Well. THANK you for writing this, Todd.

They should push away from their keyboards and give up. Give up. Talking of fucking giving up, I was about to pull the plug myself until I read this piece of yours so THANKS Todd. I really mean it. But the thing about me is I mean everything I say. And that’s what I’m worried about.

After spending my last few days with the background soundtrack of Don McLean in my head, every time I headed to Emily Friedel’s profile to see what’s doing — to get an update on how things are panning out, the words playing on my soundtrack mirroring what I expect will be Emily’s reaction …

‘I met a girl who sang the blues. And I asked her for some happy news. But she just smiled and turned away.’

So while that perky little number is stuck on replay, haunting me from the speakers in my head, I open a piece on Medium written by someone who is saying stuff about Tim Barrus. I read that and don’t know what to think (still don’t) about the writer. I then click through the chain and see another item from the bowels of the earth wanting to spread the word, for my own good of course, that I don’t know Tim Barrus from a bar of soap and here’s a few facts to ponder.

So it’s at this point I realise that the music has really died. It’s killed it for me I know that much. So now they’re going in for the blood of Tim bloody Barrus?

So I’m about to do what I always do in these situations — I’m going to turn and reach for my lipstick, slowly apply it to perfection, prupp my lips to mark the end of the ritual, reach over again and pick up my handbag, slowly check I have everything I need, then gracefully stand up and walk out the fucking door and never look back.

I’m the queen of doing that.

I had a really neat interaction with the beautiful Sonny Bohanan (don’t know him from a bar of soap either*) about Medium and at the end I included an expression about adversity and character. I’d gotten the expression from a fortune cookie that my boss at the time had handed me. I was about to leave the job. I opened the cookie. I left the job, but the words were not lost on me and have haunted me ever since (like Don fucking McLean had written them).

Another thing about me is that when I perceive that trouble’s a-brewing and I fear someone might take something away, I leave out the back door while the person who’s come a-knocking is still standing on the stoop admiring my choice in door knob. They could be completely harmless, completely fine, I don’t know, doesn’t matter, I don’t risk it. If they’re smiling I don’t walk, I run. In the past, every time I’ve left, things have worked out better. When I’ve tried to exercise faith in what’s looking like a shitty situation, and hold on and stay, things have gradually gotten worse and then I leave in a worse state than I would have had I stayed and I’m covered in the shit I should have walked (or run) away from.

So my wanting to leave Medium has revealed to me that I’m still a bit of a leaver. Hoo-fucking-rah. I went to 14 different schools — I’ve worked at more workplaces than anyone I know (it’s a running joke amongst my friends — they greet me and don’t ask ‘how are you?’ they ask ‘how’s the new job?’ because chances are there is one).

Last night I deleted some of my stuff I’d put on Medium in interactions with Kel Campbell — I know everyone refers to her as Kel but I didn’t know her that well and I feel weird to call her just ‘Kel’. But I will say that I fucking adored her from afar. She had balls and was misunderstood always by at least one person and that’s my life story so she resonated. Ballsy and oft misunderstood. Not many people actually read the interactions I had with Kel Campbell or knew they existed or gave them a star but the ones that did have already read them and they already resonated and they don’t need to read them again so it’s ok — I don’t feel bad about deleting them.

In one of Emily’s comments I saw the word doxxing. I’ll admit, I had to look that word up (see, I don’t know as much as most others about the Internet) and then I realised that Medium isn’t worth it. I’d paid my dues in my younger days of having to exist under the laws of bullies who just aren’t qualified to run me — I knew it — they knew it — I then go into a mode of disbelief — so do they (at the fact no one’s stopping them, which heightens their instability because they know in their goolies they’re not qualified and it frightens and exhilarates them) — they are allowed to continue — who lets it continue? The highers up. Those who decide. Well I’m not letting the highers up decide. I don’t want to subject myself this late in the day to some fucker coming along and repeating history.

People are here on Medium for different reasons — I’m here because, in order to cope with a lifelong depression without dousing it in booze and setting a match to it, I have things I need to say that don’t work, haven’t worked, by merely saying them to myself. I have to mean what I say and say what I mean. No exceptions. No mistruths creeping in or it makes it ugly and pointless. I have to say these things out loud to others who don’t know me and won’t only not judge me but they’ll give me a little star for my efforts (“here, I liked what you said — I felt it too — here, have this”) and people on Medium gravitate towards each other because they too see the magic and beauty in setting words free from your mind like opening a cage and reaching in and grabbing a mishmash of words and throwing them up in the air and instead of being gobbledygook like they were in their head they seem to fall on the page in an unexpected way that you could never have planned if you’d tried. That, to me, is grace. That, to me, is peace. Purity. Magic. Beauty. Honouring the thoughts with the words that chose to stand there alongside and represent them. That is one of the few things left in the world that can’t be fucked with. So — Mediumites not only won’t judge me but they’ll give me a little star.

But no. It’s looking a little bit like the people on Medium who settle for nothing less than honesty from themselves are being peeled off layer by layer — like fucking people being pulled off a line by the fucking exterminators because they’ve gone against the establishment.

I don’t know Tim Barrus from a bar of soap. He doesn’t know me. He’s not going to try and I don’t need him to. We aren’t in the endorsement game — this isn’t LinkedIn. He’s got enough on his plate. I don’t know his boys — I know things are beyond any words I could try and put here so I won’t — I’m unclear in my head what the fuck that set up with them all means but I don’t think I fucking have to be clear, people, do I? Do I? Do I have to know someone’s fucking intricate details of their life and how they live it or die it in order to relate? I’ll tell you the most important thing about Tim Barrus that I do know — his words speak to me like no one’s words have ever spoken to me. Ever. No one’s. I don’t know what that makes me but I’ll tell you what, I’m with him. I’m with him. If the exterminators want to now come along and pick him off the line and put him to the side to deal with him later then, fucking hell, put me there too because I don’t want to stay in a world where this shit still occurs, and Don fucking McLean better pick up his guitar and come up with another haunting tune because if this is what still happens we’ve got bigger problems in this world than we thought and someone speaking their words is not one of them.

I always leave. Always. At some point. And I’ll never spare it another fucking thought. I thought I’d changed. I really did. But I haven’t changed at all. So, at the moment, I’m in experimental mode — I’m feeling I should leave but I’m open to the idea that there’s something in this for me personally if I stay. So I’ll follow my nose on this one and try and exercise the little-used ‘staying with it’ muscle. I’ll practice staying. It might make me a better person.

This time next week, month, year adversity might reveal a different character in me.

Don’t give this comment a star. I don’t want it. I just wanted the words out and on paper and that’s done all it needed to do.

Now I’m going to go and have a bawl. And not to Don McLean (god love him). It’s time I changed the soundtrack.

*Although I am aware that Sonny and I share some history with fortune cookies, one of life’s weird coincidences. Check out his profile blurb to understand what I mean.