Sunday, November 26, 2006
Paved Paradise
I just found this photo whilst perusing a friend's flickr:
It's weird, the frisson you feel when you stare at a younger you.
I've found that since I was about 12 when I felt I became an adult, I've been surprised when I've changed, because I thought I'd established my identity. I felt it physically too; I no longer needed to buy clothes because they were too small but because I'd worn holes in them.
The guy on the left, in the white, in that photo is my ex-boyfriend. I went out with him for 2 weeks and 6 days and ended it - for Very Bad reasons not best to put on my website - in an underpass. It felt like the biggest event in the world, that night, that I had the power to upset someone that much and it was perfectly acceptable to walk away and let them get on with the heartache. The alcohol and cigarettes tasted bitter in my mouth as I walked home, head-bent.
I remember I had bought a white dress for that leavers' party. It was backless and even came with a special bra. Not that I needed a bra, let's face it. At the last minute I took it back, because I felt everybody would stare. How different that is to how I am now; I don't care what people think, I think it's okay to have a sexual identity and a backless bra if you need one.
The panic I felt on nights like this seems so manageable now. It's so focused, like a needle-point. There was no need to avoid White Jacket Man, and sit for moments outside red-faced and anxious. No need to clutch my bag by my side and stare across the room at him.
Now, problems sometimes seem so vast I don't know where to start. The feelings that I have for some people run so deep that there are a million 'best things to do' and no real answer. Or the problems are sewn in to other problems, whose roots run too deep to touch. I wonder what adults do when they realise they have deep-set complexes they knew nothing about? Or when they realise they're horribly jealous, or overly critical? And I know the decisions I make so casually now, sure, I'll take that job, no, it's fine if we live apart, affect the rest of my life in a way I can't grasp now.
I miss that white dress, I think it told me a lot.
Labels: NaBloPoMo, reminiscing
by billygean.co.uk at 12:58 AM |
25 Comments:
A very heartfelt post to start off the day with. Thanks for sharing!
I know it's small comfort, but there are a lot of us going through the whole living apart thing. (We're just packing me up now.) Readings posts like yours always helps me -- it's nice to know I'm not the only adult feeling ambivalent about the kinds of decisions I get to make now.
Hi BlondeBut Bright, nice to see you're still reading, glad you enjoyed the post :)
Meg - it's a great comfort, actually. From what I can tell you moved to oxford to be near spouse - what now?
Depressing eh! I think if we realised magnitude of our adult-decisions we wouldn't be able to make them.
BG
Ahh the underpass...
I shall forgive your photo stealing! :P I found that one the other week and it made me smile too..
It feels like looking back at someone elses life - very detached!
I can't wait for a reunion where I can walk into the room as the person I am now
oh god - have noticed that I have arm issues on that picture..
So odd to have bony yet over muscly arms..
Thank god I quit Sainsbury's!
I know, am considering a scary reunion this xmas but don't know if can stomach it.
Oh my arms look 1 dimensional in that.
Hope you get your work handed in...
BG
I'm moving back to Seattle...Spouse stays in Oxford until program ends. Fun, eh? It was the same thing for us: "Oh, there are no jobs for you here...and all of the professionals in your field recommend looking in the U.S.? Well, why don't you move home? Yes, I think we can both handle that." Followed by a prolongued silence this week during a packing break, in which we realized what we'd done. (Please excuse the poor grammar -- I'm stressed, damn it.) You're right, though -- if we'd really thought it through, we'd probably both be sitting here paralyzed.
Cigarettes! I'm shocked and apalled >:o/
You live life forwards, you understand it backwards, and all the time you're tripping over the rubbish you dropped under your own feet while you were trying to look both ways at once....
We live in the gaps between our mistakes.
Best stay anon!
Meg: I'm sorry, it sounds weird - how long will you be apart?
Suzy: Never smoked, you know this! Was trying to conceptulise pub smells!!
Anon: I have two people in mind who you may be. Are you in the pic? ;)
BG
Oops, and how long did it take me to catch this response? Sorry!
We'll be apart for...well...about two years. But it's what we have to do. We're trying to look on the "bright" side: if I were still doing a Ph.D. here, as originally planned before funding fell through, I would be gone for all of next year anyway (fieldwork). After that, I'd have a year left in the UK while he went off to do a postdoc somewhere. So, really, this is just a reversal: I'm there, he's here.
Nevertheless, it is truly awful.
Oh sweetie. it sounds it. How much contact will you have?
life seems to do its best to force people apart but i maintain it's good for you!
gets you shaving your legs when you see him again. These days i don't bother ;)
BG
Not sure. We're aiming for two or three times per year, two or three weeks each. Really, I could cope with that -- and you're right about it being good for people.
Shaving legs: good point. My primping has declined considerably since we committed. Perhaps I will actually wear makeup more than a handful of times per month.
