You’re going to have to excuse me, if I’m repeating myself here… I probably am. I normally do, after all.
But……. a good thing has happened, and I’m always moaning on about the bad stuff. SO I thought I’d share a good thing. I’ve been dancing on the edge of the dark place for quite a few months. Doing a lot of that sort of helicoptering of my arms to keep my balance and stop myself from falling in. There have been a few foot slips, where the crumbling bit of edge has broken off and gone tumbling down the cliff face into oblivion, but I’ve managed to grab hold of the hanging root of a tree and succeeded in, if not quite pulling myself back onto the edge, at least stopping myself from falling into the oblivion. And now, like I said, a good thing has happened. It might be a glimmer of the other side that is coming into sight. It might just be a mirage. Only time will tell.
That’s the setting done, so here’s the bit of exposition. The dull bit that serves as a bit of background, and puts this good thing into context.
I have, my whole life, been an avid reader. Since even before I learnt to read, when I was 4, I was huge consumer of books and stories. No, I didn’t eat them, but my dad read me a bed time story every night until, and possibly even after, I was able to read them for myself. I cannot remember a time in my life when there hasn’t been at least one book on my bedside table. People sometimes tell me they don’t read…. well…. I’m not going to lie… I full on judge and distrust those people. There is something weird and wrong about people who don’t read. In my humble opinion. Sorry if you’re one of them. You’re weird.
So, back to me and my books… since I was the tiniest of humans I had my nose in a book. I read in the car, even though it makes me feel sick. I read in bed, I used to take a torch to bed and read under the covers after I was told to put my light out. I read in the bath. When I was little (too much information coming up… look away now, if you’re a prude) I always took a book into the loo with me, and it was a fairly regular occurrence for my mum to be knocking on the door asking if I was ok, after I’d been locked in the loo for an hour, lost in a book. I stay awake all night if I’m reading something I can’t put down. At school, when we were set a chapter or two to read for homework, I always read the whole flipping book. I have walked into lampposts because I was finishing off books or chapters whilst walking along the street (true story). I have openly, loudly and publicly ugly-cried on trains because of books. I have missed tube stops. On one occasion, I was so absorbed in a book, whilst on a train, that after letting go of a rail to turn a page, when I put my hand back out to grab onto the pole again, I accidentally grabbed a woman’s boob. Again, true story. I laugh uncontrollably at books. I stick my face in books. Old books, brand new books, text books, novels, I stick my full face in them to inhale the smell of them… OHMYGODTHESMELLOFTHEM…
I mean, basically, I quite like books. They take you to worlds unknown. They show you the world through someone else’s eyes, recently, studies have shown that readers have more empathy than non-readers. They develop your curiosity, you vocabulary, your knowledge of history, of politics… they just… they just really are the dog’s bollocks.
Ok. Exposition done, now to the sad bit. Wait for it… can you hear it? In the distance? That is the sound of a tiny violinist approaching… can you hear it now…? Good, that means it’s time for the conflict. The hurdle for our heroine (that’s me) to overcome.
When I am depressed, I cannot read. I don’t have the focus. I can read articles. I can often read plays. But I can’t lose myself in the narrative of a brilliantly written novel. My brain darts all over the place. My anxiety is on high alert. My jaw is tight. My body is tired from lack of good quality sleep. This is, perhaps, the biggest sadness for me in the whole sorry situation.
I mean… It’s probably not sadder than a grown woman wondering what the point of her is, or spontaneously bursting into tears in a supermarket. Or the sight of her flying into a rage at the smallest of irritations. Or the feeling like you’re not entirely present in your own life; the impression that it’s going on around you, while you’re trapped inside a glass shield which nobody else can see, so that they think you’re there and everything is normal, but the sounds are a bit distant to you, and when somebody holds your hand, your intellect is telling you that the hand is warm, and squeezing yours, but the glass means that you can’t feel the squeeze, or the warmth. That’s sadder. The misery my friends and family go through when they are worrying about me. That’s sadder, I get it. But I am, and have always defined myself as, a bibliophile (I probably just said “I love books” when I was 8, I doubt I used the word bibliophile). Not being able to read feels like a bit of me is missing. And it’s one of the bits of me that I like. So that’s what makes me so sad about it.
Right. The violinist’s union is very strict about how long she can play without a break, so we’re going to have to move on from the conflict and make a start on the resolution.
Here comes the good-news-bit… and I do not know if it’s because I’m just back from a week long holiday, of lying on the beach… but…. Reader, I’m Reading. Like… PROPER reading. I was on holiday earlier this year too, but that time I read one book in two weeks…. which is nothing by my “Healthy Standards”. This time it was three in ten days. And, YES, I was totally absorbed in all three. And then yesterday, I went into a bookshop and wandered round it, and rather than the feeling I’ve had when I’ve been in them for the last year or so, which is akin, I would imagine, to the feeling someone who has been a devout believer all their life gets when they walk into their place of worship only to discover they can longer pray…. I was happy, and excited, and had to restrict myself to buying just the one book. (Through all my depressive phases I’ve always insisted on buying as many books as I do when sound of mind, and as a result I have enough in my “To Read” pile to see me through to the inevitable Armageddon we’re all facing with this bunch of evil clowns currently running the world… so I have to put a cap on my buying)
Anyway…. like I say… who knows, it could be an oasis, or it could just be a mirage, either way, I’m going to make the most of it while I can.
And, as a person who has been married for ten years to the last person I went home with 19 years and 8 months ago… this is the very best piece of advice I can leave you with…
This post was originally published as ‘The Anxious Actor”
My Name is Not Debbie 