Hope dies last

Over drinks with the girls the other night we spent  time mocking my ex-boyfriend until I had tears in my eyes and I was slamming the table with my hand from laughter.

This was instigated because of an email he sent me recently which was so bizarre [A disconnected paragraph at the end of the email went something like this: The wind. The walk from here to there. A lone dog. Barks. I am happy.] that I sat staring at my screen for quite some time wondering why on earth I was so completely enamored by this boy.

“Guys, please tell me he wasn’t like this when we were dating?”

“Oh yes he was!”

“He was?”

“Yes!”

“Why didn’t I see it?”

“Because you were in love.”

***

There are things about people that I don’t see. Or perhaps, I choose not to see them. Or even, I see them yet in those early days of all consuming passion and shimmery beginnings, I convince myself that I would like it (it being a habit, or a hobby, or an interest, or a type of temperament) if only I was more like that person myself.

I do not mean this in a Runaway Bride kind of way. I know the way I like my eggs.

But if the ex, for example, had enjoyed his eggs with dollops of ketchup (a dish I happen to find repulsive) I would not let it affect me. I would not even notice it. And if I did? I would convince myself that it is not really such a gross combination and maybe I have been wrong all these years. That maybe, I am the weirdo because I do not like ketchup on my eggs.

See what I did right there?  Doesn’t my commitment to always demean my own likes and dislikes–my own self–impress you?

***

I first noticed the spelling mistakes while we were chatting on Facebook in real time.I winced. And then internally scolded myself while defending him.

“Hope, YOU are a spelling snob. He is obviously preoccupied and not paying attention.”

Now, they have become a consistent part of our exchanges via text, Facebook message or email.

Spelling mistakes. Grammar mistakes. I try to ignore them but they stand out glaringly, the way my white skin would look on a beach full of tanned women who must have been sunbathing since April to have achieved their colour.

I shake my head for the these thoughts to slip out. When that does not work I try to convince myself that IT IS OK, I ALSO MAKE SPELLING MISTAKES. Then, a little voice sneaks up on me.

“Yes, you might have trouble spelling a complicated word but you know the difference between where and were. And can I remind you that you once declared that you would never date anyone who DID NOT?”

***

I search for the answer to this phenomenon. That in the hypothetical boyfriends I sometimes create while bored at work on rainy days, I list such specifics as if I believe that he could exist–this ideal I have created. When I finally meet a guy I actually like? He isn’t at all like the one I had designed for myself.

So when I go over all the failed romances of my life, I wonder if perhaps that is the problem.

What do you think? Does that elusive chemistry blind us to the extent that we spend time with a person that we aren’t really compatible with? Should we follow our hypothetical boyfriend lists more strictly?

Or it is possible that I am just nitpicking now? That my negative reaction to his lack of perfect spelling (despite my ever increasing like for him)  is just me trying to find reasons NOT to like him? To protect myself?

And if that is true?

Is therapy finally paying off?

Sister: Aw god. I feel so frumpy. I’ve put on weight.

Me: Mmmm.

Sister: I look at myself in the mirror at work and I look so fat.

Me: Don’t trust that mirror. There’s something wrong with it.

Sister: Really?

Me: Yes. The other day I was wearing a pair of jeans and I looked stumpy and then I went home and I looked fine.

Sister: That’s the thing at home I think I look good and then I walk into work and I look horrible.

Me: Trust me. It’s the mirror. I mean come on, I may be a lot of things, but I’m not stumpy. Right?

Silence.

Me: Er, right?

Sister: Weeeell, you know, uhm, in those wide legged jeans, you do, well you do look a little stumpy.

***

Me: You know what the nicest thing The Man ever said to me was?

Best Friend: What?

Me: He said, “You know what is weird? From far you look almost like an average sized woman but when you’re in my arms you feel so tiny.”

Best Friend: Er?

Me: Isn’t that sweet?

Best Friend: Sure, sure. So he was calling you fat?

***

Me: So, I’m making this little video of my nephew.  I’ve got about 20 clips and I’m trying to put them all together so that the cousins all over the world can see him.

T: Uh-huh. What does this have to do with Real?

Me: Well, so you know I’m doing this in iMovie and I couldn’t figure out how to do something and you know-I figured that he could now because of his job. So, I sent him a Facebook message.

T: Yes. Yes. Of course you did. Because iMovie doesn’t have a Help option and you couldn’t find any information in the whole of the internet.

Me: No! I looked, I swear I looked but-

T: Why don’t you just say, ‘I thought of a good excuse to contact him’?

