The Game Changer
…. the next instalment of my journal, chronicling a year of change …
7.3 22.24
I went bouldering and bumped into the first woman I met when I got there, months ago, I hadn’t seen her in a while. She spotted me as I was getting ready to leave and asked whether we should have a quick cup of tea. I am glad she did. I could see that she was unhappy and I said ‘Talk to me, I have had a shit six months, I know what it’s like if you need to vent and feel like shit.’
She told me her story. A trained actor, it was only a number of years ago when the work stopped coming in. So she has been working for a government department, trying to place the long term unemployed in almost non-existent positions. There is a lot of conflict in that office, she says she is being put down constantly. She feels shredded, and has started crying uncontrollably at various times, even in the middle of the street. She says she is losing all her friends because she is not nurturing those relationships (makes me wonder why the friends don’t look out for her, but who knows how many layers there are to this). She says she is losing all sense of joy, cares about nothing and just tries to get to the end of the day. Someone came by and made a comment about how wonderful it was that the sun was out (and it was wonderful, spring is coming), and my friend said she had to try hard not to make a grumpy remark. Despite feeling shitty she had spoken to me and it was good that she did. She spoke for a long, long time. There was all this weight on her, you could see it in her face. I gave her my number and told her to call me, we would have a bucket of wine together. I talked about how there would be another avenue, this wasn’t the end. All that stuff, but I mean it, and she could tell. We talked for ages, and ended with a big hug. I gave her my number, in cases she needed to vent. I am glad I could give something back, after my wingpeople had been there for me relentlessly. It’s important for someone to just build you up with whatever it takes, be it some dark humour or cheesy motivational lines, whatever it takes. I am really glad I went bouldering just at the right time.
I miss my game changer. I went to dinner last night, and didn’t speak to him. He went to Paris yesterday to help a friend move, and I don’t know whether he is back or not. I find myself longing to speak to him. Shit. He owes me nothing, absolutely nothing. The thought of him going to Paris and potentially meeting someone, be it casual or permanent, just breaks my heart. Shit!!!
Yesterday, whilst mulling I had the notion of asking him what he was looking for, what it was that I didn’t have. That is why mulling is a bad idea! That is a particularly female thing, we like to analyse and talk things through, to understand and dissect. It was a momentary glitch in my processor, the fault was logged, it was rectified. Cried a little again though.
8.3 21.23
Today it was my turn. Just felt a bit shitty about everything and said so, when my friend in the bouldering hall asked how I was. She told me she would listen. I told her my story and she told me not to resign. She was working with the unemployed, and once you were out, it was hard to get back in. A very fair point. It is absolutely my position that I have to support myself. And what if I don’t find a job? Or just a menial job I hate? Will six months of fun have been worth it? She suggested to give it time, make some money, maybe go on stress leave if that is what I have to do. I didn’t feel that she was patronising me, she just sees the employment market from a really bad angle. Her position is different though. She is a trained actress and worked in that profession until she no longer got work. One could say that she had already followed that impulse to do something creative and unconventional. She had made the choice then not to have a ‘proper’ job, and now understandably values security and money. For me it’s he other way around, I have always had the proper job, and not been happy. I may be doing it in reverse and make the choice now to do something unconventional. And in her case, well, she has her friendship base here, her whole life. I have nothing. Big difference.
But how nice it was to share all this with her, to feel that we could be there for each other with no judgement.
9.3 12.33
Got knocked off my bike and am working from home to nurse my bruises. My game changer saw my online status and called me and was really concerned about me. I felt wonderful. I asked whether he might come to Paris this coming weekend and he said no. I felt less wonderful. Then I mentioned that I will be spending August in Edinburgh for the festival season, and if he wanted to visit Edinburgh during the festival season, he would always be welcome. He said no, once he was back in Montreal he would get stuck into work and not have a holiday for a while. And Montreal was always a party town anyway, there was no reason to go elsewhere. Again I felt a whole lot less wonderful. I wasn’t expecting anything else, but I was — STUPIDLY — hoping for something else. I am a grown woman and am throwing myself at this man, Jesus.
