OLIVES AND THE EXERCISE GYM

OLIVES AND THE EXERCISE GYM

I went into Liddle’s today and there I found padron peppers, much to my delight. Wendy teases me about things like this; my fascination and joy over ingredients like this. I also bought anchovies and chopped chilli in oil, and grappa, a crispy baguette and gorgonzola cheese.

Such things make my day. I have been vaguely planning what I will cook later. Wendy will be on her slimming world diet so she will cook separately while I will have my peppers and I think, broad bean pate, aubergine and tomato stew, maybe tortilla and of course my baguette and cheese. I love food like that; the thought of giving it up to lose weight as Wendy is doing dismays me; I could not do without olive oil, or fried garlic, or halloumi, or lemon and chilli prawns or noodles with sesame oil and smoked tofu in a sticky honey soy sauce or, or, or.

That probably offends many people with eating disorders and probably offends many people who think partners should support each other when they seek to become more healthy. I can see why. I would love to be healthy myself.

I caught sight of myself in the windows of a velux window when I was lying in bed a few weeks ago in a new location and saw a pale wobbly blob beamed back at me from the dark night. I climb the stairs to get mobile reception at home and puff so much when I get to the top that I have to wait before I phone my mum.

My rapidly aging body humiliates me; peoples comments that with young children to look after I need to take my health in hand unless they are going to experience grief far earlier than they should terrifies me and makes me feel so utterly guilty. Peoples disappointment when I have a drink in the evening before they wanted me to spills angry awkwardness into my awareness, especially on those nights when I am really looking forward to one and see it as a well deserved celebration after long, long, hours of work.

Their arguments make crystal sense, not even crystal because they are so obvious. They are more like concrete: harsh and immovable and so hard to escape from.

I haven’t a clue how to get the motivation or the ability to become healthy. It is not as if I don’t have the opportunity. The Journey in Helensburgh offer people like me who go to Jeans Bothy free fitness sessions. Wendy would be delighted, no more than that overjoyed, to support me in healthiness and fitness.

I wrote a speech about physical health inequalities and mental illness about ten years ago and cannot really remember what I said. I think at the time I was actively seeking to get fit and put it down to the fact that I had found love and family and fun in my life again. Joy gave me a reason to want to look after my body but just now I struggle to account for my behaviour.

I am still loved and I still love back. I live in a house of laughter and animals and cuddles and drama and wonder that this could ever have happened to me. I very much want to continue to live for as many years as I can with those who bring me that joy but as I write all I can think is that I am just so tired. So terribly tired.

After a lifetime of hating myself; after decades of thinking I am responsible for the worst of the worst things I struggle to be light in my soul. I struggle to find energy or ambition.

I wonder why? Is it my medication which seems to pile the weight on and which seems to sap my spontaneity. Is it illness? Those confusing negative symptoms of an illness I doubt I have, which seem to do the same. Is it laziness or lack of moral something or other?

Whatever it is; I look at creating a healthy body where I could run the length of the road, or climb a hill, or ski, or sail a dinghy with horror and a distant half glimpsed dream of a dream.

It seems like a mountain thrust in front of me that I hide away from; cower from.

I feel like I have been climbing mountains for so, so, long, in work in relationships, in the possibility of staying alive or agreeing to see my professional helpers, or in dealing with bits of the past I thought I had already dealt with; being at least slightly kind and charming to those I love but all I ever want really want to do nowadays is sleep.

I would like to sleep in a comfy bed in my own room, and I would like snacks to munch on and I would like music and books and soft light and the chance to drift to a place where I never have to make an effort again.

To start digging at the mountain in front of me? Please no!

Let me sleep; let me sleep the way a person dying of hypothermia might say. Give me a break from all this, don’t make me wake up, don’t make me aware of what I do to myself. I am so tired of guilt and shame and that mountain looks so frightening.

I would like to finish with something hopeful but I can’t. If this becomes my blog and those I love say “Let us help you !” I won’t want helped; not just now.

I want instead to remember the rain on my walk by the Firth with Dash the dog this morning and the joy we felt at the rabbits finally getting their own hut in the garden and the coming hub bub that will occur when the children tumble into the house back from their dads; bursting for a night with their mum and, though I now take things like that for granted, I need somehow to trust in it.

I need to know I will never find myself in front of that mountain without the laughter I have got so used to now that I cannot imagine life without it. Maybe when I can trust in the joy that surrounds me, trust in my ability to feel joy? Maybe it is something like that? If I could believe in me maybe I could take out the pick axe and start hacking or don the crampons and start climbing.

(photos - Padron Peppers, Ardmore, Bon Bon in his hutch. November 2022)