Wednesday 31 December 2014

On Pain, Timing, Heartbreak, and All the Rest of that Character Building Stuff.

When I was a little kid, I never cried at anything important. I cried at stupid things, like being “hungry” (as in, I wasn’t actually hungry; I just liked to eat out of boredom. I still do), but I didn’t cry when my Nana died, and I only cried a tiny bit when my cat Bella died. Now I cry at practically everything. I think I started crying about actual sad things when I was somewhere between ten and twelve, and by “actual sad things” I mostly mean books. My emotional journey, and practically everything I’ve ever learnt about life, came from novels and the lessons they taught me.

The first book I remember being truly distraught at was John Dickinson’s “The Cup of the World”. It was my favourite book when I was twelve/thirteen, though I only ever read it once. I would repeatedly reread my favourite scenes, especially the one where Phaedra confronts Ulfin (page 400andsomething, I believe). I probably cried at “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” prior to this, but it’s “The Cup of the World” which I remember as the breakthrough book in terms of emotions.

As I come to the end of my sixteenth year, I cry at many things; I cry freely, and I cry too much. In The Fault in Our Stars, one of my all-time favourite books (do not read it, you will absolutely sob! But do read it because Augustus Waters is the most perfect guy to ever not exist), there’s this line “That’s the thing about pain; it demands to be felt”, and I have found that to be more and more true the more of life I experience.

I’ve changed a lot in the past few years. I used to be really shy, and scared of so many things. I’m still scared of things. Last night I actually jumped at my own shadow, which I think proves what a complete cliché I am (though I laughed a lot about it afterwards, because it is so incredibly cliché, and so am I, to some extent).
But I have changed, and my response to fear has changed with me. I have become gutsy and impulsive, and that terrifies me more than anything, because once I get an idea into my head, I will follow through with it, and that never works out the way I plan.

Over the past year or so, I have become more and more passionate about feminism, and I’m beginning to realise exactly what that means. It’s not always easy to practice what you preach. I’m forever telling my sister that “If you like someone, you have to communicate with them, you have to tell them how you feel, otherwise you can never move forward”. I’m always telling her to do that, but when have I ever done that? You can probably see where this is going now, right?

Today I did something very brave. It’s not the bravest thing I’ve ever done; the bravest thing I’ve ever done was go to secondary school after years of being homeschooled, but I’d say that this is a close second.

There was a guy (isn’t that how all the stories start?), and he was absolutely beautiful. He had dark hair, and really dark eyebrows which were juxtaposed to his pale face, and he had dimples, and the loveliest smile I had ever seen. He was intoxicating in the most calming way.
When I was fourteen, I bought a juice in a café, and the guy behind the counter smiled at me, and I knew then that he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Afterwards, my sister said that the guy was really hot, and I felt really angry with her, because I didn’t want her to agree with me.

He’d be working in that café sporadically over the next two years, and whenever he saw me he’d grin at me and say “Hi, how are you?” even if he was in the middle of a conversation. He left an impression on me, certainly, but I didn’t see him enough for it to be at the forefront of my mind. Last May, though, I started working in that very same café. By this point, he was working in a different part of the same place, but he’d always come into the café to get ice cubes, or to just stand in the kitchen and talk to whomever was working. He still smiled at me, still asked me how I was, but it was different now, because it was more often, and he seemed even more beautiful than he had before.

There was only a month or so when we were both working in the same building at the same time, because he went travelling, and after that I only saw him once before he went to university. But he’s back now, for the Christmas Holidays, and he’s even more beautiful than I remembered.
I’ve used the word “beautiful” quite a few times now, so I’d just like to clarify that I don’t just mean he’s aesthetically attractive, or anything as superficial as that. He is incredibly attractive, but it’s not just that: it’s the way he smiles as if he’s completely enchanted by the person he’s smiling at, and it’s the way that he talks, and the way that he’s just so completely himself. I was enchanted by him – I still am.

Three days ago, I was talking about him to some women at work. Not in the context of “I really really like him”, because there was no way I was going to say that. But when I mentioned him, one of the women randomly said “You two would be good together”, and I suppose my blushing (and eventual agreement) gave me away, because a few minutes later I had four women telling me that I needed to ask him out.

At first, I was completely adamant that I could NOT EVER ask him out; because what if he thought I was stupid? What if he said no? What if he didn’t like me like that? What if he thought I was too young for him, or the distance was too much, etc?
The problem with me, though, is that once I get a really stupid and risky idea in my head, I just absolutely HAVE to do it. For anyone who’s read TRANSCEND, think of what happens in Chapter Eight. That storyline came to me in a dream, and I woke up and thought “No, I can’t POSSIBLY do that! It just wouldn’t work!” By the end of the day, I’d changed the entire plot of the novel to incorporate that idea into the story.

So you can probably imagine how I would react when I got the idea into my head that I should ask someone out. Especially given that it also meant I was proving my worth as a feminist. In a patriarchal society, girls are taught not to ask guys out, because girls are meant to be the passive sex, whilst guys are the motivated ones, the ones who are allowed to make all the moves. Whereas in a feminist society there would be true equality, and girls would be allowed to ask guys out.

