My arse in an airplane seat.

I’m worried about my arse! I’m not usually worried about it... in fact, when I do think about it, it’s usually when I see it in a dressing room mirror, from behind, at an awkward angle, and I think my God that’s a good chunk of bum, but at the same time I’m annoyed that it doesn’t fit into many jeans or trousers. 

I have a large posterior, always have done, and it does get a lot of attention from a certain type of male. The certain type of male that likes voluptuous round arses funnily enough. But that’s not the problem. The reason I’m worried about it, is that next week I have to squeeze it into a small seat on a small plane, for ten hours on a flight to Cuba. I’m fine in normal airplane seats but I get the feeling that this might be a bit smaller than the normal jumbo jets and that I’ll have to push it down, between the arm rests and hope my neighbours don’t mind an extra bit of bum and top thigh pushing against their own. 

Most people look at me and see a pin head, then they look further down and see ample boobs and a waist. But then my body sort of explodes outwards... I am a very peary pear-shape and it takes people by surprise. I stupidly have changed my seat to a window seat and realise my bottom will have to pass two passengers to reach its destination. My big bum inches from their faces!! I just hope they don’t tut or sigh loudly and don’t roll their eyes or give their other neighbour a knowing look that says.. oh great, we’ve got a fatty next to us! For ten bloody hours!

Or let’s just hope they are one of the people that favour the larger derriere, then I’ll be fine!

How Similar.

When you find a blog that seems to be written by your doppelgänger or at least someone that seems to be in a similar place to you.. it's as refreshing as spring rain. It goes something like these ladies…
http://40shadesofdisappointment.wordpress.com

Rut.

I'm stuck. I'm stuck in a circle of illness and the inability to want to continue my life the way its has been going. I'm not sure if the illness is causing the despair that my life is not how I want it, or the disappointment of my life is causing me to be ill. Chicken and egg.

I can absolutely and truthfully admit that my illness is real. As was the 5 hours spent in A&E yesterday. That sort of thing you cannot fake. You cannot fake chest x-rays and blood tests. You cannot fake asthma or a constant and unforgiving rattle in the lungs that teases me and bullies me every time I breathe. You cannot fake a doctor saying to you that you have a chest infection and sinusitis and labyrinthitis. That you need to go home and go to bed and take all the medication and take it easy and not rush back to work. You can't pretend to be ill when the experts are poking and prodding you because science doesn't lie.

So why do I feel as if I've willed it to happen. That another day spent freelancing for a studio, doing a job that at most makes me feel lacklustre, has somehow caused my body to rebel and bring on all these sicknesses because I don't want to do it anymore. There is another vicious circle at play here… if I don't work, I don't have the luxury of doing the things that do make me happy – writing and traveling. If I don't work I don't get paid, I am a freelance designer after all. If I don't get paid, I can survive about two weeks before things start to unravel. Two weeks without work and my direct debits are in jeopardy, my bills are on the cusp of not being paid, my mortgage may bounce. I should have savings though, you think, possibly out loud, as you read this. I have a back-up plan surely, for when things are bad. But you see, I never really have had a back-up plan. I always seem to do ok. I always work just enough to cover everything. I don't work more hours when offered because I don't like what I do, enough to want to do it for more hours than is absolutely possible.

So, here I am in week three of being ill, wondering what the hell I'm going to do. You see I did something stupid. I was so miserable before Christmas with the endless rat run of my life, that I spent my tax money on a trip to Cuba. I paid out £2500 on an amazing 2 weeks in Cuba that I am supposed to be going on in 3 weeks from now, and I am left with nothing. I cannot pay my tax, my bills, my mortgage. I have no spending money to take to Cuba. And I have not been able to do a full weeks work in 3 weeks because my body (and mind) refuse to get well. But there is this nagging thought in the back of my mind, that somehow, I have made myself sick. That it is some kind of wake-up call, making me really truly face my fears and get the fuck out. 

