discovery

I am rediscovering myself. I am looking backwards into my past, remembering the hectic days filled with drugs and sex and alcohol, remembering how empty I felt inside then. I am remembering those endless hot days lying prone on the grass, squinting at books, getting brown, feeling lost

I am remembering the bleakest day when joel died. He promised he wouldn’t leave me – he promised! When I got ill he took me in his arms and hugged me and said he would always be there and it was a lie. Afterwards, those long days walking furiously through London, trying to escape the loss but never getting anywhere. That hateful memorial service. The actors’ church. The may afternoon. The hot sun outside, the cool dimness within and the faint smell of incense. So fucking angry. Scowling through the speeches, clenching my fists in rage. Needing him so badly. The furious resolve to live for the two of us. His wish for his far off future self – sitting in the sun watching his grandchildren play which I’d laughed at and said “no way”. I would have to do it on my fucking own now. I remember that careless don’t really care pact we made – that if we reached thirty alive we’d marry. I remember, years later, finding the letter, on thin thin paper where he poured out the love he never could say and I remember crying at my long ago stupidity. I remember his phone number – even now – still – even now – finding myself itching to dial that number.

I’m not always so angry with him – only sometimes. I am grateful for our five years of growing up together, for our innocent week at sixteen, gleefully drinking our way around paris, for our weekends in the country, balancing together on that old chopper bike down the lane of the estate to the nearest village pub, that time we tried to boil an egg and had to look up how to do it in a book, the time we heard crunching on the gravel in the middle of the night and clung together in terror until it got light – with our London ignorance of total darkness and nocturnal animals. Stumbling home at night on that island in the sun, howling from time to time, to wake the dogs in the villages we passed.

My two sons were born three days either side of the date he died, and each year as they’ve grown, in between organising parties, wrapping presents, making cakes, and being jolly, I have set aside time to think and mourn and miss that long ago golden boy who never quite got to twenty one

I am remembering stumbling through a degree, discovering politics and the joy of protest. All those boyfriends, all that angst. The year of chewing gum, sulphate and coffee, the delight of watching bones re-emerge at the cost of my brain dying slowly.

The year I left my comfort zone and went to university in france. The beach and the villa. The stolen bikes on which we’d pedal as fast as we could down to the sea, leaping in before the wheels stopped spinning. The Americans, the canadians, the French, the cheap plastic wine bottles, the white walls of my room scribbled over with writing. the dark shadows of the shutters. the sleeping pills and the razor blades I cut into my flesh with over and over and over because I could not bear the idea that mike was fucking someone else in the other room. The sharp sharp stings to remind me of the night before as I walked into the perfect blue sea from the perfect yellow sand of that little bay

I am remembering my best birthday – opening the two hand painted boxes of delight – one big, one small – the fireworks to light and watch, and the heroin to enhance the spectacle.

I saw that man the other day, The one who gave me that birthday. He is still there, where we were. He never stopped. He had children too, but he didn’t abandon himself for them like I did. He abandoned them instead, as I think I might have done if I’d stayed. He is still partly sharp, still funny and charming and bright. It was so wonderful talking to him again. I had forgotten the delights of being in the company of intelligent people. I felt as if I was breathing fresh air again at last. The irony of this feeling, coming into fume filled london from the countryside I escaped to all those years ago. He’s so thin now, so grey and fragile. He walks with a slight stoop and he scratches all the time, though he says he doesn’t do smack anymore. I am not sure if that’s true. His eyes still shine bright but I cried on the way home, for what we both have done to ourselves, in different ways, in the twenty years since we last met

I am remembering the stolen cottage we escaped to. Our Kentish Town feeble attempts to light a fire failing miserably. The vulgar farce we all wrote together, fuelled by poppers and vodka and giggles. All that diamante jewellery, all that hair bleach and gel

These early mornings when no-one is up, I write and write in the silence, my dog lying half asleep beside me. I have one more year to go and then I think I must be off again. I tried so hard to be a good parent. I locked my brain up for years. I switched off the music. I stopped writing and I stopped drawing and I tried to stop thinking. One more year to go and I am done. I don’t think I could have got through without switching all those things off. My boys are beautiful and sane and they are almost away. One more year. Today I lie in the sun by my pool and look at the fields beyond the garden. I’m appreciating what I have while it is still here.

I am making plans for this summer. 222 west 23rd street. I think I can juggle things so I can go there for a week. It’s far enough away and I was always comfortable there. The slightly dirty rooms with the mismatched furniture. The friendly, laid-back people who will leave me alone when I want. The city I know a little, safe, hassle-free for a woman on her own. I will lock the door of my room and relish the silence and then I will open up my laptop and unlock all my real self to see what’s left. I think it’s time now.