THAT IRRITATING MONOLOGUE!!

THAT IRRITATING MONOLOGUE!!

Those moments when you have such an argument; make ultimatums and outrageous principled statements; stand up for what is right; refuse to back down just to appease and end up resigning from whatever committee you are on or job you do and, with a sudden pause, wonder how on earth that happened.

Wendy did that this morning. I cannot quite remember what she was so angry about, but she told me when I met her on the train on the way home from work. I think she ended up arrested. I did much the same on a different train at much the same time and yet, when I arrived and walked into the room to find it full of smiles and welcome; my outrage, which I had been rehearsing and talking through in my head for the last hour, tipped its hat and fled embarrassed leaving me barely space to realise that yet again my anxiety (Would it be that? My something anyway) had sent me rushing down alleyways and ruined my trip to work. It had stopped me reading Jenni Fagan’s Luckenbooth, which I had been looking forward to and caught me all a jangle.

I don’t know where such things come from but I am very, very, relieved that Wendy has massive arguments too, that leave her reeling, that turn out in the end, to have been about nothing. It is so good to know I am not alone in this!

I like to be seen as calm and unflustered; sort of stoic, unflappable, but the more I peer at the reality of me, the more I realise I bounce from drama to drama. I may keep the drama’s in my mind but sometimes I reply more tersely to an email, prod back a little at what someone has said, answer a banal question gruffly and rudely because I have been worrying about something.

Something tiny, like logging on and remembering the code I have been sent or remembering the list of possibilities I could buy someone for Christmas or just not understanding some techy thing and finding my stomach curled in so much on itself that I lose touch with the conversation in the room or the fact that everyone else has slowed down for the evening. There they are; sprawled out on the floor or couches, drawing pictures or looking at facebook; totally oblivious to my churning stomach and surprised when the answer to an innocent question is a half garbled bark of a non-answer.

I can find myself musing on reactions; building on my assumptions that people hate me and despise me; both friends and colleagues. It is a huge relief to me that I rarely express my doubts and anger at how I think people perceive me or value me. I often have a temptation to confront people with what I know is their disgust in me and what I do, but in the pause before I say it, someone will smile or joke. Someone will give me a hug or tell me they love me and the bitter load and the tight muscles, the heavy toxins that exhaust me, ebb away and I grin and I relax and I look around me blank faced at the knowledge that people tend to be lovely and those that aren’t are just doing what I do in my mind but much more audibly.

That funny mixture of self-loathing and arrogance; that urge to anger and the need to self-destruct is sometimes so obvious in some of my friends, and the little spikes that make it all blare into life, so understandable when you glimpse the insecurity and the doubt and sometimes, the very real knowledge that we are in the wrong and causing our own misery.

I used to spend night after night like this. I no longer know what I was thinking. It could have been anything but those thoughts whether they be of work, the past, my friends, my beliefs; they were so loud and overwhelming. I would lie awake trying to drown out everything with the World Service on the radio besides me, but I would be uncomfortable and sweaty. I would shift around and try to blank myself. I would turn the radio off for peace and find my world louder than ever. I would change my mind, turn the radio back on and listen to it and find it waking me to a myriad different perceptions.

I am glad I am free, to some extent, from that now. I still wake a lot. I am still prone to hearing the shipping news at both ends of the night but often I sleep and I dream. I dream vividly and sometimes I welcome those dreams even when they are horrific and I wake a tremble at what I am capable of experiencing there.

But more and more often that glare of white anxiety is less; less than it used to be. Just now, when I was taking the children to their photography and we were late, I was happy; mainly because they were all chattering and laughing and splashing in puddles. When that other parent spoke to me outside the hall, I didn’t cringe tongue tied, not at all sure how to give an articulate response and when I go home, I will be glad of Wendy and of Dash and I will bicker in a normal way when I phone my mum; not an angry tiredness of resentment but something lighter and brighter, even though sometimes we do use our calls to get at each other.

I am fifty eight and wonder at that consuming narrative of criticism of myself and those I encounter. It has gone on for so many years; you would think my face would be lined and haggard; that I would be drawn and thin and bowed but I am not.

I still smile; people think I am much younger than I am. I am far too round for my liking and much as I find it hard to accept, I know many people find me kind, and warm; good company sometimes, and yes despite my perceptions; steady and loving and sometimes pretty peaceful.

I used to seek out peoples compliments to ease my self doubt; but that was no use; gathering them in made me doubt myself even more.

If I can, I might try believe a tiny bit more in the opinions of those I love than in my own tired diatribe. At least then I could read my books in peace; sleep long and deep; come home with the smile I always promise myself I should have on my lips and which, if I did not fear myself and my world, would always be there.

(Photo: Painted stones - Jeans Bothy. december 2021)