't wake you up because smoke inhalation and suffocation gets to people first and is the main cause of deaths in fires. I don't mean to scare you but the world is not filled with good people. You have to be weary.
I promise I will find a way out of this mess and I will find you.
I love you, never forget that.
Mum xx
P.S In fact, just move. That will give me peace of mind. I've also been able to set up a secret email account. It's written on the back so email me as soon as you get this! My angel, I think about you always.
Saturday, 8 April 2017
Lazy Sunday Playlist
Dreams - Fleetwood Mac
Don't - Zoe Kravitz
River - Leon Bridges
Cold Little Heart - Micheal Kiwanuka
September Song - Agnes Obel
Straight From The Heart - Irma Thomas
Pocketful of Rainbows - Elvis
The Wonder Of You - Conor O'Brien
How's The World Treating You - Daniel Agee
Helpless - Neil Young
Nothing Arrived - The Villagers
Rippin Kittin - Golden Boy and Miss Kittin
When Love Breaks Down - Kate Walsh
The Chain - Ingrid Michealson
This Feeling - Alabama Shakes
Love Song - Adele
Cherry Wine - Hozier
Walls - Kings of Leon
Blue - Troye Sivan ft. Alex Hope
Love - Lana Del Rey
Rivers Flow In You - Yiruma
Ghosts That We Knew - Mumford and Sons
Let It Be - The Beatles
Song For Someone - U2
Without - Years and Years
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow - Amy Winehouse
Don't - Zoe Kravitz
River - Leon Bridges
Cold Little Heart - Micheal Kiwanuka
September Song - Agnes Obel
Straight From The Heart - Irma Thomas
Pocketful of Rainbows - Elvis
The Wonder Of You - Conor O'Brien
How's The World Treating You - Daniel Agee
Helpless - Neil Young
Nothing Arrived - The Villagers
Rippin Kittin - Golden Boy and Miss Kittin
When Love Breaks Down - Kate Walsh
The Chain - Ingrid Michealson
This Feeling - Alabama Shakes
Love Song - Adele
Cherry Wine - Hozier
Walls - Kings of Leon
Blue - Troye Sivan ft. Alex Hope
Love - Lana Del Rey
Rivers Flow In You - Yiruma
Ghosts That We Knew - Mumford and Sons
Let It Be - The Beatles
Song For Someone - U2
Without - Years and Years
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow - Amy Winehouse
Tuesday, 10 January 2017
Women Aren't That Great
For over several decades the feminist movement has been among us creating a wave of change for women and their roles in society. Very recently much talk has surrounded the issues of how women are portrayed to the masses and the gender pay gaps in almost every occupation. The main reason for the feminist movement is to be treated as equals to men and to stop being seen as merely sex objects. Men need to change their attitudes towards women, but the truth is we aren't doing all that well ourselves.
In my current job I have come to the conclusion that there is a certain type of woman who feels they have the right to be rude to the young women they are talking to. She tends to be middle aged or older, middle class and white. Over several occasions I have seen the attitude change almost immediately if someone else arrives to speak with them. There have been many times when I have told a woman something she doesn't want to hear such as "I'm sorry, we do not stock that product". It is something that can't be helped, either the company has it or it doesn't and some places are not able to order things in for whatever reason. However, this news coming from a 20-something can make the older woman become very irritable and impatient. She becomes rude and disrespectful and this seems to give her the right to talk down to the young lady as she is clearly incompetent. More than a handful of times I have gone to get another colleague who is an older man to come and say the exact same thing to the woman only to have her accept what he is saying without any kind of argument and be on her way. I have seen this happen among my other colleagues, even my manager who is a woman. You just need to look younger than these women it seems.
Perhaps young women have fault in these situations. I know that this certain type of woman, on a bad day, can crush the small amount of confidence that I have in an instant. I become flustered and embarrassed and can't speak properly and will end up saying something wrong to worsen the situation. I know that it happens to others too and you forget what you know you should say. Maybe its something you learn to grow out of as you get older. Watch this space.
