The Hourly / Daily / Weekly / Monthly Struggle

I’m struggling. With quite a lot of things. It hurts to admit it and it hurts to accept it and it hurts to realise it. I have been and am in denial about it all. I keep things close to avoid the questions.

There isn’t anything specific and I don’t know if it’s because of work or because of realisations about work and the direction of my career. I don’t know if it’s about where I feel I should be in life and where I actually am. I don’t know if it’s because of money and I don’t know if it’s just a good whack of depression which means none of it matters because my brain is just being a monumental fart.

My anxiety comes and goes, but it mostly comes. My brain whirrs and I have to set constant reminders and I have to write everything down and I realised today I wrote exactly the same list with exactly the same pen in word-for-word exactly the same order as a list that I wrote yesterday. I ask someone a question, they answer, I reply, I ask them the same question again without skipping a beat. I drive my finger nails into my fingers by curling my hand or I press the nails into the palm. I have to keep my nails short now. If I have an itch on my left eyebrow I scratch it twice, and then I have to scratch the right one twice even though it doesn’t itch. I crack my left pointy finger knuckle and then I have to crack the right pointy finger knuckle even if it doesn’t need it. I like things to be symmetrical, even the kisses from David. He cannot kiss my left cheek or left eyebrow without doing the other side. If he doesn’t I get angsty.

I just feel sad. I feel empty. Maybe I even feel desolate. Barren. Devoid. Devoid of any human emotion or feeling.

Years ago I went to yoga and I went every week and I got the bus and after the session I had to walk a lot of the way home before the next bus came and it felt GREAT. I trusted myself to be out, I went to a new place by myself and kept going back, I walked in the dark by myself while waiting for the bus home. And then I got so anxious I stopped going. Just, stopped.

Last winter I tried a pilates class and just before it started I had an anxiety attack, cried in the lift, managed to suppress it through the rest of the session, and had a massive panic attack afterwards. I have never felt like that before. I could feel it ripping through my heart, coursing through my veins. The sheer terror of I-don’t-know-what. It was absolutely brutal and I never want to go through that again, though of course I have.

Last spring I did a reading at a friends wedding. I had been asked months before but only in passing so I’d put it to the back of my mind. A week before the wedding I had a text, oh by the way can you do this? So I did. I don’t know how I did, but I did. I was an anxious wreck the day before at the rehearsal, I was a wreck on the day of the wedding, I was fine in the church until everyone else sat down and I was left standing. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream I wanted to cry I wanted the ground to swallow me up and I wanted to just not be there. At all. Somehow I managed to get the words out. I finished it and I basically fell back into the seat, into Davids arms so he could comfort me. I clenched my fists SO tight. I fought back big, heavy, shoulder-heaving sobs of tears. I tried to keep quiet and I don’t think I managed. It took me over a year to be able to listen to that song again.

I have closed off so much in the last few years. I’ve never been popular and I never feel like I’ve had a friendship group and I never particularly fit in anywhere or with anyone. I thought I had a best friend who helped me through uni when I went back after a monumental mental breakdown. She was one of the few people I actively kept in touch with. I used to drive to hers to pick her up and take her places just to get her out of the house. She used to dye my hair stupid colours. We went on a three-day girls only roadtrip purely to be nerds and I got her shit faced on cider on the beach. She stayed with my family. One day she asked me for my opinion so I gave it, and she didn’t reply. In fact, she hasn’t spoken to me since. It’s been maybe two years now and I still get hung up about it.

I stopped going to gigs as I fell out of love with it for lots of reasons. The main one was late nights – I used to get up stupid early to do a big fat commute to work in Nottingham and I just couldn’t do the late nights + sedatives + getting up early + driving long distance. I also had issues with friends dropping out last minute. David does not like gigs and I feel bad for always asking him to come. Pretty much every time we’ve been to a gig, we’ve had an argument after it. So I just stop asking him. And I stop going. It also came down to financial reasons. Gone are the days of doing five gigs in a week in four cities every three weeks. I feel like I’ve been excluded from groups I used to gig with but I know that I am the reason I am excluded. I excluded myself. I stopped answering messages. I stopped getting excited about seeing bands I love.

