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It feels as if all that preparing and packing was done in a fever,
and now a stillness has taken hold,
with a half-empty, boxed-up flat in the present,
and Europe stretching ahead,
along a warm, dusty path to an unseen future.
Where has all the time gone? How did August get here so quickly? How come it’s nearly September? It’s starting to feel like I only came up with this travelling idea as a big joke. There’s a small part of me that keeps saying, over and over, in a tiny, tiny voice, “I didn’t mean it! Honestly, I didn’t really mean it!” At the same time, it feels like there’s this tether somewhere on the continent that is tugging me relentlessly and I have no choice but to get pulled.
One of the lesser push factors for this trip – the penultimate tiny shove – was a series of anxiety attacks. I had come back from Berlin wanting more travel and was examining the possibility of a prolonged trip. Then, belatedly, the guilt struck.
I deserved it, I know that, every bit of it. I suddenly realised that I am not the person I thought I was and that I never really was. I’m not that person who always tries to do the right thing. I’m not that person who tries never to hurt another, who puts the feelings of others before my own. I was suddenly a selfish cow who was willing to let a family be broken up just because I fell for someone who happened to fall for me. To say that it was an unpleasant realisation would be an understatement. It led to a series of anxiety attacks; fairly short-lived and nothing too extreme, but there was a stage where I had to keep running to the loos at work, just to breathe. Times when my eyes probably looked a bit red a bit too often. Bach’s Rescue Remedy became quite a good friend. It even tastes of brandy, which is always a plus.
At its very worst, I was in B&Q trying to buy a step ladder. The shelves seemed to tower and lean; they seemed thoroughly distorted and ready to topple down on my head at any moment. Everyone (and I really do mean absolutely everyone) seemed to be staring at me. It was terrifying. I had to force myself not to run for the exit, instead compromising with a very quick walk.
The next weekend I gave myself a choice. I stood in my living room and said to myself, “You can either go and buy that bloody ladder, or you can mow the lawn.” I gazed out of the window. I normally don’t mind mowing the lawn. I love being in my garden. That day, the thought of standing in my tiny triangle of land made me feel too exposed. It made my heart hammer. I stepped back from the window. Then I remembered what had happened last time I’d gone to B&Q. I gazed out of the window again. I couldn’t work out which would be best, or which would be worst. Indecision overtook every fibre of me. I walked to the hall to get my shoes. I sat on the sofa and pulled one on. I couldn’t face B&Q. I couldn’t face the lawn, either. In the end, I just sat on the sofa, put my face in my hands and cried.
After what felt like quite a long time, I pulled on the other shoe, blew my nose, splashed my face, grabbed my wallet and car keys and I bought that sodding ladder.
Somewhere in the midst of all that fog, when my confidence at work was at its lowest, my line manager suggested we met up to discuss how my goals were progressing post-appraisal. I knew they were going well. I knew I’d already achieved three out of four, with the feedback to match. None of that was mentioned, however. Instead, a long, tedious, circular discussion that can be summarised as follows:
“I heard this project didn’t go so smoothly. What do you think went wrong?”
“Not much; I initially misunderstood what was required of me, the project leader and I spoke about it, we sorted it out. It was fine.”
“Why do you think you misunderstood?”
I shrugged. “Such and such wasn’t made clear to me in the original briefing. It just hadn’t been explained. That aspect of it wasn’t mentioned.”
The reply: “It’s up to you to ask the questions. If something seems too simple, you have to think what else the project leader might need. You have to ask, you can’t expect them to explain everything.”
What I wanted to say (and to some very small extent actually did say) was something along the lines of “How can I be expected to do a good job if the project isn’t explained thoroughly to me? So you’re saying it’s my fault if I don’t do something I’m not asked to do, something that no-one thought to mention at the time? It’s my fault for not knowing they’ve forgotten to tell me something and my fault for not checking if they want something they don’t know they want?