On a primal level, there does seem to be evidence that it is logical for women (and everyone else for that matter) to follow the authoritative man. After all we are animals and commonly in the animal kingdom (among animals where the males stay in the group) it is the males who are bigger, who are head of the group and who fight other males for territory, food and the right to mate. Others in the group are taught not to try and take his role. Maybe this has something to do with women finding it easier to fight and argue with each other than it is with a man, especially if the one woman is viewed as below the other.
Of course this kind of treatment between women is not just between those who have a large difference in age, all women can be very unforgiving towards each other and you would know this only too well if you are, or have ever been, a teenage girl. In terms of bullying and bringing each other down, teenage girls are masters. I will admit I did not treat every girl the way that I should have at that time. But now, after getting through this stage of life and into make adult years I have discovered that it doesn't matter how old you get, some women don't outgrow these behaviours. There have been times that I also have repeated my teenage self as a grownup and I've felt terrible about it. I'm no angel, nowhere close, but is there anything around us could be encouraging such childish ways?
Prime examples of this are tabloid magazines and reality TV shows based around gossip. Mostly written and hosted by women and read and viewed by women. If you look closely at these you will find the same old bullets that these women are using to fire at those in the spotlight: she's put on weight, she's lost too much, she has a secret eating disorder, she's sleeping with this guy or all these men, she's fighting with this woman, she's still carrying baby weight after having her baby four months ago! Its ridiculous. The only thing that ever changes is the target. Why do these things have any kind of audience at all?
They also have extremely mixed messages about how women should treat themselves. Usually these things will say 'love yourself and your imperfections' then 'here's a workout to get that 'perfect' body', 'dress how you want to' to 'these are must haves!', 'eat healthy' with 'here's a great recipe for a cake'. I'm not aware of any male magazine doing this to men. If anything they build themselves up and don't make men feel guilty about it. Why don't we?
If we want to be seen as equal to men shouldn't we be starting with ourselves? I have no doubt that women can be great and could end up running the world so it won't be such 'a man's world' anymore. We can have equal rights and opportunities and girls everywhere will be able to receive an education but we won't be able to do it if we don't treat ourselves and each other properly. I have been told that how people treat others is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves. If this is the case women must see themselves as deserving of being in the gutter.
I wish I knew the solution to turn these attitudes around but I don't. I'm at a loss. It all just feels like a David and Goliath battle with Goliath getting bigger and bigger the more women become obsessed with judging other women and going out of their way to hurt each other through new mediums like social media.
Can this ever stop? Am I the only one embarrassed?!
In my current job I have come to the conclusion that there is a certain type of woman who feels they have the right to be rude to the young women they are talking to. She tends to be middle aged or older, middle class and white. Over several occasions I have seen the attitude change almost immediately if someone else arrives to speak with them. There have been many times when I have told a woman something she doesn't want to hear such as "I'm sorry, we do not stock that product". It is something that can't be helped, either the company has it or it doesn't and some places are not able to order things in for whatever reason. However, this news coming from a 20-something can make the older woman become very irritable and impatient. She becomes rude and disrespectful and this seems to give her the right to talk down to the young lady as she is clearly incompetent. More than a handful of times I have gone to get another colleague who is an older man to come and say the exact same thing to the woman only to have her accept what he is saying without any kind of argument and be on her way. I have seen this happen among my other colleagues, even my manager who is a woman. You just need to look younger than these women it seems.
Perhaps young women have fault in these situations. I know that this certain type of woman, on a bad day, can crush the small amount of confidence that I have in an instant. I become flustered and embarrassed and can't speak properly and will end up saying something wrong to worsen the situation. I know that it happens to others too and you forget what you know you should say. Maybe its something you learn to grow out of as you get older. Watch this space.