Pause.

Longer pause.

Me: So I thought of a good excuse to contact Real and I sent him a Facebook message.

***

I may not be able to pull off wide legged jeans ala Katie Holmes, my perception of what construes a good compliment might be a little awry and I am obviously an open book. But, I am able to pull off a semblance of normalcy in the strangest of times because I have women around me who are always honest.

And I have, and they have, an enduring sense of humour that can take it.

Do you ever have those days where you wake up and nothing out of the ordinary has happened, but you just don’t feel good? Those days where you think ‘What is the point of getting out of bed?’ Days where you feel that your life is not going in any particular direction? That you’re just moving along, merely reacting, just barely surviving?

I have been having a lot of those days lately.

The monotony of this feeling–its endurance wrapped tightly around my mind–is probably a direct result of The Depression. (It could also be a withdrawal symptom from the absence of Grey’s Anatomy from TV but I guess that’s just wishful thinking.)

The little white pill, I feel, is beginning to help me manage the anxiety. But the murky, the hazy, that dark cloud of Depression has not lifted. “It’s not a magic pill, hon”. The Best Friend reminds me and I laugh.

My expectations have always been too high.

There is more work to be done. More work in order to heal. “It took you 27 years to get to this point. Now, it’s not going to take that long. But it will take awhile” my therapist says.  There will be days, like today, where my head is held up by this cloud. Resistance takes effort. Effort requires motivation. Motivation is lacking.

The only thing I feel I have at the moment is this. To write and to share. That if my words can touch someone else, then I won’t feel so alone, then I really have something to wake up for in the morning. And even if my words don’t strike a chord, I know that the words that are left here–for me–in the comments section, show that I really am not the only one.

This week the charity book–You Aren’t The Only One–is finally available for purchase. I am just about to head over there to order a couple of copies. There are some big names in it like Heather Hunter, Catherine Sanderson, Johnny B , my lovely friend Distracted Spunk and about another 96 other bloggers who I can’t wait to discover. Oh! And me.

Today, this is my silver lining.

That, at the very least, I’m not the only one.

That, at the very least, I have my writing.

I am named after my paternal grandmother, Hope, who was a lovely woman.

But, she whined. A lot. She would complain about almost everything and would hold on to past hurts and injustices with unwavering determination.  She argued with her husband and when he passed away she argued with her children and then in her last days she argued with her nurse.

My mother–a ray of blinding sunshine–recognized the pessimistic character of my grandmother right away. And so when my father suggested that the daughter growing in her belly be named after her she recoiled in horror.

“Why don’t we give her a combination of my name and your mother’s name?” she had offered. This conjunction produced a name that my father argued would make me sound like a singer. In his mind, that was not a respectable occupation for a woman.  But, my mother–a lover of the arts–ignored his rantings and decided unilaterally that that would be my name.

My father had other plans.

After my mother had given birth prematurely and was recuperating in hospital (and I was soaking in my first month in a glass box) he went, on his own, to issue my birth certificate.

“I did it!” I imagine him saying. “She has a name!”

“What? Without me? What did you name her?”

“Elpida, Zoi, Hara” my father must have answered matter of factly.

“You gave her THREE names? AND your mother’s name?” I imagine my mother’s voice rising.

He then explained.

“Elpida (Hope) after my mother who is a difficult woman, yes. But, the other two names will counteract that effect.  She will have a long life (Zoi) filled with joy (Hara).”

While I have never been crazy about my first name (because it’s not actually Hope), I have loved the other two infinitely.

***

Today is the one day of the year that I dread more than any other because fifteen years ago today the telephone rang and a series of events began that changed my life forever.

Today is the one day of the year that I never know how to feel or what to do. Do I have to be sad? Do I have to cry even if the tears don’t come? How should I commemorate the day my father died?

This year I decided that I would tell the story of how my father gave me my three names. I would tell the story because even though he is not here and even though I am not going through the easiest of times at the moment, it is still a story that makes me smile.

I smile because my father gave me two middle names–that I can turn to again and again, that I can repeat like a mantra, Life, Joy, Zoi, Hara, Life, Joy, Zoi, Hara–as if he knew that I would need them. He gave me two middle names filled with so much hope that it teaches me something I never had the opportunity to learn.

I am my father’s daughter.

