So how did you spend your holiday weekend? Lots of company? Far too much
cake? Having a right Royal knees-up?
Well good for you, good for you…
Personally I knew it was going to be a difficult few days. It always is
for me when I know that everyone in the nation is “supposed” to be enjoying
themselves. Somehow that idea always defeats me and instead I find myself in
dark rooms brooding upon how it came to this, how I was turned into this odd
creature that I find myself being, locking myself away from notions of
“organised fun”, lurking in the shadows so I don’t bring anyone else down with
me.
I do try and stay out of the way, you know, as best as I can, so as to
not bring the rest of you down. Instead I sit here typing my nonsense which, ironically
I suppose, brings everyone down, but at one step removed. Somehow, whilst all
of this self-analysis helps me, I can’t see it being much “fun” for everyone
else.
The weekend started well enough what with battling my way around a
supermarket on a Friday night and starting to feel decidedly unwell as I
delivered my mother’s food order and headed homewards with the beloved
afterwards. The “unwell” is always, I think, a psychological response to either
the probability of being expected to enjoy myself, or just being in any kind of
proximity to my mother when she’s in one of her “moods” which is, of course,
every time I’m in a room with her.
Saturday was spent hiding in our little house as the heavens opened,
catching up with a lot of “Lewis” episodes that we’d recorded and trying out a
DVD we’d been lent about a Norwegian Private Investigator called “Varg Veum”
which we’d been assured was much mocked by Norwegian comedians in much the same
way “Midsomer Murders” gets mocked over here. Strangely, we found it “gritty”
and “dark” (and consequently rather enjoyable) which probably means that I
don’t understand the sense of humour of yet another nation, and this time it’s
one that is notoriously bleak.
Sunday started with one of those “one line” telephone calls from my
mother, (about which, I’m sure, there’ll be more to tell you about on
another day) which tend to drop a bomb into my life and has me spending the rest of
my day feeling guilty and in a thunderously bad mood because of something I
have or haven’t done that makes me, once again, a huge disappointment to her.
Still, we staggered on through the morning after that dawn raid, by
heading to the local shop for milk and I took some photographs of bunting in
the rain.
Well, somehow it seemed appropriate.
Strangely, when I was trying to sleep due to my own exhaustion on Monday
afternoon, it was bad dreams about flinging myself into an abyss that kept
waking me up…
The rest of Monday proved equally difficult. After writing off the
venture to go away and watch the birdies far, far from home, we still decided
that getting out of the house would be a wise move, not least for a lungful of
good old honest fresh air, but also because my stomach was already churning at
the possibility of being dragged into the more local festivities which I have
so feared for these past few weeks since the letter appeared through the door.
The local water park seemed a safe enough bet and so, after stopping for a
petrol refill, we headed over there only to find the car park was full of
tables and bunting.
We turned around and fled, ending up in a traffic jam full of,
presumably, similarly minded escapees (or – more likely – people with places
to go), and headed up to an out of the way bookshop I quite like where I found a
great big book about film noir, which I was very pleased to discover, so that
might indicate to you how I was feeling about things by then.
We headed homewards with the butterflies in my stomach and trying my
best (and failing) to keep the panic attacks from rising, and somehow we
managed to run the gauntlet of our partying neighbours, to get inside the house
and hide out for the rest of the day, wondering how that jolly and robust Duke
of Edinburgh of yesterday’s pageant had been brought so swiftly low, and hoped
that all the merry-making didn’t suddenly start to seem inappropriate and
insensitive. Maybe he’s a bit like me after all; Likes the boats, not so keen
on all the parties, and we are both capable of making crass comments at the
most inopportune moments.
After reading that news, I pretty much went straight to bed and hid
under the duvet until those bad dreams I mentioned resurrected me and brought
me back downstairs for the rest of the movie the beloved was watching, and an
evening of “Horrible Histories” until the fatigue brought on by all this
expense of anxious energy finally dragged me back to bed to be woken later by
the fireworks somewhere nearby.
Tuesday dawned and the internet had died overnight in our locality and
showed every sign of remaining so. I wrote a bit of nonsense and wondered what
yet another day of “fun” would bring. Having decided to stay put, watch a few documentaries and maybe do a little housework instead of heading out into the unpromising looking weather, another phone call from her ladyship, despite me now struggling to remember any of the content of it, left me feeling sick and tired, an expression I had never really thought about in quite such literal terms before.
I thought that I’d write more over the weekend, to be perfectly honest,
with four whole days of opportunity to spend some time honing a few notions,
but a depression wave can be so deep when it hits that it seeps into every
facet of your being and refuses to let you function even in the areas that you
sometimes persuade yourself that you enjoy.
Some words did, of course, come.
Words like these.
Fetid, introspective and brutal words that spoke of darkness and little
light, of bitterness and anxiety and generally the antithesis of “having a good
time”.
Really! I’m
not joking! You should have seen the version of this I deleted… or perhaps it’s
better that you didn’t…
The only cloud on my Jubilee horizon were my neighbours who are all so well-jobbed and careered that when they asked me what I did for a living I simply walked away in shame.
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