Thank you for still speaking to me after the leggings incident. ;) Isn't it funny how the strangest posts can generate the most responses?
P.S. - Thanks for the commiseration. I need it right now. You are lovely. :) Hope your situation is working out, too. Does he actually have a job already, or is it still in that wonderful "waiting for the inevitable" stage?
Mmm, I mope incredibly when Mr Billygean and I do long distance (holidays we're four hours apart - not that much i understand!), but I am often more loved up and really appreciate the time. I'm a workaholic so don't make time for him enough, whereas when apart it is quality time. Plus! You get to read in bed!
And also, Oxford is terribly rainy.
Ah the tights is just a ballering snobbish thing!
M has got through application stage, 2 psychometric tests, phone interview - just two day assessment centre to go. it's not really viable for him to refuse a job offer, just wish he'd applied to some nearer ones first! :(
Sorry i am replying immediately. unfair contract terms act 1977 slightly boring.
BG
Oxford's been frightfully sunny of late (although I did live in Cambridge last year, so maybe only by my low standards)...but I do think we'll benefit from time apart, actually. CB is a workaholic himself, which is why he did two overnights in a row at his lab last week, and why he's rarely home before 20:00 most nights. Since I generally prevent him from working, I'm sure he won't mind having a little more time to putter around the computer lab until he finishes his degree.
Yay for reading in bed. And eating poorly once in awhile without being nagged!
I understand the tights: I have a thing about these fake riding boots which are suddenly in fashion back home. If you aren't on a horse, why are you wearing them?
I am also incredibly bored. Hence the insta-responses. :)
*checks meg's blog*
*checks own blog*
etc.
Ooh is he a health freak? M is not, but doesn't eat exotic things and i like to sometimes.
What is his degree?
Dual blogging comments. Very impressive!
Oh lord, yes. He was much worse when we met -- converted me from vegetarianism to veganism, which I didn't mind, but *still* freaked out whenever I suggested getting our own desserts at dinner instead of sharing one. Now, we're both just vegetarians, and he even eats junk food once in awhile.
CB's (real name Bryan) not too picky about food, but he does have a strange aversion to onions, which makes things difficult because they're in everything. I've found he copes if I camoflauge them.
He did an undergrad in bioengineering and is doing a Ph.D. in statistical genetics. Basically, this means that his lab's Christmas dinner consisted of many people making weird jokes about Bayesian something-or-others, while I sat there drinking wine and feeling progressively stupider.
He's awfully nice, though. :)
Mike won't eat onions. I like to put onions in all food! So annoying, he picks them off (hi mike!)
Also he won't kiss me if have eaten them - or bananas, two favourite foods, hmm..
Sounds quite scary - the degree. is he at oxford? gah, cleverness!
Mike's friends talk about tensile strength (actually, much more complex things that i can't even remember). Or they talk about bike pedals (again). Mind you, i was talking to mike and my friend ran up to me saying "Do you know the lang registration act section 27 subsection 2, which case is best to use?"
Mike was worried.
That's awesome (the law jargon).
Bryan and I were always wannabe bike geeks, but now he's talking about building his own fixed-gear, while I'm going home to let the mechanics work on mine when it breaks.
Yeah, he's at Oxford. This sounds weird, but we hate telling people because we don't want them to think we're snobby dorks. The funding worked out better than in the U.S., hence, our course decisions. But yes, too clever (and never believes it -- he has a ridiculously low opinion of his intellecual abilities, although in ways that attitude is a good thing).
Poor Mike. Well, if he has your jargon and you have yours, you can entertain/confuse each other for ages. Mixed-discipline couples always seem very unique and cool to me, but maybe that's because I'm biased. :)
I really need to stop distracting you, don't I?
Really, I don't know any same-discipline couples? I couldn't date a lawyer, I really need to come home to someone who uses words like "consideration" and "offer" in a normal way...
I don't try to judge oxford types! I maintain (probably idyllically) that they're the cleverest people in the country, not the richest. my course totalled £5,000 this yr plus living, and £11,000 next plus living - i got funded so am lucky. It's ridiculous these days, have to have money to make it, it seems!
probably should get back to contract fun, or maybe I should cook - hmm, procrastination...
One of my lawyer friends is marrying another lawyer -- I think I'd go crazy if I married another enviro person. We'd both be manically depressed.
Yeah, we're a bit broke (we needed loans for the first year). It is frustrating, isn't it?
I'll leave you be for now. :)
"Consideration?" Should I even ask how that's used?
*rocks* consideration... peppercorn rent! promiser/promisee! bargaining and gift! carlill v. carbolic smoke ball co.
*incoherant*
*Pats on head*
Cup of herbal tea and a bath might fix all that. Peppercorn rent sounds like something out of a bad landlord-tenant agreement.
P.S. Email addy is meg dot matthews at gmail dot com
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