Two weeks. That’s all. Two weeks.
It has felt like an age.
First of all, my Internet router broke. And I refused to pay the £40 that Sky wanted to replace it. So I sulked and used up all my phone data then spent time realising how often I am Googling nonsense.
I also went back to work. I didn’t want to go back to work. Actually, it’s not too bad. I’m sharing an office now and am trying to get on with my new office-sharing co-worker. We are doing a very similar job and yet we tackle it so differently. I don’t dislike the woman but it’s not easy sharing a working space with someone who works so differently. And yet, we have the same favourite book: Pride and Prejudice. I’m hoping that time will help uncover more things in common.
The start of term is strangely unsettling. You are doing a job you do well and have done for many years. And yet, whilst your body is on a whirlwind of a travelator, moving continuously without a chance to step off, your mind is slow – sluggish even – and you struggle to catch up with the momentum of the day. At two weeks, I’ve run through my table, completed all the introductory lessons and am back in the swing. I’m working hard to get myself and my children in a good routine – we are doing OK, just a few necessary tweaks. For someone who is being medicated for anxiety and depression, I play the role of a strong assistant headteacher well. I actually find playing this part easy. At home, where I am myself, I find it hard to stay strong. I feel like a person whose mirror image does not reflect the original.
I don’t want to be on that treadmill again. Wake, dress, work, eat, clean, sleep. But it’s necessary. It’s modern day life. Yet, I want to live. I want my children to experience how wonderful this world really is.
From time to time, I think about how it would feel to be in a relationship again. To feel loved and wanted. To feel the heat of someone’s body as they lay next to me. To wake up and see their face smiling into mine: love reflecting back.
The reality is that I can’t bare to look at myself in the mirror never mind expect someone to want to look at me.
I have a full length mirror in my bedroom but it is still partly obscured by the ex’s belongings that have remained there for the past ten months (still nowhere near getting a house). Even if I could see myself though, I doubt I would.
In my bathroom, the toilet and sink are horizontal to the bathroom window. The window is in ‘quarters’ so that there is a pvc panel which cuts across the length and breadth of the glass. When you are standing near the sink, the pvc cuts you in half vertically bit strangely, for me, the two halves on myself fit together but with my chubby middle missing. And so, what I have, is the ultimate optimal illusion – the window makes me look thinner. Not like one of those weird mirrors that you get in a funfair – I look thinner, and in proportion.
It’s a cruel trick though. Even though my mind knows that the window mirror is not accurate, this image of myself deceives my mind. When I do, on rare occasions, see myself fully I am horrified by what I see.
I want to believe that someone out there will see past my rings of blubber and will love me for who I am. Life isn’t that fair though, is it? The chance of me finding a man that I am attracted to, has a good heart and good prospects and who actually likes me in return is very, very low. I’m scared I will wake up one day and it will be too late. I will be an old, fat lonely woman.
So, tweak my schedule I must. I must slowly but surely perfect the routine of my life so that I can be the best version of me I can be. With or without a man.
Starting from the Middle 