The room is filled with people and laughter. A half full bottle of red wine is on the table next to empty glasses, a huge bar of dairy milk and left over
MindReader's homemade curry.
It has been an eventful evening.
"To you on your engagement," I say to my good friend, clinking my glass with everyone. We toast and sip the wine, it runs, heavy, down my throat. I have missed wine.
I snuggle closer to
MindReader and feel a vague lump in my throat. My life is standing still.
"How's your sister, by the way?" I ask after a moment.
"Oh she's okay, a bit better. She's dumped the twat..."
"That's good," I say.
"I keep telling her she just needs to find someone who's not - fiery - like her. Someone who'll calm her down."
I smirk at
MindReader.
"You know,"
GoodFriend continues, "someone who'll mellow her out and will just take it if she shouts at him."
MindReader clears his throat.
"Sorry," I say. "It's just - you're basically describing our relationship."
Everybody laughs and I escape to the kitchen for a moment to provide more drinks.
MindReader opens a can of cider and pulls me into his arms. "Hello," he says, kissing my nose, my eyelids.
"I'm not sure I've been in love before," I blurt. Such is my way. "Have you?"
He is quiet for a while. I shouldn't have asked. Of course he has.
"Not like this," he says eventually.
And - even including the mind numbingly frustrating illness - I feel like everything in my life is as it should be.
Labels: illness, MindReader
"Just one more thing," I say on the phone to MindReader. "How many cuddly toys is okay in
our room?"
"Umm, I would say... one," he says.
"Oh," I say. "I have narrowed it down to seven but they are scattered around... Tell you what, you can bring as many cuddly toys as you like!"
"That's what I call compromising."
Labels: living in sin, MindReader
So.
MindReader is moving in.
You may have known this.He starts his Proper Lawyer Job on 1st September which was when we were supposed to get a flat in the City together.
My Body is spoilt brat and has prevented this.
Since MindReader lives in Shropshire, commuting to work is not really okay, he is moving in here!
On Sunday.
There has been over a year of horrible long distance and it's about to end, hurrah!
He's been moving stuff over slowly for the past few weeks. It is nice, to merge lives, to find mysterious hair gelling products and odd clothes all over my room that smell of him. He will see me cut my toe nails and jumping in the shower with him will no longer be something I do on weekends. Eee!
Last night I (scarily) watched him sleep, and as I looked at the hairs on his chest (strangely dark, not blond), the lopsided smile he wears in his sleep, an arm strewn lazily across his body, I thought
I could look at him forever. This, I thought, is love.
So I used today's and tomorrow's energy, sorting our room out. OUR room!!
Our bed!
His and hers cosmetics (more hers than his...)
What MindReader is currently reading
Labels: living in sin, MindReader
"Oh Lady," MindReader says, rubbing my belly. Ever since I made him watch Lady and the Tramp on one rainy Monday we have taken to imitating it.
"He's lost his sense of smell," MindReader says, miming scratching his ears. "Aye Laddy," he says, switching to imitating the Scottish dog.
"Have you considered being a Lady and the Tramp imitator?" I say.
"I can't do them all," MindReader says. "I can't do - what's his name - scamp?"
"Which one?"
"The one Lady end up with?"
I giggle. "Tramp?"
I pause. "There's a clue in the question," I say.
"Oh my God," he says, "so there is."
Labels: blonde moments, MindReader
This weekend I have:
* Been to the CINEMA. And, it was such a foreign experience for me that I had to look around to see if normal people sat up straight or rested their heads on the headrests. I don't know what's normal!
* Been to the PUB. For an hour.
* Been SHOPPING and got stuck in a dress. That I then bought. Because I realised it had a zip you could undo.
This is the sort of picture text message
MindReader receives. He was smirking rather a lot when I emerged and bought the dress.
At the pub
At the cinema :)
Labels: illness, MindReader
"I sat on my glasses," I say to MadFather, pouting.
He takes the glasses off me and bends the arms for a while. "Any better?" he says.
I put them on again. "They're less crooked," I say, "but for some reason I can't see very clearly out of them."
"Oh," he says, taking back the glasses and fiddling some more. "Now?" he says.
"Hm," I say. "They feel totally normal but everything is blurred."
MadFather's face cracks into a smile. "Do you have your contact lenses in Billygean?"
"Oh," I say. "Maybe."
Labels: blonde moments, Dad, embarrassing
BestFriend from Law School is sitting opposite me. I have not seen her since results' night over a year ago, where we drank pints of wine and danced with no shoes on.
