Not near, not at all far

Do you ever feel homesick for salt water? What is that feeling of thinking about spaghetti hoops on toast - not sourdough - long before sourdough. What is that feeling of cheese cut into cubes melting on top. The taste of the second cup of tea from a pot, too weak and over-brewed at the same time. Not hot enough anymore. If I could, would I actually go out dancing on the 19th January, would I? Obviously not. Waking up later and later and more and more tired, softer and softer and pretending to be brave.

What is that feeling of very thin skin? I sat still this morning for long enough to go somewhere that felt like my bottom lip wobbling because how tiring it was to hold this all up for another day. Do you ever have it when it’s funny and funny and funny, and then suddenly it’s not at all. But are we allowed to say? The longer we stay inside the more I am thinking about my childhood, are you? The longer it is, the more I can remember my dreams enough to think it must be significant that I keep dreaming about my Nana and dreaming about my Granny.

I said to mum on the phone the other day that I can understand why someone wouldn’t like me, I can understand all of the bits that someone wouldn’t like, and I said them in a list and they are true. Anyway, what is it that makes five people press unfollow every time I have something to say? It hurt that time I got the app for a day that told me who’d done it, and I realised it was someone who was my best friend once upon a time. Anyway, not anymore, but I thought we’d always be fond of each other till I saw that bit. And you’re getting more yourself she said to me two years ago, but then I didn’t stop, and myself turned out to be much bigger than that. Didn’t it.

If you cracked me open, you’d find at the centre that time he said, without thinking much, it isn’t all about you Annie. And then I’d spend my life making it all about me, and then wondering why I can’t let it go when someone closes the door in my face. All around me people are letting stuff go. I observe people all around me accepting things. I am looking closely at their faces for clues and I am wondering when it was exactly that they managed to untangle themself from that.

Somewhere someone is in their house not thinking about me. And for a while it’s been realising; it isn’t about me. It isn’t about me that they can’t. But it is also true that it is a bit about me. Because otherwise why would it be so easy for them the next time with someone who most likely has blonde hair. Or someone who most likely didn’t cry a little tiny bit after sex. Or someone who most likely didn’t carry on writing about them long after the fact. Someone who most likely didn’t have stains on her clothes from toothpaste, and who more or less gave up on yoghurt for that reason. Anyway, it isn’t that I don’t think the one who chooses to walk to the middle of the bridge with Al Green playing in the background won’t have won the lottery. And, anyway, Holly would say it’s me who is picking me. Holly would say.

Big shapes was something else. I always used to wonder about people who say we were on the phone for four hours last night. And then people who ring again in the morning. Am I getting something wrong? I only speak to mum once and fortnight and dad once a fortnight so what makes you think I’d want to be on the phone with anyone for that long. It’s something else, I don’t want the texts that tell me everything boring about your day. I want the ones that I didn’t have anxiety about coming in the first place. It might just be one a day. I want to feel that safe. Like when you hear the radiators coming on.

It accidentally became about this again. But it isn’t just about this. There is something in it, I am picking up on something by the way she says hello. She wouldn’t have stopped to let it in. What is that feeling of knowing you have exasperated someone just by being your exact self? Is there anything better than not shaving your legs and then suddenly it happened and it was the middle of the day? The exact opposite of when you did and you peel off your nice underwear and put it in your wash basket and then put on the matching pyjamas mum got you, me. And something in wearing matching underwear today like a secret that no one else can have. And something about how Cindy and I realised at exactly the same time that men liking matching underwear is the biggest myth sold to women. Next to all the others. And something about why the fuck are we doing it for them anyway.

How is it that they all say when it’s right it’s easy. And going for a walk with him that day between Christmas and new year and knowing by the look in his eyes that it’d only been a few dates, but he’s going to marry her. Watching them be that sure. Watching them never have to put their phone in the freezer because they can’t cope with it. The metaphorical freezer. Anyway, she’ll go at some point and that’s ok because it’s all I ever wanted for her.

So here is this just the greatest test. Who will stay if I keep saying? And why does no one else have to keep saying? The gradual realising that I am not actually very easy going and I am actually quite intense. The way I said hello to the man picking up litter and the way he smiled back and I thought, well maybe this will be enough connection for one day. And yet still what about being in the same room and not having to say anything at all. What about that look from across the room. What about that feeling of being in the same room and not looking and not saying but knowing that everything is already happening between you. What about how that only comes a few times in a lifetime and it keeps not being enough to stay. What about a rocket going off in front of your face and still having to let it go into the night quietly with grace, not texting again.

Still at least you’ll never be having conversations like that couple who were walking around the marshes and talking like they’re perfect strangers. Still at least not that. And isn’t it better to make people wince because of how much you are? Probably not. Roll their eyes again because even your best of friends can’t stomach it. Still can’t be sure. But this is more urgent than that. So at least I went to the very depths of it all and then got on a train for all of those hours, and then a bus, and then another bus to be so far away and to know it is a matter of urgency that I write this. And it’ll drive everyone mad and it’ll keep me up at night, but I’ll die without writing it.