There is this other person that people see. She is wise (sometimes beyond her years) and appears to be independent. She is smart and put together. Some people think she has a quick tongue. Others see her as thoughtful, a little introverted perhaps, but boy once you get her started, she won’t stop. She appears confident, if only for the reason that she seems to be rather forward with men as if the words ‘fear of rejection’ do not exist in her vocabulary. Others see her as a little aloof. If you notice her in The Bar you would think that this is a very social person with a rich and diverse network of people she can just call up and do something fabulous with at a moment’s notice.

She is this other person who is not me. The person, in my head, is none of those things. Well, not really anyway. This person that others see; I feel her and know her mostly by her presence in my lungs, somewhere around my ribcage as if every breath I take gives her a voice to scream and as if every bone that surrounds her–protects her, even–is a prison cell of her own making.

The two seem at odds with each other for the me, in my head, is cautious and slow. Unsure and lost. Most of the time, anyway. The me in my head is scared. So scared that silence becomes her best friend and isolation her crutch. The me in my head protects by inaction, by no attempts to be someone. I do not mean for her to be an extraordinary person, a star, or a celebrity, but some ONE.

Complete and whole.

The girl in me still asks for permission, for reassurance, for validation. The girl in me seems to turn her head round at every struggle, just to see if anyone is watching out for her. Waiting for the raised eyebrows and the exclamation of either “No, don’t do that” or “Yes, you can do that” before she takes a small hesitant step.

The struggle rages on, day in and day out, between this girl I am and the woman I know I can be. And the only reason I know I can be her is because she is already there inside–between my lungs and my ribcage.

And the only reason I know I am not her already?

Is because she is being held hostage by the fears and the doubts of the girl I am.

He called.

I failed to pick up because it was an unknown number. But really, I failed to pick up because I was lying on the couch, numb from griefless grief. Twenty minutes later, my phone beeped.

It hadn’t stopped all day. (I do not recommend having a mini breakdown on your Name Day. The incessant phone calls from well-wishers get in the way of all the crying.)

I picked it up–uninterested–and looked at the number. It was the same, unknown number from before.

“Oh who the fuck is it now?” I thought to myself and clicked to read the message.

Happy Name Day! Hope you have a good night! Real

I rested my phone back on the table and continued staring at the carpet. It slowly dawned on me.

Real had called me. Then he had texted. He had remembered me.

***

The next morning he confirms my friend request on Facebook.

A day later, we chat on Chat. He urges me to watch Eurovision.

That Saturday, I text. “OK fiiiiiiine. You got me. It was fun in a trashy sort of way.”

We exchange texts well past 2 a.m until he Goodnight madame’s me.

The following week I have a question that I think he might be able to answer. Cue Facebook message.

Cue the reaction that I am, by now, so used to. NO REACTION. No reply. No nothing.

But, like Hillary Clinton, I do not know when to bow out gracefully. So I confront him playfully on Chat a few days later. He brushes me off. In the nicest way possible.

***

“You’re looking for trouble” my therapist said after I had spilled the above story; after I had manipulated my way into trying to get a trained professional to provide me with a professional analysis of his intentions, his motivations, his reasoning.

“Uh huh. But do you think he’s interested?” I smiled. Disarmingly.

“You’re looking for trouble” she repeated, clearly not willing to participate in my usual “Hey! Let’s talk about a guy! Let’s talk about a guy to death so that we don’t talk about any of the other deep-rooted issues in my life!” As my smile appeared not to be working, I attempted the doe eyes, puff out my lower lip and pretend to sulk route.

She was having none of it.

“I know that you think that a little attention from this man might make you feel a little better. And it might. But, it is not the solution. And did I mention? You’re actively looking for trouble? You seem to be going out of your way, Out. Of. Your. Way, to put yourself in a situation where you will get hurt.”

***

Dr. Wyatt [to Meredith]: Why is it that every other person in that room had the sense to hit the deck? You know people run away from this line between life and death. You seem to stand on it and wait for a strong wind to sway you one way or the other. You’re careless with your life. You’re not slitting your wrists but you’re careless. Probably because your mother told you you were a waste of space on this planet. The problem is you believed her. And if you don’t watch out one of these days you’re going to die because of it.

And so I sit and I mull over the way I live my life; the way I want to be loved so much that I forget about loving myself, the way I believe because so and so did not love me, I am not worthy of love. And I continue to fight to be noticed, to be loved in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways and by all the wrong men.

And I wonder whether it is time to be a little bit more careful with my heart. And myself. Maybe it is time to start acting like a person who believes she can, and will eventually, be loved.

Maybe, it is time to stop fighting. And wanting. And waiting. And hoping.

Maybe, it is time to just be.