Monday 1 August 2011

Nothing more than feelings......

The sun is shining when I get out of bed this makes me feel happy.
I leave the house and head for the bus stop. The bus takes longer than the tube but is a much nicer commute: upstairs, at the front if I'm lucky. But I remember I have run out of money on my Oyster card. This makes me angry because I have to go to the tube to put money on it but I also feel relieved I didn't find out when boarding the bus.
The Victoria line is in turmoil. This makes me want to cry.
The journey makes me very hot.
And tiered because I have to respond to an email from the office pig. Responding to emails, I have learnt, is part of being in an office. This is all new to me, it made me feel anxious. It has kept me awake in the early hours all weekend. Feeling anxious.
My travelling companion arrives as I do. This makes me feel very happy. In the office I think I'm having a hot flush. My travelling companion goes into melt down because she's so hot. She is 33. I realise it's not a hot flush. It's just a hot day in a small room. This makes me feel better.
I compose an exquisite email. This makes me feel much better. But still quite hot.
My head phones finally part company from their wires. This makes me feel annoyed. I cannot cocoon myself with Lauren Lavern on 6 Music. This makes me throw the broken headphones on the floor and say:
"It's all gone wrong", quite loudly.
This makes my 22 year old camera boy and work colleague laugh. At me I think, not with me.
This makes me go to the bathroom and cry.
While in the bathroom I notice a spot on my chin. I haven't had a zit since I was 16. Now I have zits. Again. This makes me feel depressed.
I call my friend who has been on holiday in Ibiza and is now back.
"You're back," I say, "was it great?"
"Yes," she says, "It was great so I'm going back, for a week. Or two. Today."
This makes me feel envious. My friend married a rich man. Her second husband had serious money. Then she got a lovely boyfriend. Then she got breast cancer. Then she got better. But how much better? Who knows. I can't feel envious.
This makes me think about my friend who died recently from breast cancer, she's gone. This makes me feel shocked. Again.
I can't find my sunglasses. This makes me feel anoyed. I wonder if I put them on this morning. This makes me feel confused. I never leave home without them, especially if the sun is shining. This makes me feel panicked. They're Prada. Second hand Prada but Prada none the less. I can't stop thinking about my sun glasses. This makes me feel distressed.
I have to go scout a location in Camden. On the tube platform someone steps on my fit-flopped toe. I feel so angry I want to push him on to the tracks. The location has closed down. I feel like I want to scream.
I visit a friend who lives around the corner from where Amy Winehouse lived. I decide to walk past and pay my respects. People are sitting on the pavement in the sunshine. There are lots of flowers. Lots of empty bottles. Cans. Drawings. Cards. I feel weired. In my head I realise I am singing, 'I don't wanna go to rehab....' I feel sad. I hope Amy feels better.
At home my son greets me with a torrent of demands for money and reasons why he needs to go to Sheffield to work in a theatre he can't remember on a show he doesn't know because his friend is. I feel confused. I tell him to talk to his father. He does. He gets angry. He goes out. I feel like a bad mother. He comes back and says he's not going to Sheffield. I feel exhausted.
This is how it feels to be fifty.

Top tip: If you can, go see Beyond the Moulin Rouge: Toulouse Lautrec and Jane Avril at the Courtauld Gallery in London....spell binding...it will raise your spirits as high as a can-can-kick.


19 comments:

  1. Hello:
    And, you survived.......this is BECAUSE you are fifty!!

    We always enjoy a visit to the Courtauld Gallery and this exhibition sounds such fun. We might well give it a whirl!!

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  2. THIS made me happy to read.
    And get this- I just turned FIFTY SEVEN and I have TWO zits! What's up with that? Jesus.
    I hope Amy feels so much better too.

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  3. I am afraid it's all part of getting old !! Sorry.
    Will try and get to the Courtauld Gallery.....I respect your opinion.
    Maybe a few bars of the Lindt Excellence dark chocolate with sea salt will help make tomorrow go a little more smoothly. XXXX

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  4. Forgive me if I laugh in recognition at all of these trials and tribulations, but overall wouldn't you rather be this age than say, 16?

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  5. Thanks for the movie tip I shall keep an eye out.

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  6. I'm half laughing at how much of your awful day you remembered. No 6 music would be a bummer, as would someone stomping on your toe.... well done for the restraint btw.

    The job sounds fun - galloping about to locations, cameras.... worth sticking at - hopefully Office Pig will move on to annoy Other People At Another Office/take a sabbatical/decide to emigrate. Is he going on holiday soon - you could do with a fortnight without him.

    Kids and their random, badly timed, demands eh. last night I dreamt the dad kidnapped the hibernating son, but I had to wrap up 4 pictures for him first. and then I broke an orange coffee pot... xx

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  7. Easier said than done I know, but if Sonny Jim wants to go to Sheffield I'd tell him he can bloody well borrow some money from the bank like normal people have to! Don't feel guilty about that.

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  8. We could start a Grumpy Old Women blog.. forum.. I am the same.. forgetful.. and get irritated very easily .. xx

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  9. I'm not sure this is your age; I think it's the effect London has on the sain. I also have that "I'm going to push someone under a tube train" feeling most days... oh, OK, all days. Some lines are worse than others - Northern for example. Circle is almost civilised by comparison.

    So I prefer to think of it not as a sign of losing my marbles, but rather a sign that my sanity is still fully functioning. Who in their right mind would respond any differently under those tortuous conditions?

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  10. On a day like this a few years ago, a woman knocked me flying on an escalator - I said some choice words to her and both her and her friend came after me. I was in rotweiller mode and stood my ground. My other half grabbed me by my collar and told them I had tourettes........... I don't! :O))))))))))))))
    I blush (and then snigger) when I think if this incident, but hey, tis all part of life.

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  11. Oh Jo! I feel for you. I'm having one of those days myself. I'm not actually achieving much, just getting in tizz. No use to anyone. See you very soon. Love, C xx

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  12. Oh those unstopping annoyances. How soon can you take a non-annoying bus to a daisy field with a coolbag of nice white wine and sit staring peacefully at the sky? Even if where you work gets narky, it'll be worth it.

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  13. ah you poor thing (((hug))) did your sunglasses turn up? If it's any consolation, I have days like that. Except I'm not in lovely Lahndahn, I'm in the arsehole of the universe with no nice locations to scout for a shoot. Unless it's a clay pigeon shoot. Yours ever, from deep in the heart of Boredom City, Ali xxxxxxxx

    PS - I agree - get wine, go and lie in a field and relax! :-)

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  14. Oh, nice post.)) Love your blog!!!.))))))

    I need your help ... Soon I am flying to Greece and I will have a two-day shopping in Athens .. You were there ever? If yes, what places you advise?

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  15. I love what you have written under the title of your blog!

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  16. Just read your actual post. Wish I could go to 'Beyond Moulin Rouge.' I yearn to travel.

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  17. I am going to be 50 next year and hope I can set off on my day and be making diversions to Amy Winehouse's place too. Puts it all in perspective....

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  18. Flip flops in a tube station? No no no.... You need spurs darling. Big clanky spinning spurs. Steel toe-caps and spurs.

    Sod it - get a tank.

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