Saturday Morning

Originally posted July 12th 2023

well, nobody likes to/ but I really like to cry -The Con by Tegan & Sara

I have never been a crier. I don’t particularly enjoy it or feel a sense of relief from it. But on Saturday morning I woke up at 6am and felt like crying. The feeling didn’t go away after breakfast, chatting with my sister or hanging out with the cat. I really wanted to cry but I also didn’t want to cry. Sat down, I considered letting myself cry because maybe it’d do me some good. But then I considered how it would draw attention and concern, I didn’t want to be pitied or doted upon and I really didn’t want to be hugged. Then I thought maybe I should because it’s what I don’t want. Because I’ve spent my whole life thinking crying was something to be ashamed of and to be hugged, or really any physical touch, was like a slap in the face. I let out a little sob then thought that was too much. All I wanted to do was stay at home and revel in how miserable I felt, a habit I’ve had a lifetime to perfect. I don’t want to be a downer. Instead, I went to the park with my siblings and sister-in-law. We talked about books that had been good and others that were a let down. Some film chat, some life updates. And although I still felt like crying, I didn’t feel so terrible either. My sister-in-law said I seemed to be doing a lot better, which she is ultimately right about. I want to get going.

That Saturday morning has been on my mind, because it’s an example of something I tend to do. I will have conversations with people in my head rather than in real life. In these renditions I am saying something that truly scares me. I imagine these conversations, always either in the kitchen or laying on the living room floor. On Saturday I imagined the conversation in the kitchen, I am talking about how much I want to cry to a friend and how stuck I am. I also say how I don’t want to be pitied but it’s hard to talk about these things without feeling like that’s what I’m doing. I don’t know how to express my feelings without guilt.

I get waves of guilt that press down, I don’t know what I’m guilty of so my mind searches for something. An embarrassing moment, saying something I shouldn’t have, making someone uncomfortable, misinterpreting words, bingo.

To avoid guilt I daydream about laying on the floor and telling a loved one everything. Every dream, ridiculous and naive, every pain and phantom. I’m very articulate in these imaginings. I can rewind and rephrase. I can say things I would never say in real life. I think it’s why at one point I was so dependent on alcohol, it made it easier to tell my friends and family how I felt, positively or negatively. I could blame something else the next day. But now, to my past-selfs horror, I’m sober 99.9% percent of the time, so I might actually have to take full accountability of my emotions and express them before they boil over and turn sour.

I expressed to my therapist that I was resentful that no one had said they missed me since leaving London then pointed out to myself a second later I hadn’t said I missed anyone either. It’s just conversations in my head and I’ve tricked myself into thinking they’re real life. “Of course so and so knows I care about them” How? Did you tell them? “I don’t want to be overbearing, I don’t want to be too much, they don’t want to hear from me.” It’s a conversation I have with an imaginary person, the person is me, and all we do is talk in circles.

Confirmation bias will take what it can get, if I assume no one wants to hear from me it’s easy enough to prove that by not reaching out. And I constantly prove myself wrong, I can easily poke holes in the “no one likes me” logic (which is just selfish self pity that is so so boring). I can make a whole list as to how that’s not even true. And perhaps it would even hurt some people’s feelings to hear that I would say that about myself, I’d certainly be if I heard my friends talk about themselves the way I talk to myself. “What do you mean no one loves you? I’m right here!”

I think, at some point in life, we are sold a narrative about ourselves and after buying into it for so long, it’s hard to imagine what life is like without it. Who sells that narrative? It depends, it’s a mix, but rather than forming our own opinion of ourselves it’s easier to just accept what we’ve been told. It’s a lot easier to have a conversation in your head than risk embarrassment. It’s easier to wait for the need to cry to subside than to feel whatever it is your feeling and have someone hold you. It’s easier in the moment. But then you have all this….stuff. And it gets heavier and heavier until one day you wake up on a Saturday morning at 6am with an overwhelming need to cry. And you still don’t but something has shifted. You know that whatever you’ve been doing hasn’t been working. The way you treated yourself, how you handled and bottled your emotions, the ways you coped. You look at a beer because you’re sad but you recognise that moment. It’s happened hundreds of times. But this time you don’t take the beer and you go home and rather than intellectualise it you play Scrabble with your sister and don’t force yourself to be okay.

You go to a record shop you haven’t been to before and the guy running the place will tell you a bit of the history of lesbian nun folk singers in the 60s, you’ll jot down some names. You’ll notice how much the humidity has fucked up your hair and all you shirts and dresses will be laced with sweat after each walk. You’ll think about the future, where you’ll be, hoping that by some miracle home will become affordable and you can go back. You’ll not have a conversation in your head for the millionth time about your dream bookshop but talk to a friend about it and you’ll feel revitalised. You decided a green bookshop is too cliché, too instagramy and that’s not what you want. You’ll go over some recipes, you’ll finish a few books. And you’re feeling it. The sadness, the joy, the excitement. It comes and goes and you try to embrace it like a cool breeze. It’s terrifying because something good might come of it. And you’re really sick of talking to walls.

Thanks for reading,

Enya xx

Another poem:

Text Message

I thought of texting you
but instead watched the music video for
Bruce Springsteen’s I’m on Fire.
These things have no correlation.

I’m not as funny as I think I am, 
I’m well aware of my many faults
perhaps too aware
ignorant of ignorant bliss that comes with a dose of acceptance

I wish to be the untreated wood
completely susceptible to the elements
holding up my neighbours awning
cracked and not quite the right measurements
but good enough for the job at hand.

It’s been raining all day and I got pictures developed
and you weren’t in any
and it made me sad.
I thought I had too many of my empty apartment
maybe in a few years they’ll be nostalgic.

The song isn’t over yet,
I’m going to boil the kettle
turn off my phone
stare at the ceiling
(think about how I’m not texting you)

How many poems these days
are written to avoid sending a text?
Did sending a letter once not feel so romantic?
Are we victims to our eras or are things just more grey?
I don’t even know what I wanted to say.