It’s been a tough old year for most of the world (apart from those in charge of it, of course, who’ve continued flinging sage words about as if they’ll still be eligible for their annual bonus… oh wait…) and even though I didn’t think it’d be too much of a strain for me to socially distance and self-isolate, due to already doing both these things whilst also not being employed, things started catching up on me recently to the point where I needed to pause and take stock.
Because I am certainly not where I imagined myself to be at this stage of my life. I remember when I was married to the Girl’s father, nearly 30 years ago now; whenever we drove up one of the posher roads in Bedford (yes, there are some if you look hard enough) we’d always wistfully assure one another we’d be living there one day–when the kids had grown up and maybe we had a grandchild or two to run about with on the well-tended lawns at the rear of these imposing properties. It was a lovely idea. A lovely thing to look forward to; at a time in life when it feels there’s so much ahead.
And yet here I am. Pushing sixty, homeless (living in my Girl and her Boy’s house) unemployed and subsisting on the fumes of the remaining money apportioned to me at the end of my last (second; and most definitely last) marriage. I couldn’t be further from the ‘idea’ of my future if I’d been given a stick and a tub of mud-coloured paint to daub on a piece of sugar paper and left outside in the rain for a week. I don’t even have a car (I sold it to pay for the removal of myself and my chattels from said marriage and town to where I now reside).
I was always pretty sure I’d be grown-up by this age. That I’d have amassed so much information and knowledge that I wouldn’t be asking ‘why’ of anyone or anything ever again; in fact ‘why’ would be asked of me. And I’d definitely be working at whichever profession or calling I’d eventually worked out was the road destined for me, and I’d be so satisfied with my job that I wouldn’t even call it ‘work’; it would be a pleasure for which I happened to be paid.
In my mind I had images of handsome husbands (just the one, or one at a time) with silvering temples, the wisdom and patience of all the Saints, sense of humour as razor-sharp as the day we met, by now so finely tuned he’d only have to raise an eyebrow to have me in stitches; we’d understand and love one another so deeply and firmly that we wouldn’t have to speak half of the time; we’d have telepathic rejoinders where neither of us would be wrong or right, both suitably sated by the end. We’d have weekends away – we might even have a little Gite in Northern France where I’d sit like the Flake girl in my peasant dress and floppy hat, nibbling the end of my pencil (not a euphemism) and working on character sketches for my thirteenth novel (or thirtieth, depending how successful I’d been). Husband would be reading one of his own books (probably non-fiction to enlarge his already swollen brain) or else rustling up something healthy and Mediterranean in our little kitchen, one of the village’s stray cats weaving itself happily around his firm calf muscles. Then it would take but a simple break in the balmy weather for me to toss my endeavours aside and rush into the cool of our kitchen, where we’d abandon ourselves in the hedonist pursuit of our pleasure synapses until exhausted. Because we’d have had years of perfecting our passions.
And yet today I sit here before you (always reminds me of the opening line in John Cleese’s Headmaster speech at the end of Clockwise ) having never discovered a desired profession or vocation, with no silvering-at-the-temples husband in possession of anything firm, cat or no cat, never having published any of the (now) 11 books I’ve written which is all I’ve ever dreamed about and tried so hard to make happen, never even looked on Right Move at one of those posh properties I’d believed by now I’d be living in, yet contemplating further education.
It feels slightly as though I’ve gone full circle right now.
Because 40 years ago, when I was 17, I had an interview at the Bath College of Fine Art; a course I desperately wanted to follow because being creative has and still remains the only way I can pull the muddles out of my head and lay them out sensibly before me. I had dreams of becoming a commercial artist, maybe a book cover designer, something along those lines, and yet I was prevented from doing so because I was told I’d fail. Yes, even before I’d begun. By the people who were meant to support and enthuse and encourage; and which I firmly believe affected, altered–shaped, and not in a good way–the remainder of my adult life. I’ve since learnt, through years of therapy, to not level blame at my parents’ door, instead understand and appreciate why they believed the things they did, and I do, but it doesn’t alter what happened.
When I look back at those horrible, heavy days, sometimes I wish I’d been stronger and fought harder for the future I could see and never had. But I didn’t. Because didn’t want to oppose them or upset them any more than I felt I already had; I still wanted my parents to be proud of me, so I followed the path they chose for me. Get a job. Any job, and just be grateful for it.
This week I had the pleasure of my parents’ company again. Because I had an interview for a (paid) job and they were back again, nodding their heads and telling me to stop lazing about doing nothing and get out there and work like the rest of the world has to; about time I gave up all this anxiety and depression (and now, heaven forfend, ADHD) nonsense and stopped waiting for an agent to say ‘Yes’ because it was just never going to happen and didn’t they always say I’d fail, and look how right they were.
I also had (which I nearly cancelled a hundred times because of the parental nodding) an interview for a Masters degree with Bath Spa–30 minutes down the road and not 3 hours away as it would have been 40 years ago–and during this chat that I had with two of the curators/directors of the course, I felt what I can only describe as understanding or belonging, because it seemed as though I was speaking to two people who could form part of an entirely different future for me. Before this interview, I had nearly convinced myself (in the voices of my parents) that how selfish was I being, that I would fail, that I would be wasting and not making any money and to think more about the people I live with who’d have to virtually support me, rather than myself all the time.
I’ll know in a week or so which one of these interviews I was more successful in. It feels as though a coin has been flipped and is suspended in mid-air–a circulatory coin which I might have flipped a good few decades ago and which might only now be coming back down. I know absolutely which way I want it to fall, but I’m happy to wait and see.
