And I am. What is it about? The weather, the dark, the cold, the jaggedness of my hips, my sciatica, the endless, nay relentless work? I don’t know. But I am sorry about it. For I know that so many, too many, have lives that are abject in the extreme. I am blessed but I forget this daily, hourly. Forgive me. I will try harder.
Some days are like that. And it was a seven. I usually anticipate those with pleasure. Yesterday didn’t rise to the occasion. Though of course, it was me, not the day. Days are just days, not real, just carved-out sections of time between light and dark. I became rattled. I unravelled. It was fear of course. It tends to be. He was a saint. He helped. He always does. I am blessed.
I’m not sure why. Though it’s undoubtedly self-pity. My body hurts and doesn’t work as it ought. Stress of course, and tiredness and the my forever dread of the onset of winter. I must shake myself out of it. Now. It’s not warranted, ever. I have so much. So many gifts. Live it. Be and be not afraid….
Sometimes they are indivisible to me. Both are spurred by fear. Fear of failure mostly, of not being good enough. When I am in the process of doing them, it is better, though only marginally. Stepping out is the worst, then the judgement comes. I see everything that I do through the eyes of the child I once was. Stumbling, fumbling and failing to make sense of what was going on around me. Or at least that is how it felt, and still does, to a certain extent. Can I do this, really?
I had two – flu and pneumonia. I thought I’d be untouched. I wasn’t. They’ve felled me. I tried to walk and to do my usual yoga, but to no avail. I will also try to do some work, or at least begin. There’s power in the beginning of something, Goethe wrote. Amen to that.
He read out John Harris’ article on Liverpool’s homeless to me as I made supper. It stood me still. Each month so many people, even those in work are just ten pounds or so away from losing the roof over their heads. It’s heartbreaking. I know that fear. It stays with you. Always. There must be more that can be done. We are a wealthy nation, why must so many of its citizens go without shelter, safety and food? Why?
It takes him over. He cannot contain it. It must out. And it did. Yesterday. He told her that as a result he was in the dog house. He wasn’t. I understood. Totally. It’s harder when his rage is directed at me. Then the forgiving takes longer. Not yesterday. I saw it clearly. And it’s ok.
It’s a contentious subject for some. I became too strident. She took offence. I didn’t mean her to. I apologised, and I think she understood. But her talk had unsettled me. I’ve never known the right course of action. Perhaps there is no such thing. It’s an emotional thing, our relationship with food and eating. Well, it certainly is for me. I want to understand, my relationship in particular and to do better by my body. For, all too often, it doesn’t seem to like the decisions I make on its behalf. Do better, Ellen. Do better.
It’s coming. I feel it in the flat more than outside. A beginning of the nipping, sometimes biting of my toes, and the ends of my fingers feeling cold and often numb. He reads out the sunrise times up until the end of December when it is nearly 8.30 am. Shall we survive it? It’s a closing in. And I don’t want to go out into it. That dark. That full dark.
It skins me. I am stripped bare by these public engagements. They are small things but, as far I am concerned, loaded with judgement. I know that I don’t see clearly, that my response is a long ago one, remembered and forever saved as a default position. Nevertheless, it is excruciating.