I am still trying to reduce my reliance on social media. I hate it. I hate that I always turn to it when I’m down and that it always makes me feel worse so I keep on doing it in case I magically feel better. It never makes me feel better. I have stopped using and deleted Tumblr. I have stopped using Instagram for personal use, but I do use it for work on my work phone. I no longer use it for work on my personal phone. The next step is to stop using Facebook. It makes me feel so disconnected. Maybe I already am disconnected. From everything. I feel lonelier than ever. I don’t have many friends and I never see them. I feel like I’m too much of a wreck to be around people. I can’t relax around people. If I’m not comfortable around you then that’s that.

I am 31 now. I am miserable. Not because of my age, but because of what I view as failing. I am surprised that I have lived this long and I don’t know where to go with it. The last time I tried moving out and living on my own ended with a massive mental breakdown, dropping out of uni, being dumped, and then being held up against the wall by my throat by my own father.

I am 31 now. I have fucked up so much. I guess I have another 60 years to fuck up. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be 32, 35, 40. Will I still be here? Will I still be on medication to help my brain? Will I still need sedatives to calm the anxiety monster enough to let me sleep? Will I still be living at home? Will I still be poor? Will I still be in entry level work? Will I still be lonely and have no friends and shut myself off from everything?

I am 31. My joints are seizing up with sitting on the bed to write this. I feel emotionless as I haven’t cried while writing this. I need to start doing yoga but I am too anxious to start doing yoga. I need to get back to doing what I love. For me. Not for the benefit of anybody else. For me.

I am 31. I am the only me that I’ve got.

Allotment Life: September 2019

I don’t think I did very much at the allotment during September for lots of reasons. Work was very busy and stressful, money was short, and the weather was (mostly) beautiful. I have done very well for yellow raspberries throughout the month, and we picked the first pumpkin from Plot 4.

Holes bodged (with a finger) ready for carrot seeds.

I cleared out the brassica bed – removing the red cabbage plants and harvesting the only red cabbage. I then planted some plug plants of cabbage in the brassica bed but they have since been eaten / lost to the nasturtium monster, so that hasn’t worked too well. I sowed more radish and carrot seeds in the big square foot bed, and I have been doing very well for fresh salad still.

Allotment salad, except the bell pepper. Very nice with a jacket potato!

Another big project has been ticked off the list; I have wanted to sort out the bulb bed for a few years now and I have finally done it! You can read about it in this blog post. I am very much looking forward to seeing this in the spring!

I have decided I want another fruit tree, so that means I need to buy two now. I am having an almond but I don't know what the second one will be. One already has a raised bed box built (no compost in it though!) and the other will need a raised bed frame. The list is just never ending. I might take out shares in the timber department of Wickes.

We had the first allotment flood of the season. Some of my beds closer to the bottom of the plot, and thus at the bottom of the slope, were under a few inches of water. This is the sole reason why I am trying to build my beds up above ground level. I cannot grow potatoes on my plot and I love growing my own spuds!

Next on my to do list is to get the blue tree bed filled with muck and compost, plant loads of bulbs in it, then buy an almond tree to go in the middle.

I need to completely overhaul the herb bed – remove plants, weed, build the next tier of timber frame, put cardboard down, loads of fresh compost, put herbs back in, then 20mm pebbles in the gaps (for decoration, mostly).

After that, I (read: David) really need to figure out what I’m doing with the paving slabs near the shed. The grass roots are pushing the slabs up so it is getting harder to open the shed door, so I need to lift the slabs, de-weed, dig down a bit, level off, put sand down, then re-bed the slabs and add three new ones so that it is two slabs wide at the front of the shed where it gets really muddy squishy in winter. I have the slabs and the sand, but not the motivation.

Other good things from this month:

Apples and golden raspberries

Aforementioned golden rasperries with some red brethren in a dollop of greek yoghurt

Mommas cosmo bush on Plot 4

Some of the harvest from Plot 4

A wee froggo

A Wee Jaunt to the Isle of Wight; Part Two

Day Four: My birthday!

The day started lazily, in front of the back doors, on the sofa doing some crochet with a hot chocolate. And then a dog appeared! We still have no idea where this pup came from or who it belonged to, but it liked the fuss.