I did attempt to go back to work on Monday. I was still on antibiotics and steroids and inhalers but I knew I had to try and make it for a few days at least. I needed to earn some money and so I managed to just scrape through those 8 hideous hours. I wasn't given anything too difficult, my brain coped as my body cried to go home but it was ok. But yesterday, Tuesday, I only made it to midday. I then had a panic attack. I was sitting in front of my computer and was about to work on a design, and the room began to swim. The printers – which quite unfairly have been moved next to the freelancers desks, and emit a loud whine and an intense heat at all times – were screaming as they forced out paper after paper. I held my head and groaned and a couple of freelancers nodded in appreciation of my pain. They felt it too but they weren't ill and so the intensity wasn't quite so great. The printer was the pain in my head, and I gripped the desk as the room swayed. As the room swayed, I blinked and blinked but couldn't focus, on anything. My breathing became shallow and I started to wheeze and as that small whine left my body, I began to panic. I couldn't do it. I stood slowly and unsteadily went to the loo. I put my wrists under the cool water from the tap and I looked at myself in the mirror, willing it to stop. I told myself not to panic and I used my inhaler. My breathing started to slow and I went back to my desk. Then wallop, it was back. I gripped the back of my chair and quickly put things in my bag, vaguely trying to form a plan. I couldn't think straight, I only knew I had to get outside, to leave the building, to go home. I made it to the lift and clung to the walls as I went to the lobby. No one was around except the two receptionists. It was lunchtime thank god, so no one had noticed my strange behaviour, my unsteady steps. But the girls at reception noticed immediately. I must have been white as a sheet. One said… Jules, and put a hand out towards me. Are you ok? she asked. No, I said. And then I just stood there looking at her. I didn't know where to go, or what to do. I just wanted someone to take care of me, to help me, to tell me what to do. And she put her head on one side and told me to calm down, and that everything would be ok, and she guided me to a little room and said she would call a taxi. She took care of me for 30 seconds and I felt such gratitude. I have no one to look after me and miss those little kind words and caring gestures. I sat there and thought how tired I was, of it all, of doing it by myself, all the fucking time, and the panic came at me again, in a giant wave that left me gasping for air and holding onto the coffee table as I tried to keep whole. 

I heard the receptionist tell the taxi driver to take me to emergency, to University College Hospital, and I didn't refuse. I walked slowly to the car and tried to breathe as the car raced through traffic and road works to the busy hospital. They signed me in and heard my rasping breath as I tried to explain what was happening. I saw the concern and genuine worry as they led me to a nurse. But the panic was making me silent… I felt if I tried to explain that my world might end. That voicing anything at that moment would turn on a tap that wouldn't stop, so I let them do their medical things and I waited. I wasn't told I had had a pretty intense panic attack. That, I think they knew was the tail end of the illness. They knew that the asthma and the general feeling of being incredibly unwell had most probably brought on the panic attack. They most probably see that everyday too so know its best just to keep to the facts and remain calm. They genuinely were some of the nicest people I have met. Maybe they saw the fear in my eyes, the loneliness too, or maybe they were just doing their job, but I felt a level of compassion that I haven't felt in a long time. 

And so with that, came an amazing restfulness. My panic subsided as I let myself be looked after. I let them do their chest x-rays and their blood tests. I let them put in drips and needles and I let them bring me sweet tea and biscuits. I let them do it all for 5 hours until the consultant had all he needed. I then let him tell me I should be in bed, that I was really quite ill and I listened to him. He was kind and gentle and explained things to me. He gave me advice and wrote prescriptions and he made sure I was ok to leave on my own. He made me promise to call him if I was worried and gave me a number. He took his time.

I had someone tell me what to do and I stopped panicking. All it took was a reassurance and a few kind words, and the relief of not having to make every single damn decision on my own, every day of my bloody life, was glorious. 

On reflection...

My last post on here was almost a year ago. Why?

It’s hard to tell the truth all the time. 