AND HE IS NOT THAT INTO ME.
I hope that I will have enough inherent discipline and self control not to blubber when I say good bye or try to persuade him to stay. I hope I am not going to do anything really stupid.
This sucks, this really, really sucks.
10.3 19.55
It’s official, I have an end date with my employer, the company, this city and this country. I finish at the end of May.
A weight was lifted off my shoulders and I couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. I had feared that my manager would try and talk me out of it. Or even make me feel guilty. Making me feel guilty has been know to work in the past. But she didn’t. I don’t feel guilty for leaving after a short time, but I’m sure neither my manager nor anyone else in my company feels the least bit guilty that I have been feeling miserable, and that my requests for a transfer were denied.
And the first person I want to celebrate with is my game changer. Shit, I will just go to pieces when he flies off. We can’t stay friends once he leaves. Friends tell each other things. I wont be remotely interested in finding out about his fabulous new life. And the fabulous woman he meets. He better not call her his game changer, I might be tempted to stab his eyeballs out with a pen. And then torch that stupid little fucker Elmo.
Met my bouldering buddy this afternoon for a quick session and good chat, we hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks, I knew she had been sick with bronchitis, and had also been arguing with her hubby. Today she told me a bit more, and it really disconcerted me. Apparently he considers all the money he earns to be his, never mind that she gave up her career so she could have a child they both wanted. After she gave birth (nearly two years ago now) she was rather sick and had a few infections. Things took a while to heal and there was no sex for seven weeks. Then she had to go back to hospital for another operation, another infection had flared up. Instead of taking her into his arms and consoling her, hubby whinged that now they couldn’t fuck that evening! My friends’s mother had said that she didn’t want to hear any more stories like that, she was tempted to get violent. My friend said she wasn’t strong enough to leave him. I was surprised to hear that from this tall, bike riding, mountain climbing woman who comes across as very confident. Goes to show that there is always something. Either we don’t feel strong enough, or the guy really gets under our skin.
The other story she told me was heartbreaking. Her friend has a young daughter, a couple of years old. This young girl suffers from feverish fits, which render her unconscious. The mother is prepared with necessary drugs and injections until she can get her girl to emergency. I had never heard of this. It seems the danger period ends at around six. So this poor mother has to wait in agony for another four years. Her girl had a fit while she was driving, and she just drove her car into the ditch. It took a long time for someone to stop and take her to emergency. How would you feel if your daughter died in your arms like that? And here is the kicker. Last time she had to take her daughter to hospital, the girl was placed in the same room as another girl who was suffering from the same fate. And this girl had a particularly nasty fit which left her severely brain damaged. This fit occurred two weeks short of her sixth birthday. Two weeks before that seemingly ‘safe’ date, when the girls’ parents would have dared to believe that all would be well. My God, all my problems momentarily disappeared, my heartbreak diminished. I can’t even fathom what those parents went through.
All this made me wonder what people’s stories might be, and made me think of a guy who used to be at the same university where I did my law degree. I never met him, he went through a couple of years before I did. But he was famous, because he was the best student in almost all subjects (the ones he didn’t clean up were won by his best friend), and won nearly all mooting competitions. His study notes were handed from student to student, I used them as well, and rumour has it one of the units was reorganised based on his notes. I googled him out of curiosity. His parents are both academics, lecturers from memory, so I can only imagine the dinner conversations. He got a famous scholarship and now works as a barrister in the UK. Good looking as well. So I wonder what his burden is, or could it be he doesn’t have one. I am not talking about the eventual death of a loved one, we all have that, but something that diminishes you or makes you question everything or threatens to wipe you out.
Maybe I should look him up on FB and ask him.
