For 9 months I survived on adrenaline.
Cortisol pumped through my body for 3/4 of the past year. At the time I don’t think I knew I was functioning like that but in hindsight I can see its what got me up every morning. It’s also what kept me awake at night. It’s how I got dressed. Went to work. Managed to survive at work. Managed to speak. Wash. Commute.
It started with the new job.
The pressure to learn a new skill in my 40s was intense. The work environment was intense but the atmosphere was also super fun. So. Much. Fun. The fun was mixed with tension and being the new girl meant I had to keep my wits about me. Learn the job and watch your back. Physically and mentally it was a lot.
Then the Matriarch got sick.
The shock and the worry got me up in the morning. It’s also what kept me awake at night.
There was also a Boy and arguments with management and the end of the Summer and the start of the Christmas period and I wasn’t writing and then my friend died.
She was 48 and had two boys.
She had been my hairdresser for 12 years and she died.
I still can’t quite believe it.
When I told people my hairdresser died they laughed. I knew it was the way I delivered it but I didn’t have the energy to deliver it any other way.
For 12 years she had made me feel amazing. She was one of lifes really, really good people. She was kind and calm and funny and interested in you. I miss her. We are poorer in this world for her not being here. Who will look after me now? I thought.
I finally went back to the salon and was put downstairs so my tears wouldn’t disturb the other customers. A man came to do my hair who hadn’t known her. He was unconsciously insensitive and asked me why I didn’t look after my hair properly.
I wanted to stab him in his eyes with his scissors and shout at him that my mother was sick and my work was intense and my friend died and life at 44 was not all happy smiles and glossy fucking hair, you cunt.
I didn’t do that but I did bury myself back in the fun and the tension of work and realised that they were the ones looking after me. They were my work family where I felt safe and loved and sometimes had fights but laughed a lot.
I couldn’t think about anything else while I was there either. It was so busy, all the time, that there wasn’t room to worry about what I was or wasn't doing. As Carmy said in ‘The Bear’ ‘The routine of the kitchen was so consistent and exacting and busy and hard and alive and I lost track of time…’
This, I thought to myself, this is my safe space. I don’t need to be writing at this moment…this is not my time!
What a delusional fool.
In March the adrenaline started failing me. The fight or flight hormones were confused and overworked. The exhaustion of living at a job where you stand on your feet for 12 hours and ignore your actual family falling to bits started to make itself known.
Sleep was rare. I ate at strange times and shovelled food in my mouth at a rate of knots.
My hair felt rotten and the cunt at the salon had been right. ‘Why didn’t I look after it properly?’ My skin was like a teenagers and my anxiety was at an all time high.
On my days off I started to wish I was at work.
‘Deal with the real world and face the shit that’s going on around me?’
No chance. Let’s get back on the work rollarcoaster and block out the noise! Let’s cling to each other in the chaos and hold each other afterwards.
So I took a break. A long one.
I had to.
I realised that the adrenaline coarsing through my body was actually me on fire and the fire had been raging for far too long.
Eventually it died down and what was left was a burnt shell.
I took that smouldering carcass to Italy and for awhile felt dead inside. I didn’t have a plan when I always have a plan and I felt lonely when I very rarely feel lonely.
I missed my work family. I missed the adrenaline and the rollarcoaster. I missed the men who flirted with me, held me and fucked me. I missed the women who praised me, held me and loved me.
Who was I without these people? Who was I without my day job?
I’d forgotten.
I needed to remind myself that I am one of life’s travellers. I am also a strange daughter. A loving sister. A difficult but loyal friend.
And I am an accomplished writer. Even if I haven’t accomplished it yet*
To be continued…….
*Tiny beautiful things {episode 2}
There she is. What a rollercoaster this life is. May you never be lonely and especially not in Italy. Waiting with baited breath for part 2….
You are ❤