I write another blog (WhatISaw.WhatIHeard) which regales the reader with tales of my life, but it’s the fun stuff, the witty anecdotes, the amusing observations. On here, I write openly about my hurt, my open wounds. It’s more like a journal and therefore, is more painful to write. I suppose my blogs are the two sides to my personality. The one I want people to see, and the one I don’t. This one I hide from my friends and family. It is anonymous. It is secret.

We are all very good at hiding things in everyday life, I know I am. I am so often told how jolly I am, how confident I am, how unafraid I am. That I make the most out of life and grab each day with gusto. Yes, that’s the Jules I want people to see, and I’ve become very good at it. But that is my external self, the public self, the self-preservation person, the one that doesn’t get hurt, the one that doesn’t need anyone or anything, the one that has no vulnerability. So am I leading a double life? Of course I am. 

No one can spend the day thinking of all the stuff in their life that they don’t like, the things that get them down, what makes us cry. We would all be leaping off tall buildings if that were the case. But we all get moments when we can wallow in the sadness, when we don’t want to get out of bed and would prefer to cry and hide under the covers for a while. And you know what, the older I get, the more readily I can admit to that. I’m not alone either it seems. My friends are more honest about themselves, about their hopes and disappointments. I get long emails from old school and college friends, pouring their hearts out about their sadness and despair. I write back with my own. I share more. I know that by getting things out, it doesn’t seem as lonely a place as I originally thought. 

Even today I have been writing back and forth to a friend who I see at work almost on a daily basis. I happen to be off sick with a heinous chest infection but I know I will see her in a few days. So why write endless emails to each other? Because we really aren’t that brave in person. We can’t seem to get it out in speech and not be embarrassed by our purging. Writing is so much easier isn’t it? We are both in our mid-forties. We are both single. We are both childless. My decision to not have children was taken out of my hands when I was told at 39 that I was going through the menopause. Until that age, I had not met the right man and therefore, hadn’t been in a situation where I wanted to have a child. My time ran out. My friend is in the same situation but without the menopause bit. She has just never met the right person either. She did not want to have children with a man who she didn’t see as part of her future. It’s an incredibly responsible approach really and very unselfish but now she is alone because of that decision. It seems very unfair. We also have bonded over our loneliness or rather our hidden loneliness. I have exposed to her my vulnerable side, I have told her how lonely I feel, with no shame or embarrassment because I know she experiences the same thing. But on the outside, aren’t the two of us the most fun-loving, strong, independent women we know? Of course we are, it’s self preservation. If we let our guard down, we would be two pathetic bawling rags on the floor!!! And we can’t have that can we? Certainly neither of us were brought up to be so ‘open’ about our feelings. Gosh, sometimes our parents make it very hard for us don’t they??

So, as I lay here in bed for the third consecutive day, on both steroids and antibiotics for my crappy chest and asthma, I began feeling even more sorry for myself. Illness is a great time to feel well and truly miserable. Your body hurts, your brain hurts and every single thing in your life seems shit. And for me, living alone, with no boyfriend, husband or kids, there is also no one to bring you a mug of soup, or some paracetamol. You are alone with your illness and there is nothing crappier than that. I think that’s where it started this morning, the emails with my friend. I kept thinking – as well as dying and no one finding me for days – that if I was ill in 10 years or 20 years, would I still be alone in my flat with no one to worry about me, no one to take care of me. And I cried. I cried for my older self for a good 5 minutes, until it sent me into a wheezing and coughing frenzy and then I stopped. Self pity is rather revolting but a good cry every now and then is wonderful because you can then shout at yourself afterwards for being so stupid. 

I had an email from the friend at work, just as I had finished crying. All she wrote was, “I feel gloomy today. Sick of flogging it alone”. And it went from there. As a detail, she had just started dating a man with children, going through a divorce. After 3 weeks, he said he wasn’t ready for a relationship and that she didn’t seem to need anyone in her life anyway. He was mean to her, his words hurt her but they also made her realise that she comes across that way, to men. She is afraid to get hurt by seeming to need or want anything. So she makes out her life is perfect. It’s a lie of course.