Instead of saying all that (which, let’s face it, would have gone badly) I clammed up tight, forced back the tears that were beginning to prick, let my mind seek refuge in the untold destinations I would travel to, eyed my line manager and thought, “That’s it. I’m done here. I’m leaving. I am so fucking out of here. I am so fucking out of here,” over and over again. I seem to recall that meeting ended with the words “Vicci, I’m just not getting anything from you. You’re not giving me anything.”
Damn straight.
My confidence and self-belief slowly came back, helped by my best friend, the only person I confided in at the time. I started to feel better. Then I realised just how much I needed to do to be ready to go travelling. The sleepless nights continued; panic with an entirely different and more interesting twist. What to do with all my stuff? How will I cope without any languages other than English? What will I do for money? What if I hate it? What if I get lonely? Leaving these shores for an adventure was supposed to provide escape, but it’s bred new panic of its own.
The most recent panic is this: How did I get so many possessions? Where will they all go?
I think I have the home equivalent of the magic porridge pot. No matter how much I give to charity shops, sell online, give to friends and family, throw away, there’s still more of the stuff. I’m not even particularly materialistic. It’s just books and CDs and records and photos and plants. A knackered television and a bread-maker. How can all my books still take up six crates when I’ve already got rid of two crates full? How is it physically possible that they all used to fit on my shelves? How on earth is it all going to fit into a couple of cars to get down south to the house of my poor, long suffering parents?
As happened with the ladder and with being forced to confront my bad self, the only way I know to stop panicking is to get up and get on with it. Let the packing commence.
I have wonderful parents who have already helped me with a lot my stuff, driving up north to take a car load back with them as soon as they realised how worried I was. I have equally wonderful friends who helped me get over my anxiety attacks late last year, even if they didn’t know about it at the time.
So what, I’m not perfect. So I can do utterly selfish things. So can anyone; so can everyone. I probably will again at some point, if I’m being completely realistic. However, I can do and have done utterly good things too; no-one’s one dimensional. I have examined myself and seen the black in me, nestled amongst the bright green reeds… and I still can’t say I regret what happened with the Man in the Hat. I doubt I’ll ever regret what happened, so the guilt is somewhat pointless.
Going back to the ladder for a moment: Thinking about it now, it reminds me a little of my climbing days. I never was particularly skilled at hauling myself up rock faces and I seem to recall spending much more time in fits of laugher dangling from the end of a rope, safe in my harness, having slipped or admitted defeat, than pulling off stunning moves. There were also many moments where I couldn’t move for my legs shaking, turned into jelly, the tips of my toes perched on tiny holds, my hands unwilling to relinquish their grip on the edges of cracks that were quite reassuring to hang on to, thank you very much.
More than once, I completely froze; such as when we were climbing at Stanage Edge in the Peak District near Sheffield. It wasn’t a hard climb, or a long one. I just got a total block. My feet had good, solid holds. My hands both had something lovely to hang on to. To go up, all I had to do was move my right foot to somewhere to the right of my hip. It was a slightly awkward move that required me to shift my whole balance to the left and pull out from the rock face. It wasn’t hard, but it felt wrong. It felt unnatural. Even though I knew, rationally, that I’d be able to make it without falling, I still couldn’t do it. Even though I knew that if I fell, I was in a harness, attached to a rope, which was firmly fixed to the top of the rock face and being held by a trusted friend and very competent climber, I couldn’t do it. Even though I knew that she would catch me, that the rope would catch me, that my harness would hold and that hell, I wasn’t even going to fall anyway, I still couldn’t move my foot.
It took every nerve I had to do it… but, eventually, I did.
After that, for quite some time, whenever I was faced with something I was nervous of doing, I’d think, “It’s just like moving your foot. You moved your foot, you can do this.” It’s the same with buying that ladder. It’s the same with quitting my job, which I’d not been happy in for a long time. It’s the same with packing up my life in Manchester and going off to explore new countries on my own. It all starts with moving my foot. If I can just move my foot, the rest will come.