Since then, she has stroked Lions in Africa, gone tubing in Laos, got her roots done in Sydney, met an American in LA and travelled around Mexico with him.
And I've - well - you know.
"I can't believe this has happened to you," she says, pushing back the beads that adorn her wrists. Her hair has gone bright
blonde.
"Yes, well," I say, "I'm getting better now."
"But still - it's
awful," she says, and it is nice to hear. It is sometimes much better than 'stay positives' and 'but you can do more, now.'
"I know," I smile. "We'll be doing the
LPC at the same time next year too, now," I say.
"God yeah."
"We've had quite different gap years," I say quietly.
"Same result though," she says.
"
Hmm?"
"Oh you know, development, sense of self, emotional progress."
"You think?"
"Definitely," she says, putting her tea down and looking directly into my eyes. "I don't think I could cope with what you've had to. Trust me, you'll be glad it happened one day. Trust me."
And I do.
Labels: illness
"So," I say to MindReader. We are lying in bed. Post coital conversations are my speciality. "What's going on with Russia?"
He had mentioned Russia when having a Serious Discussion with MadFather earlier.
"Well," he says, as I shift closer to him, my head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around my shoulders. "This mole - freckle -"
"I think it's a
cafe au lait," I say.
"Okay," he says, pointing to my upper arm again. "This - mark - is Ossetia. North Ossetia is in Russia and South Ossetia is in Georgia," he says, drawing a line across my skin.
He continues talking, making complicated patterns on my arm.
He is my family, I think.
***
"Morning," MadFather says.
"Hello," I say, flopping onto the sofa. "Ah," I say, nodding to the news, "Russia."
"Yep," he says. "Know what's going on?"
"Yes," I say, rolling up my sleeve.
"What are you doing?"
Labels: MindReader
"I was telling my Mum about your situation," BestFriend says. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you're -
pregnant."
I laugh. "Oh no, it's fine. What were you telling her?"
"Just about your illness, and how MadFather's lost his job and is a bit depressed..."
"Ah," I say. "That."
"Yes. Anyway, she asked whether your mum was around and I was like - can of worms - but basically no, she left ages ago. And she's bonkers."
I laugh again. "True."
"And you know what she said?"
"Hmm?"
"She said it just sounds like you need someone to - you know - look after you. Without anything in return. So you stop feeling guilty."
The sentence is so true that the air stills around it. Tears well into my eyes and spill into the bath.
"In an ideal world," I say.
Labels: illness
MindReader and I are sitting on bales of hay that are probably full of spiders. I am maintaining that while it was me who suggested a day (40 minutes) out at a petting zoo, it was him who saw the lambs were being bottle fed and suggested we go and join in.
"So which boys and girls want to feed the lambs?" the loud and annoying farm lady says.
I exchange a wry smile with MindReader. The phrase
boys and girls makes it slightly difficult to go and join in.
And then. And THEN -
"Who wants to sing a song?"
I am dying inside. This is probably not what MindReader wanted to spend his annual leave doing. What will all the other lawyers say?
"Baa baa black sheep -"
"There's only one thing for it," I say, pulling MindReader up and dashing out of the barn, negotiating lambs and sheep and pushing past toddlers.
Labels: embarrassing, illness, MindReader
"We were watching Australia's next top model the other night and
MindReader said he thought I was gay," I say down the phone to
BestFriend.
"Gay?!"
"Yes. A 16 year old girl came on and I said 'ooh she looks lovely,' meaning, of course, that I'd like to look like her.
MindReader nudged me and asked me if I like them young."
BestFriend bursts out laughing. "I love him," she says. "He's amazing."
"I know, but he thinks I'm gay!"
She
hmms.
"I'm not," I say. "Women like to critique women. And they form unusually close bonds with other women. Everyone knows this."
"I didn't ever think you
were gay
Billygean,"
BestFriend says, sounding amused.
We chatter some more. About inconsequential things, and about death and religion, about whether I have a brain tumour, why BestFriend's face is sometimes red for no reason, those sorts of things. For two hours.
"I'd better go," I sigh.
"Yes,"
BestFriend says, "I need to sleep. And so should you."
"I'm in the bath actually, I'll wash hair then sleep," I say.
"You're in the bath?!"
"Yes. I can be very covert about running a bath."
"Have you been in the bath the whole time?"