I wrote back… (and I know she won’t mind me putting it on here because if it makes one single person feel a little better and not so alone, then that’s a good thing)

Darling, 
Oh me too... That's what has upset me so much this week. Just that vicious circle of going round and round with nothing changing. I feel like a hamster on a wheel, just round and round with nothing to show for it. Always doing it on my own, no support, no one to help, no one to look after me. Then I fast forward 20 years and wonder what will life be like then? I don't want to be alone anymore either. I know how you feel darling. It's just shit.
I think that's the hardest part of not having children. We see no change in our lives. With children your life changes daily as they grow. Your life constantly looks different whereas I feel my life hasn't looked different for years. Yes I fill it with friends and fun things and traveling but from the outside there is nothing different.
God I don't mean to depress you any more darling. Sorry.
I think we both need to find men that already have children. XX wasn't the right one for you but I think we are both incredibly nurturing and need someone to look after. With someone that has children we may get the chance to experience that, or at least grandchildren in 20 years, at least.
I'm not in a good place to start dating again but I think I'm now realistic with what I want. And that is family. My own family and I are soooo close and so it's incredibly important to me. I have known since I was 39 I couldn't have children and so it was always a case of... Well how else can you have a family then?
I know we are so similar in how we think. We are cheerful and upbeat on the outside, but inside we are crying for someone. And yes, we get down and blue. I know I am very prone to illness... I knew that from the moment my thyroid was removed, one of the side effects unfortunately. Low immune system. So I get ill a lot. And when I get ill I get very blue. I overthink everything and my life feels so empty. But then I get emails from friends and I realise I have such am incredible support network and that you guys keep me going.
I know we are fairly new friends but I really value your friendship honey. I'm always here for you too. Huge hug.
X x x

J, Every single thing you've mentioned describes exactly how I feel. On the outside I stand strong and prob come across as a little tough & hard to the opposite sex.
I'm defo tough but I have an enormous heart with so much love to give - this feeling can be suffocating.
Although cock features isn't for me I found myself saying "I love my life, I feel blessed for what I have ( I do) but I won't tolerate or compromise unless it feels right", which is true - I painted my life to appear fantastic as I was protecting myself.  I do this a lot.
x

K, I do think we do sometimes shoot ourselves in the foot for not being vulnerable though. My ex said to me.. sometimes you appear as if you need no one. You are so independent and self assured, it sometimes feels as if there isn't room in your life for someone else. And your confidence is a little intimidating, as if I will never be good enough.
Eek.. so our strength is actually sometimes quite off-putting!
Men do like a bit of vulnerability. They like to be wanted and needed. The damsel if you like… And I know I have to change that about me sometimes. The big brave Jules is my exterior protection shell. No one can hurt me if I don't trust or open my heart to anyone. I know that. I was ready when I met my ex, to open myself to him, to show what I really wanted. I trusted him with my honesty and vulnerable side… and then it went wrong. He chose his dead wife over me… he was being honest with himself. And of course I was devastated. But I don't regret opening up to him. I don't regret having my heart broken. I felt a sense of euphoria and freedom for not pretending all was ok and I could combat everything.
It's taken me a while to think I can do it again though. But I do learn from my mistakes. I need to knock down my armour a little and not appear too bloody Boudicea or Boodica, or however you are supposed to pronounce her name these days.
Yes we are strong women, but are lives are far from perfect and its not a sign of weakness to admit that. Even if its just between us.. haha.
Love you sweetie.

J, I think we both have to choose more wisely, sometimes it's not always that straight forward as men play games. Better to have loved than not so I'll try and open myself up more. I will  learn from this.
Great we can chat like this x

The exchange went on for the next hour (not sure what work she is doing!) but it was pretty much along the same vein. The email exchange won’t solve anything, it won’t change either of our circumstances but it is so wonderful being able to tell someone, and in my friends’ words, and how she signed off her last email…

“… it is just comforting to know you feel the same.”

So it is. So it is.