So I decided that I would, no matter how nervous I got, and no matter how much I wanted to chicken out, I would do it: I would ask him out.

Here’s some life advice: don’t drink coffee when you’re nervous, because it will increase it tenfold. And don’t eat lemon cake and almond croissants, because they will bring you very close to throwing up.

So, after consuming way too much caffeine, with my heart battling the constraints of my chest the way a wild animal battles a cage, I did it. I asked him out. And he said he needed to think about it. I felt so ill. My entire body was composed of my heartbeat and nothing else, as though all my blood was trying to escape me. I had always known he was never going to say yes. He had been acting like he really liked me, but for all I know it could have just been my imagination putting a different spin on things to make it seem that way. And I couldn’t imagine him saying a straight-out no, because he’s too nice for that. So I had always known it wasn’t going to be an easy answer.

A couple of hours later he came up to me and explained why he couldn’t say yes: he was already seeing someone else. “Of course”, thought my deflated mind, “of course.” And beneath the raging sea of bitter disappointment, I knew that this was how it was meant to be, because that’s how it works. Nothing is simple in the way you want it to be.
He apologised, and he smiled his beautiful smile, and I still found him completely irresistible, but I knew that that was the end of my silly fantasies. For the second time today, I proved my worth as a feminist. Because feminism means you respect other women enough to never even consider chasing after another girl’s boyfriend, no matter how much you want to be with him.

So I smiled back, apologised myself, and went to the toilets and cried for a bit. Then I went and got a cup of tea, because not only am I a cliché, but I’m a British cliché. Then I went and cried some more, but it wasn’t proper crying, it was that awful thing where you try not to cry and your face gets redder and redder, and your lip trembles, and tears slide over the bottom of your eyes and down your face. I told myself to breathe; I told myself that I am a strong, independent, feminist woman who don’t need no man. Then I cursed myself for using a sentence with a double-negative in it, then I told myself to breathe, and left the toilets. Twenty or so minutes later, I went up to him and told him that I hoped he was really happy with her/him. He smiled slightly at the “him”, and said “She’s really nice”. I smiled back, and I gave him a quick hug and told him that if he ever changes his mind he knows where to find me (which I know is decidedly un-feminist, but the sad thing is that the patriarchy creeps into our actions no matter how hard we try to avoid it, because it has been conditioning us for our entire lives).

And then I walked away. I, Eliza Serena Robinson, the queen of Never Letter Things Go, walked away from the one person that I truly wanted, and that scares me like hell because it means that I’m maturing.

After letting myself be completely enchanted by his smile one last time, I left the building, and walked to the quietest part of town I could find, and cried more than I’ve cried in a very long time. And I didn’t stop myself. I didn’t try to tell myself that everything was okay, because I knew that it wasn’t. That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt. So I felt it, and it ached. It ached more than the end of Mockingjay, more than the end of Allegiant, more than the end of every book I’ve ever read. Because life is not a novel but at the same time it most painfully is.

There was so much foreshadowing, but I never guessed the way the plot would end. And sometimes the “happily ever after” you so wish for can only be once upon a time. And that hurts like hell, but it builds your character. And we’re not dead yet, so you never know. But it probably won’t happen, because why would it? I hope he’s really happy with this girl; I genuinely do, because he is beautiful, and he deserves to be loved, even if it’s not by me. And I hope that I’m happy with the cats which I intend to acquire, because all this has done is assist me on my way to spinsterhood and crazy-cat-lady-ness.

And hey, at least I’ve got something to write about. Because let’s face it, this will probably end up in one of my novels, because how can it not? Every time I feel hurt, another character is born deep inside of me, and one day that character will emerge, and grow, and the pain will go away.

I don’t know which of my characters have been born out of pain, and which out of curiosity, but I think I can guess. Phoenix is a character made out of pain. Phoenix was meant to be a nice, happy, bubbly character, and she was meant to be like the best friend I’d never had but always wanted. Instead she turned into the bitterest form of myself that it was possible to imagine, and if you read TRANSCEND you can see just how well she finally manages to overcome that. Phoenix transformed her pain, for the greater good, and I transformed my old pain, for my own good.

But Phoenix and I have learned the same lesson, and it’s that one person isn’t enough. Phoenix wasn’t happy with just Persephone, in the same way that I need more than the people I sometimes call my friends. Because everybody has other people, and when people have someone other than you, you’re going to end up alone.  I don’t have the person who’ll choose me over and over again, but maybe that’s because I’m not ready yet, or they’re not. Or maybe we haven’t met, or maybe we have. I don’t know. Timing’s a bitch.

Time works in a weird way. Because if I’d just asked him out at the end of the summer, he wouldn’t have met this girl, but I doubt he would have said yes to me, because it wasn’t meant to be back then, just as it’s not meant to be right now. I hadn’t grown enough back then. I’ve changed so much since starting Sixth Form, and I’ve grown into the person that I’m probably going to be for a while. But he’s grown in a different direction, and our paths just haven’t crossed at the right time.