"No," I say, "but it was when we were debating whether I'm gay that I was running it and I could hardly say I was just removing all of my clothes."
"I see," she says. "Night then!"
Labels: MindReader
MindReader and Sally the dog playing keepy uppies.
MindReader playing frisbee
Bedtime
Cuddles
Usurping my sofa/bed
On a forty minute walk!!!
The man I want to marry
Looks like the 3kgs have gone onto my stomach. Damn empire waist lines
Labels: illness, MindReader
"You need a walk," MadFather says to the dog we are
babysitting. For a whole weekend. It is the best sleepover I have ever had. Scared of horror films? Watch them with a dog! Want to make spilling your breakfast down you funny? Get the dog to clean it up!
It is 10pm and black and raining.
"Coming?" he says, and I contemplate it. I have walked to the shop today, and baked. I shrug.
"Sure," I say, pulling a warm cardigan around me.
I do no wear a coat. Not because it is August and the rain is warm, but because I still am not fully reacquainted with the world and the weather and the idea of getting caught in the rain is still romantic to me.
I grab a hot cookie from the baking tray and venture out with the dog and MadFather.
We see a fox and a hedgehog. The rain and wind pick up, and whip my hair into my face so I cannot see.
The dog poos on a neighbour's garden. I smirk and sink my teeth into the warm cookie as MadFather clears it up.
And there it is. That intangible emotion. Not the ecstasy of being able to do something. Not the intense happiness I feel with MindReader, where seconds rush by like shooting stars. But -
contentment.
Finally.
Labels: illness
MindReader and I are in my local shop. Having WALKED there.
The sole purpose of our visit is to buy me a bar of Galaxy. That's right. It's been 6 weeks, I accidentally consumed some ham with milk in (ham!) and lived, and it's about time I reintroduced something. Besides, my Doctor, having seen my weight gain, thinks it might be gluten. He then did go on to say he wanted me to be 60kg instead of 50kg which I think since I have gained 2kg in 7 months of eating four meals a day and sleeping 13 hours a night, is a bit ambitious.
Anyway. I get to the counter and the woman says, "that's three pounds sixty seven please."
(Okay, I didn't
just buy Galaxy. I also bought other boring things. Like ground almonds.)
I fiddle around with my bag. The problem is not that my bag is huge and all important things drop to the bottom. Nor is it the old chronic fatigue dizziness (which I am pleased about, Glands, please do not think I am getting ungrateful). It was the simple fact that -
It has been about six months since I used money!
I thought for about 8 seconds. Which is a long time when you're at a till, performing a simple task. I gave her £3.50. And then
MindReader had to take it back and add to it. But
from my money so the problem clearly wasn't that I was poor. Which I would prefer.
So that was embarrassing. But OH MY GOD the Galaxy was worth it. Sod my intestines. I'm buying a can of condensed milk next. With
exact change.
Labels: blonde moments, embarrassing, illness, MindReader
I am in JJ's office. I have worn my silver flat shoes and my favourite underwear, because he has a tendency to upset me. And I like to be wearing nice underwear when upset.
I embarrass myself in a number of ways. I utter the following two sentences:
1. "My Dad has exactly the same figure as me."
2. "Is my recovery likely to be exponential or linear from hereon in?" to which he replied, "this is what happens when a lawyer get chronic fatigue."
He also came out with some gems of his own, such as "have you considered Celiac disease and Addison's disease?" And I thought I had gained enough emotional maturity in this roller coaster to nod politely but I haven't, and I said, "
Months ago," like the snooty lawyer I am.
He was, overall, pleased with my improvement, (also that I have put on weight for the first time in about 5 YEARS which is a bit telling on the Celiac front) and the fact that I was significantly less neurotic than last time. By significantly I mean RELATIVELY, since there will always be a healthy dose of neuroses with Billygean.
Halfway through he sent me off to have my blood pressure taken (plumb normal, except the nurse was abnormally relieved to be putting the cuff around 'a skinny arm and not an obese one') and blood samples taken (horrible, but no rash!).
Right at the end, he put down his pen, ran a hand through his fluffy hair and said, "you won't be one of the unlucky ones."
I turned and looked at him. "You've started improving now," he said. "I would bet my private patient income on you being well by Christmas."
I could have kissed him (but I didn't).
Labels: illness
I am in the Post Office. Having WALKED there, oh yes.
I drum my fingers on the counter.
"Yeah so he just said he'd booked this holiday with his mates and - " she clicks her fingers. "Gone."