10.3 23.54
Despite my Brighton euphoria, I sleep badly. I am restless, I wake up early and feel knackered. Good stress or bad stress? Is there such a thing as good stress? I have moments when I am on cloud nine and it feels almost not real. And then I am nervous, really nervous, about drifting into poverty and not being able to find another job. Ever. And then I remind myself that this my parents talking.
I am not in the gutter quite yet, I have just left a job that made me desperately unhappy. And if it is just me and my four walls, all I see is opportunities right now, not risks.
But I still sleep badly.
11.3 12.38
I hardly talk to anyone in the office but occasionally I get comments on how colourful my dresses are. One colleague said that it’s looks great, always co-ordinated with my jewellery, bright colours in a sea of office grey. On some days I can almost not be bothered, it takes effort. But I need to keep me ‘me’.
11.3 23.37
Everything in this country takes at least two weeks, it’s just bizarre. My ‘Bahncard’ had been sent to the old address, and a renewal card takes two weeks. Two weeks for a piece of plastic! The person at the other end of the line said ironically the card is hand chiseled. A colleague said without any irony that it was because those cards need one of those chips. He added that not many providers supply those chips. Really? Considering every card has one of them? I visualised some guy cranking up a machine by hand to make a chip.
And the paper. Everything is in writing. Data protection laws would be violated if my salary information were to stored on a company system. However, a letter marked ‘private and confidential’ with the name of my employer printed on the outside of it, ironically seems much less safe to me. Anyone can get their hands on it. That same colleague who made the comment about the chip, bless him, said that the posties swear an oath when it comes to data protection. That’s alright then, because nobody ever breaks an oath.
My move is a few months’ away yet, but I already looked in the freezer to see what I have in it, and what needs to be ‘run down’. Not that necessary, since I never stock up large to begin with. I have a chicken breast in there, some salmon, and a few serves of that frozen creamy spinach. I love that stuff, it will be one of the only things I will miss.
And then I came across a tupper container with ragout my game changer had cooked when he was here. I am a lazy cook, my food is simple and honest, mostly very healthy, but it doesn’t taste like it was prepared with love. Cooking to me has always been a chore. Something I had to do for younger brothers when I was young. Something a former boyfriend generally refused to participate in unless I made a song and dance about it. Even my ex, who often claimed that he really liked cooking, was strangely absent when it was time to prepare the meals for the week. The mundane, everyday cooking. He later told me that he had no idea that it upset me so much to stand in the kitchen on my own every Sunday, while he watched TV. The fact that I mentioned every week how much it bothered me to stand in the kitchen on my own cooking while he watched TV obviously lacked clarity. When people first meet me they often think that I am a ball breaker. Men particularly have not been shy in making rather rude and derogatory remarks about how difficult I would be to be with, that my ex deserved empathy for being with me. But it’s me in the kitchen. I have heard so many men bitch about their nagging wives, I didn’t want to nag. Unless a problem is in neon-nag lights, many men don’t see it. Caught between a rock and a hard place.
My first boyfriend and I used to gossip about a couple we knew. We felt so superior to them, because they fought all the time, she bullied and nagged him constantly. But he shared the cooking and dishes. And they stayed together and my boyfriend and I didn’t. I bet they are still together now. I wonder whether they are happy.
So there was this ragout. I couldn’t bear eating it at the time but wasn’t going to throw it away. I hate wasting food, but I am lazy and figured there would be a day when I couldn’t be bothered to even fry an egg. The ragout, heart break or not, would come in handy then. So I ate it yesterday, when I couldn’t be bothered to fry an egg, and I tasted care. To someone like me, who eats with little variety, it was so obvious. The flavours were strong, earthy, rich. This is why people cook, that food is good for the soul. He was playful about it, he made it look like anything other than a chore. I wish I had got to know the act of cooking like that when I was younger. But that’s an endless rabbit hole. Maybe if I had learned to like cooking I wouldn’t be dancing, and who is to say which of these versions of me in parallel realities would be more or less broken or complete?
And eating the ragout also made me think of our time together, and I am sad and I miss him.
But I get to start a new life soon, that feels so, so, so good.