Here’s the difference between me and Phoenix: I’m not angry. When Phoenix found out that Kai was with Abynechka, she: threw up, freaked out, joined the army, and hated Abynechka (okay, she hated her anyway, but this strengthened it). And Phoenix hated Kai, too. She hated him because she wanted him so much.
I don’t hate this guy – at all – because he’s lovely, and he deserves to be happy, and, let’s face it, I would have been the girlfriend from hell. And I don’t hate the girl that he’s with, either. How could I? I’ve never met her; I don’t know her. He says she’s really nice, so that means that she is really nice. And even if she’s not, he thinks she is, and that’s all that matters. I wish them well.

And if they don’t work out, and I’m still around, well then maybe… Just maybe… But I’m not going to focus on it for too long, because he isn’t mine to focus on, and I have enough self-respect to know when to let things lie.

So this is the end of the road: our paths have diverged, we’ve gone in different directions. In a week or so, he’ll go back to university, and he’ll be gone again for several months.
On Monday, I’ll be back at school. I’ll fall back into my old routines. I’ll do my schoolwork; write the five-or-so essays a week which will define the next two years of my life. I’ll spend all my free lessons hanging out in a tiny room in the English department, hiding away from the rest of my year-group. I’ll write my novels. I’ll read novels. I’ll pass my A Levels, and I’ll go to university, and I’ll follow my plans. Because some plans do work out (but only the ones which don’t involve other people).

I’m learning more and more often that there is a difference between plans and fantasies. Plans are something you can work towards, a means that you can follow to a definite end. Fantasies, though… well they can completely crush you. Fantasies don’t have logic or instructions; they are nothing more than spontaneous bouts of unacknowledged self-destruction. I spend a great deal of my life fantasising about all these different little things that I want to happen. The problem is my fantasies have never really come true, so somewhere deep inside me I don’t expect them ever to.

The things I want to achieve in my life, such as the grades I want in my A Levels, are things which I can plan, things which I can work towards… But anything involving other people, whether that is in terms of friends, or anything else, that’s something I can’t plan for. All I can do is cling on to the thinnest threads of hope as I fall blindly, headfirst, into the abyss.

But it’s the end of this year, so I should embrace the theme of endings, and focus not on the old, but on the new. Or even better than that, I should focus on something equally beautiful: continuation. So instead of heartbreak, or agony, or the cruelty of timing, I’m going to focus on the following things: finishing writing The Choices We Made; getting straight A’s in my A Levels (I’m getting close to straight B’s, so hopefully I’ll get there by next summer); rereading my favourite novels, and continuing to learn the lessons that they are teaching me; putting my all into school, and not getting distracted by beautiful boys with enchanting smiles; adoring my teachers the way I do; writing blogs to say all the things I can never say aloud; smiling, because that’s what life is about.

This year has been a series of challenges, but they have made me stronger; they have built my character, and pretty soon I may even be ready to be the protagonist in my own life-story, rather than the wacky, eccentric anti-hero. I learnt three things about myself today, and they are some of the most important things I will ever learn: 1) I am brave; so, so, so much braver than I thought. 2) I know when to be selfless, when to put other people first, and that if you truly care for someone, you’ll set them free, let them go their own way, rather than continuing to fight for a hopeless cause. And 3) I learnt the most important lesson of all: when to walk away. (And 4) sometimes you can feel so sad that you actually won't be hungry. I never knew that was possible).

And I have no regrets, not a single one. There’s nothing I did today that I would have done differently. Maybe everything happens for a reason, or maybe life is random and we are thrashed about at the universe’s whims. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s this: no matter what life throws at us, we can’t let it defeat us. Instead, we can let it help us grow. If life feels too much, remember that somewhere in the world, there are flowers which roll up into a dry skeleton plant for hundreds of years, waiting for the next rain. If they can survive, if they can live throughout the most impossible of odds, then so can we.

And if that fails, then listen to music. Whether it’s “leaning on a lamppost” or “almost lover” or “all about that bass” it doesn’t matter, because music is therapeutic. I myself will probably spend the brief remainder of this year listening to The Band Perry’s “Lasso”, because it’s the song which completely gets how I feel right now. Whether it’s “You looked at me and the stars lined up” or “I found all the clouds touch the ground / In this small town”, or the most simple of all: “You can’t blame a girl for trying”, that song completely understands my soul.

There are fewer than four hours left of this year, so now I must go and write a long, reflective, and completely pretentious-yet-somehow-true-to-myself diary entry about how much I’ve changed in the past twelve months, and eat Doritos and drink Chardonnay, and stay up till midnight, and hope that next year brings me happier times, and if it doesn’t, I’ll at least hope that it will bring further strength to my character.


I’ve felt sadder today than I have in a long while, but I don’t feel defeated. If anything, I feel energised and hopeful. Why? Because in spite of everything, I’m still smiling.



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