I raise my eyebrows.
Rubbish boyfriend.
"Put the next one on the scales please," she says.
I must confess I don't really understand the Post Office. The weighing, all the stickers, pushing parcels under the counter, the wet sponge they often push their fingers into. It is a very strange ritual.
I peel off my proof of posting receipt and stick it onto one of my parcels (a beautiful UK size 6 Gingham top that is of course too big).
"No no," she says, peeling it off again. "That's
yours."
I blink. "I thought they needed proof of posting."
"That's what the parcel's for," she says, rolling her eyes. "
That'll be £1.37 then."
"Bargain," I say, looking at the three big parcels I'm posting. I had, irrationally, got £20 out of the cash point, because I have no idea of the value of money.
I look at the form I'm holding and realise with a thud that it is the returns form that needs to go
in the parcel.
"Um," I say. "Sorry - but - this needs to go
in the parcel. Can you - put it in?"
She sighs and begins hacking away at the Sellotape I have plastered the parcel in. "Sorry," I say again as she tugs and rips at the parcel. "I'm really stupid."
"You
are stupid," she says.
Labels: blonde moments, embarrassing, illness
"What are you reading at the moment?" I say to DoctorSister.
It is Friday night, and I am surrounded by family and candles and MindReader. Perfect.
"Oh this book - it's a bit Judy Blume," she says, and I wrinkle my nose.
"Judy Blume wrote some really weird books."
"She wrote
Deennie, which I enjoyed," DoctorSister says. Of course she did. It's about a girl with a medical condition. And if that's not enough it's the same medical condition DoctorSister had, and why she has rods in her back today. There's something you didn't know?
"She
did," I say, and glance at MindReader. It is somewhat of an in-joke between us that I have forgotten how to behave in public. He raises his eyebrows at me. I start again. "She
did write weird books. Deennie used to masturbate with a flannel!"
His head sinks into his hands as DoctorSister's mouth drops open. "I - I don't remember that bit," she says.
Labels: illness, MindReader
Some text messages between MindReader and myself:
MindReader: I'm on my way to yours xx I'm going to the shop on the way to buy cider, do you need anything? xx
Me: Onions is the only think I can think of xx
MindReader: Try to think of something else xx is there anything you want at the shop? xx ;o)
Labels: MindReader
"Well I need to buy shoe ties and new razor blades,"
MindReader says over the top of his car, and I stare blankly at him, still in the euphoric stage of appreciating the wind on my neck, and not quite knowing what shoe ties are.
"Okay," I say. "Shall I meet you back at the car in a bit?"
I can tell he's surprised. The last time I went out entirely alone, with nobody to catch me when my legs stopped working, was February the seventeenth.
"Alright," he says, tossing the keys to me which I, of course, miss and drop. The day cannot be completely perfect.
Except it is. I must look like a normal shopper. And then I stop and think that that perhaps means, for this half an hour moment, that I am.
I finger spines of books I'd like to buy and - thank God - gone is the impulse that just because I am sick I can hemorrhage money in order to keep me entertained. Normality is slowly coming back. I do however buy gluten free crisps at a check out because I will never change entirely.
I am feeling audacious, or not sick, so I walk on round to Next, and look at bras and lacy tops that I still imagine wearing to summer parties, a thousand candles glowing like fireflies in my garden as I toast all those who visited me, who let me shout at them, who fended off my emails with graphs attached analysing how long I'd been ill for. Although it is clear I am getting better it is also painfully clear there will be no parties this summer. It is a fact I am surprisingly okay with.
The world becomes real to me again as I carry on around to Boots.
Deodorants are no longer ordered on our shopping list with me vaguely trying to recall the scents of the ones I like. They are real and cool in my hands and all smell quite the same. I buy three. I push my finger into silky foundations and try on lipstick.
I start to feel ill in the children's clothes aisles. Which tells you that I have exhausted all of Boots and am rather bored. Boredom! And not because there's nothing on TV! The day that leaving the house becomes a boring chore will be the day I know I'm well.
I feel I will, though, carry this wonder around me forever. When people who have not seen the dark places I have - not to mention feeling exhausted by lifting their arms up to read in bed - dash about, not thinking, I feel I will always carry a kind of glow, like the glittery eyeshadow I have covered my eyelids in.
I pass a mirror. I look a bit like a clown. I clap a hand over my mouth and realise what matters.
Labels: illness, MindReader
