scenes

[walking along the road]
ME: Oh, look, the protein shop is closing down.
BOYFRIEND: [pulls face]
ME: Are you sad about the protein shop closing down?
BOYFRIEND: Devastated. Now where will I get all my useless chocolate and peanut butter flavoured gunk?
ME: Don't worry. We can order it online from... argh, I need a good protein pun.
BOYFRIEND: You can do it.
ME: From... Where There's a Will There's a Whey dot com!
BOYFRIEND: [looks at me]
ME: I win!
BOYFRIEND: Yes. Yes you do.

scenes

[on the phone to my grandmother]

ME: I just wanted to check you knew that I'm bringing Patrick to your birthday party?
GRAN: Oh yes, your dad told me. That's wonderful, we shall be only too pleased to -

[a thought occurs]

...you have warned him, haven't you?
ME: He knows, don't worry.
GRAN: Just as long as you have. And you'll bring some aspirin for him for afterwards?
ME: I'll pack him a proper emergency family survival kit.
GRAN: Very good. We shall be only too pleased to see him, then.
ME: Thanks, Gran.

the unexpectedly helpful, part one

About a month ago, I performed in a burlesque show. I took a course where I learnt some moves and took some general advice from a professional, and then I picked a song, choreographed a routine, made my costume (well, I made the dress. My garment making hasn't progressed to corsets yet) and performed it onstage to a crowd of screaming people at a beautiful cabaret venue I've been to as a spectator several times.

I still can't quite believe I did it, because I was convinced I was going to drop out before the date rolled around. I was terrified. I was terrified of picking the wrong song, the wrong name, the wrong costume, the wrong moves, the wrong level of eventual nudity. I was convinced I would be the only one who was terrible. I did almost nothing but freak out about it for a full month beforehand.

My boyfriend kept saying to me, "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing." Which did not help. Not even a little bit. But what if I'm not amazing? What happens then? What happens if my jerkbrain is right about everything, just like it always tells me it is? Remember all those times when I thought everything was going to be fine and then it wasn't? 

It was a week beforehand, when I was weighing up whether it was worse to completely bomb a burlesque routine or to pull out a few days prior, mess up the scheduling and let down all my friends who'd bought tickets, that I responded to "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing" with "No, don't tell me that. Tell me it doesn't matter if I'm a little bit shit."

"It doesn't matter in the slightest if you're a little bit shit," he said, without missing a beat, "it's a graduation show. Everyone who's bought a ticket knows they're there to support you, not to judge you. Especially since all the judgy people will be out of the country this weekend."

I didn't really take it in, though I continued asking him to tell me that instead when he told me it would all be fine. I showed up to tech on the night basically too terrified to speak and having visions of myself shaking so badly that the crowd could see it, wobbling on my heels and losing my balance. I was absolutely convinced that this was how my act would fuck up. I was the second to last act, and I am the WORST at anticipation. I knew it was all going to go wrong.

Then they turned off the main lights and the audience started filing in. My boyfriend offered me a glass of pink champagne. I took it.

"Oh, I'm not going to drink til afterwards," said one of the other performers, "I don't want to run the risk of messing up."
"Who cares about messing up?" said Amber Moon from somewhere inside me, gesturing with her champagne glass. "These people are basically contractually obligated to applaud whatever the hell we do."
"...yeah," she said weakly, and left.

I hadn't known who the hell my burlesque persona was up until that point. I'd picked the name on the day of our final submission deadline by looking at a list of cocktails, and choreographing my routine hadn't really given me any ideas. Who was Amber Moon? Some chick in a red dress and octopus pasties. But as I finished my champagne and dug one of my smuggled-in whisky drams out of my handbag, it became obvious to me who she was. Amber Moon doesn't give a shit. Amber Moon is cheerful and unconcerned and does exactly what she wants. Amber Moon doesn't worry about what other people think because she knows, at her core, that it doesn't matter.

Very shortly before my act, I passed my teacher backstage.
"Don't worry," she said, "it'll be fine. You'll be great."
"I'm quite tipsy!" said Amber Moon happily.
"Oh, me too," said my teacher, looking ever so slightly confused.

Amber Moon performed, and honestly I have no idea if I screwed it up. I changed about 40% of my choreography on the spur of the moment and I'd had two glasses of champagne, a gin cocktail and a glass of whisky. But nobody was filming it, so I can't watch it back and pick it to pieces. All I know is that I took my clothes off in front of a roomful of people and they all cheered. I shook my ass and they whooped. I turned my back, whipped off my bra and held it up in the air and there was a BIG DAMN NOISE of approval. It went well. It went well because Amber Moon did not give a shit. Amber Moon did not give a shit because she knew it didn't matter.

I've thought a lot since then about trying to harness Amber Moon in situations that aren't me stripping off on a stage. I know I can't just go "right, now I'm Amber Moon" because it's not always appropriate to drink copiously and shout at near-strangers. But maybe I can work on this as a method of dealing with anxiety. Instead of "let's think of every possible thing that could result from what I'm doing right now no matter how ridiculous" or "let's pretend that NOTHING IS HAPPENING" I could maybe try "so if the major cock-up happens, then what?"

