It’s Oh So Quiet

By rights today should be a better, lighter day, but I awoke this morning to an email from an old friend I try not to speak to any more. I love her dearly, but the choices she’s made make it hard for me to be in touch with her and impossible to be around her – there’s only so much I’m willing to bear so until she stops (which would cost her a great deal) or until I accept it (which would cost me a great deal), we’re at a stalemate. We’ve never really articulated this because to do so would cause an even greater rift and we seem to want to avoid that. Better to just let ourselves fade quietly into the background than actually make a noisy, damaging exit, I suppose, because what would the latter accomplish but acknowledge that there’s no way back? Shitty as it is like this, not speaking allows us to cling to the illusion that it could all be alright again.

But then she writes asking for words. After the years I have spent not speaking, spent smiling and nodding and looking away as quickly as possible to avoid seeing on her face that she knows, she wants me to give her words.

So I lied. I told her I didn’t have any anymore. Because in spite of all the words I want to cry and whisper and scream at her what would it be worth?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Thursday’s Child

I’m feeling much more centered today – to the extent that I’ve figured out where I went wrong with my earlier work and should get it all sorted in a few hours. Day 2.5 of period, as usual. A sight better than Monday when all I really wanted to do was die. I’m glad I went along to the poetry thing that evening both because the piece I’d gone to see was beautiful and cathartic and because some of the other pieces were so appallingly bad that they distracted me from the whole self-loathing thing I had going at the time. Apparently, you can’t seriously focus on hating yourself when a deranged man is yowling ‘poetry’ over a combination of cello and plinky (yes, plinky) guitar.

Tuesday the pendulum swung all the way back. When I left my partner’s place that morning, a thin, misty rain was swirling around the city, blurring its edges and making it glow. I walked home without an umbrella, enjoying the cold tickle of raindrops against my face and shivering a little when the wind blew. I considered walking around the block a few more times before I went in, but realized that, having just gotten over a cold, being out in the rain, however lovely and gentle it may be, was probably not a great idea. I continued to be ridiculously happy for the better part of the day and started to crash again only in the late afternoon when I was out grocery shopping with my husband. At  the worst point I felt like stopping right there in the middle of the supermarket and just crying my eyes out. Instead, I drank something way too sugary for human consumption and made it home just in time for the cramps to hit. My period put in an appearance just as I was about to go to sleep, which was annoying but, on balance, meant that I slept through the worst of it (I love you, paracetamol).

Wednesday was as lousy as I’d expected, with the usual complement of sore muscles and intermittent cramps, accompanied by the usual raging horniness. It always happens and it always strikes me as completely bizarre that I should be in so much pain that the thought of actual sex curls my toenails and be simultaneously completely unable to think of anything else. Go figure.

But at least that meant that by mid-afternoon, when it all abated, I wasn’t suicidal or homicidal, which made teaching and then attending a couple of readings that evening much easier. Plus I had a lovely surprise at the reading when an old colleague who I thought had left for good turned up. I don’t know her well – we just taught the same class for a semester once – but there’s something profoundly likeable about her. We caught up a bit while walking part of the way home and before we went our separate ways determined that we’d both be at the next reading, so that’s something to look forward to.

And today, as I said, I feel even more stable. I’ve accomplished a bit less than I had planned, but part of that is the fault of this blog, which is a good thing in itself, so I’m not very disappointed. I also just met the black labrador that my new office-mate is raising for the local guide-dog service and who consequently accompanies him everywhere he goes, including the office. Given how much I love being around dogs, I couldn’t have asked for a better arrangement.

I’m hoping today’s positivity will rub off on tomorrow. I’m near the end of this particular roller-coaster ride anyway, so things should be levelling out soon anyway. But it ain’t over till the next pill is popped so, until then, I’m not counting on anything.

When I Say ‘Periodical’…

I mean every time I have my period. That doesn’t mean I’ll write only about my period and the general misery that accompanies it. I will do that to some extent, but this is more about using the seven days between pills as a time to concentrate on writing for myself.

Part of the inspiration for this blog comes from my partner, who recently decided to commit to writing a zine a week, bound by a few self-imposed rules. He’d been meaning to do this for a while, so watching it happen has been great. And the thing about being around people who are doing what they want to be doing is that it’s a bit of a kick in the ass to do it for oneself. I have a few other blogs, but with each I’ve run into a bit of a wall – some are too general, some are too personal, and some, oddly enough, are too much of both. On top of that, I’m supposed to be doing a whole other kind of writing effectively as my day-job anyway, so I rarely feel I have the space to write things that occur to me at random and don’t fit neatly into any of the categories I’m already dealing with.

Enter Periodical Writing, which will serve as a space for things that don’t seem to fit anywhere else, but which will also be bound by certain rules, mostly to keep myself going. These will be:

1. Write a minimum of a post a day from the Saturday I stop the pill to the Saturday I start the new packet.

2. No pre-written posts, though notes can be made during the month and expanded on at the relevant time.

There are only two for now, but I might add more if I find it necessary, or change them if I think it appropriate. Here goes.