We headed off to the Garlic Farm as we had been told that this is a great place to see red squirrels. I admired their nice woven fences and David admired the samples of garlic & chilli hot sauce they had for people to try. After buying garlics in the shop for my allotment, and my second christmas present for someone else, we headed into the café for a birthday cream tea. It was very lovely and just as we finished up, we saw a red squirrel!! And black pigeons!! And two white peacocks!! I’m not sure what got me most excited.

In the late afternoon we headed back towards Compton Beach so that I could go hunting for dinosaur fossils. We found several huge footprint impressions – though we were a bit disappointed that that was it. It was quite an anti-climax with people telling us “oh you must go and see them!” and “this is the best place for footprints!” etc etc. If you don’t know what you’re looking for they are easy to miss, and David didn’t believe that they were fossil footprints until he did a Google image search of them and compared them.

My birthday ended with me burning my finger on the oven shelf as I retrieved an also burnt pizza, so top marks for me! Starting 31 as I mean to go on…

Day Five: David’s birthday!

Yep. This day started lazily with crochet and a hot chocolate too. It has been the most indulgent sort of week and I have no guilt whatsoever over it.

We headed up to Cowes so David could look at all the boats he wants but will never be able to afford. We went for a wander and found a bakery café and I discovered almond croissants (YES – pastry with a hunk of marzipan in the bottom? Get in my belly!!). It was hard to imagine what this island must be like in tourist or sailing racing season. Most of the shops were closed and it was pretty empty of all life.

After this we headed across to the Alpaca Centre primarily so I could go yarn shopping. Reader: I did go yarn shopping. I bought four balls of wool for making into gloves for David for christmas. The weather was really nice; sunny but crisp, so we headed across to Totland Bay. We went for a paddle! Before we went for a paddle we nearly fell down the steps as they were slippy with seaweed and algae, and then after we went for a paddle we nearly fell up the steps due to a big wave. It was all very exciting. We went for a little walk in the sun, and we saw a hare! We could see all the way to Bournemouth (very hazy in the distance).

heart eyes for days

Day Six:

I wanted to go for a walk. We haven’t done much walking as David is still in recovery from buggering up his knee a few months ago. Big walks are not possible yet, so I found a short-ish walk we could do (thanks, Google!). We headed to Borthwood Copse as the internet said this is a great place to see red squirrels. Within five minutes of being in the wood we saw two! We carried on walking and we got lucky with more squirrel sightings – we even saw two having a territorial debate and a bit of a squabble.

I collected some big fat sweet chestnuts to try and grow (as last years attempt didn’t work at all). We saw a huge clump of yellow stagshorn fungus, and I generally just enjoyed being out in a woodland in the autumn. There is a chance we walked around it a few times trying to find the right exit to get back to the car. We also saw lots of red admiral butterflies still on the wing!

Big trees.

yellow stagshorn fungus

We headed up towards Bembridge to find some lunch but everywhere was shut / it wasn’t a lunchy type place. We did go and mooch in the lifeboat station though, before heading back to Shanklin on the hunt for fish and chips. I followed this up with a morello cherry & white chocolate chunk ice cream.

Day Seven, aka the day that I had seven hot chocolates:

Our last full day. We headed up to Ryde. It rained. It was sunny. It rained again. We got there. We saw a hovercraft!! So we had to wait for it to come back so I could see it land, and then watch it leave again. I LOVE THEM. It rained again. We got soaked.

We took refuge in a chocolate shop with café, and I had, yep, another hot chocolate. This one was REALLY yummy. Davids mocha came in a really sweet little cup. We explored the town, mooched in shops, read up about weaver fish, and then found another café for lunch. Guess what I had!! A hot chocolate! We learnt a new whippy cream technique from the café lady. We tried this new technique as soon as we got home (hot choc #5) and IT WORKED. Game changer.

Spot the weaver fish: pro-tip, you can't.

We covered the radiators in all our soggy wet clothes and I had a soak in the bath to warm through. We also cleaned the house and started packing in preparation for leaving the next day. For dinner, we headed back into Newport to visit a Wetherspoons. I probably had another hot chocolate or two when we got home.

Day Eight:

Our going home day. I started with a hot chocolate – well, I had to use up the rest of the chocolate curls and hot chocolate powder to reduce what we had to bring home, right…?

The sun was glorious and warm, the sky nice and blue. The ferry was delayed and the M27/M3 was awful.

When I got home I had a hot chocolate.