I haven't worked through how this might work in less surreal situations than Burlesque Graduation Show, but I do not have the words to tell you how freeing it was to realise there is nothing my anxiety can say to me here and to ahead and do a really scary thing with no nerves or fear whatsoever. It has to be worth looking for.

scenes

[on the phone]
MUM: And I've got to go to their party this weekend and I'm dreading it.
ME: Aw, I'm sorry.
MUM: Your dad just doesn't think of these things. I don't want to spend time with these horrible people.
ME: It'll be fine. Just take a hip flask. Sneak in your own gin.
MUM: ...now that's an idea. I could take my water bottle!
ME: Yes! Fill it with gin, spend the entire night getting drunk and tell everyone it's your special alkaline water that you have to drink under doctor's orders.
MUM: What a good idea! You have excellent ideas!
ME: Please actually do this now.
MUM: Are you kidding? Of course I'm going to do it!
ME: Secret gin makes everything better.
MUM: You're a good daughter.

saturday

(I couldn't think of a title. Writing is hard.)

It's been an odd week. In some ways it's been noticeably much better; it didn't look a lot different but it felt different, and I'm extremely embarrassed to admit that this is largely due to The Rock waking me up in the morning. My day is now starting when it's meant to instead of at 2.30pm or whenever I can scrabble together enough motivation to do something. It's genuinely quite hard to admit that this random ex-wrestler singing at me in the morning is enough to completely change my entire attitude and perspective on the upcoming day, but there it is. Depression responds to the weirdest things.

I went dancing twice in the space of a few days, which hasn't happened for a very long time. The first time I danced, chatted to people I hadn't spoken to in ages and generally felt a bit more like I knew where I was and what I was doing. The second time, although there were still people I was happy to see and talk to, I didn't really dance and I felt like this wasn't my world and these weren't my people anymore. I don't know where the truth is; I'm going to dance again tomorrow and see if that gives me any more information. I miss people, but do I miss these people? I mean, I definitely miss some of those specific people, but the community as a whole is a different aardvark altogether, and that's what I'm questioning. I need things that will help me get better and I just don't know if this is one of them. But if it's not, then I have to go find other people, and that's a whole different type of scary.

I can't overlook the fact that I'm still really quite angry, both in specific and general terms. People who should have been there for me weren't, people who could have done something didn't, and it makes the whole ethos of the thing feel a bit hollow. I might get over this, when I'm happier, but for now it's hard not to feel resentful in dance spaces. I feel like I ought to be thanking my friends for an improvement in my outlook and circumstances and here I am thanking The Rock instead. That's not right. There is a good chance that at least some of this is more my issue than theirs, but it doesn't help me to focus on that. The anger is still good for me, at least for now.

structure

It's always harder keeping up to date with a blog that doesn't have a defined subject. I've been writing two to three posts a week on sewing for six months without fail, but here where I can write anything? There's too much room to second guess in that. I am going to try, though. I'm going to try writing here twice a week, because that's often enough that posts don't take on unnecessary significance but not overwhelming like trying to write every day would be. Also I've got used to the twice a week rhythm now.

To update from last time: I didn't take a permanent job. I kept it up for two months, but going from eight months off sick (and five years where nobody gave a shit when you turned up for work before that) to a forty-hour 9-6 week whilst still fairly seriously depressed was too much and I had to stop working for a bit. Also after the first couple of weeks they stopped being able to find me enough to do and the last three hours of every day went so slowly that I swear I could actually feel the continental drift.

I still have no idea what I want to do, and the fact that nothing is secure at the moment isn't doing my anxiety a whole lot of good. I have less than no money, I don't really know who my friends are or where my community is, there is a new person in our house, and come August that house won't even be mine anymore. Much as it'll be a change for the better it terrifies me - after all the shit that came before we found this place, the idea of giving up a decent living arrangement voluntarily seems completely insane to me. I find myself haunted by the unknown landlords in my future and suddenly telling the wine-diluting story at the least provocation again.

Trying to give my life some sort of structure, which I know it needs, is proving difficult when I don't really have anything going on. My blog has structure, my life does not. I have a bunch of to-do lists, a pile of sewing projects and some slightly unrealistic plans for getting rid of 40% of my stuff by August, but that's not really enough. My next thing to try is using The Rock Clock to actually get up in the morning, because I'm quite unlikely to sleepily unset my alarm and roll over if I know it means missing out on The Rock singing Good Morning Sunshine and telling me to get my candy ass out of bed. But even that, Best Thing Ever though it might be and I will not hear otherwise, isn't really enough.

What I really need is to be seeing people, talking to people, feeling like my social feet are on something a bit more concrete, but that's the toughest thing to do right now. The idea of spending time with people is exhausting, much more so than the actual spending time with people, and I've been so absent from everything lately that it would be up to me to get in touch with people I used to see and get interaction going again. And it feels like too much, because I feel forgotten. With most people I feel that popping back up and demanding to be remembered is too presumptuous. With a couple of people I feel that the demand to be remembered should come in the form of a solid punch on the nose, and that's not helpful right now. Soon, maybe.

There is probably a way around this. I'm looking out for it.