Chirping bushes and social minefields.

I've been living between two places, split down the middle with a clumsy cut through thick jam on sponge - someone wasn't paying attention while everyone was singing and now there are pink drips of wax cooling on the icing. Cardboard boxes on both sides; nowhere is safe, I can't escape. Chaos reigns within comfort and the excitement has all been but gone. My therapist asks me why I'm not excited. She says she's never seen me rise above indifferent, since I got the news all those months ago. I am merely matter of fact. I think it's because I feel foolish being giddy. I won't allow the giggly interior design daydreams to surface. Everything is taken on my chin and I keep wiping my mouth. She asks, 'why don't you live there yet?' I don't have an answer, other than 'because the bathroom needs doing'. 

I keep seeing social media posts telling me not to make my words pretty. Just to 'write them down'. That seems counter-productive. 

This time of year is always odd. As the clouds clear and the bushes start to chirp, I'm reminded of some of the hardest times that came without warning on a warm spring day. Sitting in a conservatory with bandages round my head and a tube in my arm, sipping afternoon tea with loved ones and trying to enjoy the garden full of fellow sick people. 

Photo by NEOSiAM 2024+.

Taxidermy is a strange, morbid form of art. Every time I see one out in the wild (or formerly of the wild), I remember the tattoo artist I went on three dates with many years ago, and how he collected stuffed dead birds and badger skulls. I remember thinking as we ate hummus and half-watched a film in his bedroom, could I live in a house with all of these watching me? 

My office is a social minefield. If you're not there when the sun is cool in the sky, the bagel queues are short and the hoses are out just off Shaftesbury Avenue, then you needn't bother. You're not in. If you're bold enough to rock up mid-morning - and in doing so out yourself as an off-peak traveller and part-timer - or swing by after everyone's lunch breaks and try to find a space in the supposed 'hot-desk' environment, in the group chat's periphery and minds, then you're out of luck. This is why I don't go too often these days, but I realise that in not going even once a week I'm jeopardising my relevance and consideration even more. The quippy remarks will cut and sting, and the loud wonderings about whose seat is whose. Nobody comes with me to get coffee. I bump into colleagues at the shop round the corner, all together. My invite got lost in the silence. So it's best stay home, alone, and try to treasure my peace. Make my new mortgage pay for itself. I'm done trying to be in with the popular crowds. 

I often think about places, and how their meaning changes as time goes on. Because that's what it does; it goes on, and on. I've been driving down a particular road ever since I had lessons at 17 - that road used to torment me, because if we were on it, it meant my instructor was taking me to the roundabout I hated the most. And now, a friend lives there. In the house with the red door. So now I drive by and look. I spy it from the park, while I'm playing rounders with the lovely local team who don't take it too seriously. I've been 'in reverse' - sitting on the balcony, watching the road, all the cars and people passing by, probably as they have for years without noticing. Perspectives change. Meanings change. 

Thank you for reading. 

G. x