Reasons I didn’t sleep last night: the dogs were restless, there was a fly that wanted to live in my ear and give my brain electric shocks. I drank a can of diet coke and that never agrees with me. Meep kept meowing in protest at who knows what. There seemed to be a gaggle of people standing in the lane chatting ten to the dozen. I was hot. I took Nightol and it seems to work in reverse on me, knocking me out quickly and then punching me back to life double quick. I was hot. The pillow didn’t seem to be behaving itself. There was a spider on the ceiling I was worrying might drop on my head. I was worrying full stop. I fell down a number of internet rabbit holes. I worried a bit more. And I felt a bit cross with the men of the locality and helpless to do anything about it.
Yesterday I went to the doctors with a little list of thyroidy related matters. It is a new-to-me surgery and it didn’t go well. I would say in fact, that it was quite the worst NHS experience I have ever had. The doctor was probably twelve years old, long and thin and grumpy, wearing both a face mask and a plastic shield so I who struggles to hear in the best of circumstances found myself challenged by an inability to lip read, because there were no lips to read, which meant the few words he did say were entirely lost to me and thus there we were, him muttering at his computer and me sitting with tears in my eyes and still trying to smile and be nice, as I tried to explain my ailments, while he ignored me for the most part, pausing only to dip regular glances at my cleavage and look back up at me with clear disdain while he announced that a) he would not be discussing anything further without a blood test, b) he couldn’t discuss anything related without separate appointments and c) thank-you and have a nice day.
All muttered without a single question or acknowledgement of my tears.
Then having heard that the man who owns the shop over the road was harassing Ben with an offer so firm on the house that he kept whipping out his bank statements to demonstrate available funds (at much reduced price), I headed over to confirm the details of a potential sale and necessary gazumping of existing tardy buyer, and he summoned his daughter who appeared carrying a calculator as if we were about to sign off on an international trade deal, and told me that they would like to complete in two weeks as she was going away and so I stood before them repeatedly asking if they understood that the house was a renovation project and needed significant work, that there was no real kitchen or bathroom to speak of and thus it would need substantial funds to make it liveable, and father and daughter nodded enthusiastically and said no there would be no need to come and view it, please instruct solicitors and I went away worried and then sent some photos over and was met with radio silence until Ben popped over to buy a pint of milk and said man announced he was disappointed by the photographs and who knows where we go from here.
I am in fact ready to scream. The original buyer is still insisting he will be going ahead, though he hasn’t been to the house either because he insists that as a developer he will be taking it back to brick so its condition is irrelevant, and still the solicitors insist they haven’t heard from him and so today I rang him in a I am WOMAN, hear me roar kind of way and told him we would not be tolerating anymore shenanigans and that if his commitment to purchase was not demonstrated by immediate action, we would be pulling out completely, and he was terribly nice and stuttery and apologetic and then he put the phone down and phoned Ben, who was sitting next to me, in an act of sheer misogyny I am ready to punch somebody’s lights out over.
Ugh. Somebody save me? Life has been on hold for over a year and I am so very tired.
NB. See also, flys and spiders and heat and dogs and cats and revelling strangers apparently dancing in the streets.
Anyways. Today I am a woman FUELLED BY FURY and we are going to consider that a good thing, okey-dokey? Because one must not complain. One must keep a stiff upper lip made poutable by an excellent lip-plumper and carry on being too English and too nice and totally infallible and not tested at all by misogyny and dodgy dealings and buy myself a bunch of tulips to arrange in the chaos and keep telling myself that all shall be well and all shall be well and all had better be bloody well soon because aren’t we just sick to death of washing our smalls in buckets and living on junk?
Ugh.
Today then. Ben has popped out to procure sandwiches from a man who isn’t the man across the road. I am in a creative whirl because fury turns out to be rather excellent for speeding up thought and fashioning Brocante magic from misery. And that makes me happy and being happy is a rather odd thing to be when I’m miserable and the only way I can make sense of it is to declare myself a woman who contains multitudes and get. on. with. it.
So this is me getting on with it. I am about to squeeze a bath’s worth of water out of all the jeans Ben owns and find somewhere to hang them to dry, and then I shall order a new charger for the laptop because the last one overheated and declared itself dead, before enjoying a lunch of whatever sandwich Ben brings back from the shop. Outside the sun is cracking the flags, Finn has called and told me EVERYTHING he knows about Joan of Ark for reasons I failed to discern at the beginning of the conversation and I am doing my very best not to sound manic though let it be hereby announced that manic is what I feel…
Should I give myself a quick slap around the chops for calming down purposes? Pop my feet in another bucket of icy cold water for tried and tested relief? Ring the British Medical Council and make a complaint about a doctor who looked at me like I had arrived in his surgery via a strip-club in Soho? Or do what I always do when crisis and calamity are threatening my equilibrium and romanticise the heck of it all, while telling myself that domestic bliss is surely now, only just around the corner?
(I’m so tired).
Maybe work is, as always the answer? Just me and my laptop bringing order to my troubled head while Ben carries on shovelling gravel in the garden and the week rolls gently into the weekend and Finn calls again with news about 1066 or Helen of Troy, and life feels possible because after all there are still books in this world and I’ve got toenails I can paint a silly colour and Meep never walks past me without pressing a fuzzy kiss on my head and the day’s sandwich turned out to be my favourite cheese baguette, and we have got a new prime minister and I don’t know how I feel about that, though maybe he’s hope in a snazzy t-shirt…
(Aside: We spend so much of our lives believing we ought to cope better, don’t we? As though being human were a skill we ought to have mastered by now. But perhaps coping isn’t the point. Maybe noticing is. Noticing when you’ve spent too long waiting. Noticing when you’ve become so busy holding everything together that you’ve forgotten to look after the woman doing all the holding. Noticing when you aren’t being treated well and chucking the disdain you have been received in, right back into the faces of those all too keen to dish it out).
Or maybe some days are for getting back in bed and simply wishing the afternoon away so we can emerge later restored by the sleep we didn’t have the night before?
Yes. I think I might get back in bed for a little afternoon nap. The week is over and it’s been something of a terrible one so I might as well let it give up on itself, and simply drowse with the window’s flung open on a sunny day and my head perhaps at peace for a little while…
Have a lovely weekend won’t you?
House Getting On Top of You But Feel Too Tired To Do Anything About It?
The Slow Scrub is the answer. Available to purchase or FREE to subscribers.
I hope you did take that nap, Alison dear. If not, do give yourself permission to just collapse on the sofa (or equivalent) for as long as it takes to want to get up again. You will, I know. I had a friend who spent years fighting her desire to collapse on the sofa after a day at school teaching. Now in her sixties, she understands what a waste all the wondering and working against her desire (need) was.
And I'm infuriated for you about the misogyny and lack of care from the so called doctor. Please ask around and try to find yourself a caring, probably female doctor. It makes all the difference. xoxo
Naps, I can't get through the day without one of them and the thing I can't stand about doctors, particularly male ones, is a poor bedsized manner that makes a gorilla seem like a welcome companion. Perhaps a scroll through who's who in the world of local female doctors.
I hope tomorrow brings a warm smile to your lips or maybe a few curse words to curb any internal space tha feels hemmed in.