On a primal level, there does seem to be evidence that it is logical for women (and everyone else for that matter) to follow the authoritative man. After all we are animals and commonly in the animal kingdom (among animals where the males stay in the group) it is the males who are bigger, who are head of the group and who fight other males for territory, food and the right to mate. Others in the group are taught not to try and take his role. Maybe this has something to do with women finding it easier to fight and argue with each other than it is with a man, especially if the one woman is viewed as below the other.
Of course this kind of treatment between women is not just between those who have a large difference in age, all women can be very unforgiving towards each other and you would know this only too well if you are, or have ever been, a teenage girl. In terms of bullying and bringing each other down, teenage girls are masters. I will admit I did not treat every girl the way that I should have at that time. But now, after getting through this stage of life and into make adult years I have discovered that it doesn't matter how old you get, some women don't outgrow these behaviours. There have been times that I also have repeated my teenage self as a grownup and I've felt terrible about it. I'm no angel, nowhere close, but is there anything around us could be encouraging such childish ways?
Prime examples of this are tabloid magazines and reality TV shows based around gossip. Mostly written and hosted by women and read and viewed by women. If you look closely at these you will find the same old bullets that these women are using to fire at those in the spotlight: she's put on weight, she's lost too much, she has a secret eating disorder, she's sleeping with this guy or all these men, she's fighting with this woman, she's still carrying baby weight after having her baby four months ago! Its ridiculous. The only thing that ever changes is the target. Why do these things have any kind of audience at all?
They also have extremely mixed messages about how women should treat themselves. Usually these things will say 'love yourself and your imperfections' then 'here's a workout to get that 'perfect' body', 'dress how you want to' to 'these are must haves!', 'eat healthy' with 'here's a great recipe for a cake'. I'm not aware of any male magazine doing this to men. If anything they build themselves up and don't make men feel guilty about it. Why don't we?
If we want to be seen as equal to men shouldn't we be starting with ourselves? I have no doubt that women can be great and could end up running the world so it won't be such 'a man's world' anymore. We can have equal rights and opportunities and girls everywhere will be able to receive an education but we won't be able to do it if we don't treat ourselves and each other properly. I have been told that how people treat others is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves. If this is the case women must see themselves as deserving of being in the gutter.
I wish I knew the solution to turn these attitudes around but I don't. I'm at a loss. It all just feels like a David and Goliath battle with Goliath getting bigger and bigger the more women become obsessed with judging other women and going out of their way to hurt each other through new mediums like social media.
Can this ever stop? Am I the only one embarrassed?!
Sunday, 8 January 2017
Manhattan
I find that writing in the middle of the night, like I am now, brings out old memories from a myriad of places. I suppose all memories are old as they are events and moments from the past, but I think old memories are the ones that you know will never fade. Like the ones I'm having at the moment.
I remember being in my local coffee shop in Manhattan. It was October and the leaves were falling, like me. The coffee shop where sometimes the drinks were decent but most of the time it was disgusting stuff. You remember don't you? 'Course you do, you worked there. I always came in only to see you. A cliche I know, but you did believe me for a long time when I said I worked from home and didn't want to walk too far to get some coffee, so I settled for clump of coffee you served. Stupid lie, you told me, but you smiled when you said it.
It was that day in October when I first got the courage to say more to you than just "Americana please". You let me embarrass myself for so long until you finally said "It's Americano." I blushed a deep red and you laughed. When I was about to leave you told me the coffee was on the house. "I love you, no I mean I love that!" I couldn't breathe. "That's a relief" you said, with that smile. I still couldn't breathe. From that moment I was ruined.
All of a sudden it felt like New York was ours. We shared it. You went wild for the crisp air and beautiful snow during winter while I stayed near a fire. I soaked up the sun and heat in summer when it was too hot for you to leave the air-conditioning. You loved the never ending noise of a city alive and I loved the never ending array of people who brought it to life. That was us, two halves who, together, had everything the city could give us. Until it wasn't.
Over the years it was like the winter snuck in through the cracks and tickled my feet before creeping up over my bones. Folding itself around me, over and over. It wouldn't have made a difference had I set a forest on fire and stood in the middle of it. It made me deaf and blind to you. Numb, actually, now that I think about it. And I couldn't stop it.
What was it like for you? Did the heat grow through you like anger? Did the summer boil your blood? Is that why you left so often, to go out and drown yourself in the constant roar of the city, so loud that it would conceal your own explosions?
You found me saying more to strangers in the street than I would to you. I always had to fight my way through crowds to find you. Eventually we both stopped looking.
So I left.
As I knew you would, you didn't search for me. I tip-toed out during the night you were away to spare you having to explain to your friends that you watched me leave. You came back to space that could be filled with someone new. That was that.
As atonement for my actions, I leave you Manhattan. You always needed it more than I did. The streets, the avenues, the falling leaves. I've gone west to settle on the beach. When it gets blustery I'm going to shout out my apologies into the wind, hoping they make it to you. Like how sorry I am that I didn't love you enough or that we ended up the way we did. I wish things had stayed the way they were at the beginning. But through the seasons and over the years, like everything else, we changed. I loved you back then, I do now, but after a while we weren't us anymore and I fell in love with an idea of us that I started to imagine. An ideal us that we could never come close to but that's where I stayed for so long. I shouldn't have.
Please have Manhattan, because I can't have you.
I remember being in my local coffee shop in Manhattan. It was October and the leaves were falling, like me. The coffee shop where sometimes the drinks were decent but most of the time it was disgusting stuff. You remember don't you? 'Course you do, you worked there. I always came in only to see you. A cliche I know, but you did believe me for a long time when I said I worked from home and didn't want to walk too far to get some coffee, so I settled for clump of coffee you served. Stupid lie, you told me, but you smiled when you said it.
It was that day in October when I first got the courage to say more to you than just "Americana please". You let me embarrass myself for so long until you finally said "It's Americano." I blushed a deep red and you laughed. When I was about to leave you told me the coffee was on the house. "I love you, no I mean I love that!" I couldn't breathe. "That's a relief" you said, with that smile. I still couldn't breathe. From that moment I was ruined.
All of a sudden it felt like New York was ours. We shared it. You went wild for the crisp air and beautiful snow during winter while I stayed near a fire. I soaked up the sun and heat in summer when it was too hot for you to leave the air-conditioning. You loved the never ending noise of a city alive and I loved the never ending array of people who brought it to life. That was us, two halves who, together, had everything the city could give us. Until it wasn't.
Over the years it was like the winter snuck in through the cracks and tickled my feet before creeping up over my bones. Folding itself around me, over and over. It wouldn't have made a difference had I set a forest on fire and stood in the middle of it. It made me deaf and blind to you. Numb, actually, now that I think about it. And I couldn't stop it.
What was it like for you? Did the heat grow through you like anger? Did the summer boil your blood? Is that why you left so often, to go out and drown yourself in the constant roar of the city, so loud that it would conceal your own explosions?
You found me saying more to strangers in the street than I would to you. I always had to fight my way through crowds to find you. Eventually we both stopped looking.
So I left.
As I knew you would, you didn't search for me. I tip-toed out during the night you were away to spare you having to explain to your friends that you watched me leave. You came back to space that could be filled with someone new. That was that.
As atonement for my actions, I leave you Manhattan. You always needed it more than I did. The streets, the avenues, the falling leaves. I've gone west to settle on the beach. When it gets blustery I'm going to shout out my apologies into the wind, hoping they make it to you. Like how sorry I am that I didn't love you enough or that we ended up the way we did. I wish things had stayed the way they were at the beginning. But through the seasons and over the years, like everything else, we changed. I loved you back then, I do now, but after a while we weren't us anymore and I fell in love with an idea of us that I started to imagine. An ideal us that we could never come close to but that's where I stayed for so long. I shouldn't have.
Please have Manhattan, because I can't have you.
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