The day I locked myself out of my house

*what follows is based on true events*

The day I locked myself out of my house was 12 hours after my parents had gone on holiday. Before they left we joked about the wild parties I’d be throwing (apparently they think they’ve raised a daughter who lives her life according to the rules laid down in Animal House), the non-clearing up after myself I’d be doing, the irresponsible acts I’d be performing when not under the watchful parental gaze. The fact that I spent three of the last four years not living at home and I am 25 years old seems to have escaped their attention. I mean, we all know it’s just part of the banter my family indulges in (FYI if you meet me and I’m mean to you, that means I like you. It’s how I’ve been taught to show affection) but there is a kernel of truth in the non-trust my mother and step-father have in me. I’m not an untrustworthy person. I’m not the person you wait to see how and when they’re going to fuck everything up (well, not unless it’s got something to do with my love life). For the most part, I'm Captain Sensible (no, not that one).

Yet, I say that, and then 12 hours after my parents go on holiday I lock myself out of my house.

Despite my love of stuff I have a pretty free-and-easy hippy attitude when it comes to looking after the stuff I own. I have things and sometimes I leave things behind. It doesn’t bother me too much as I put my faith in the universe to reimburse me as and when it sees fit. Some people think this makes me a womble*, but picking up free stuff does not a womble make. It’s just a universe-bartering system that I have been inducted into. I often leave various items of clothing, jewelry, accessories in different places (normally the sorts of places where alcohol is served) maybe not intentionally, but I rarely get upset at this. I just always hope they find their way to a good home (I find if you're going to adopt this philosophy it helps to be slightly forgetful and not to swing too much or too often into the realms of sentimentality). Having said that, I have been really missing my leopard-print shoes that I’ve lost at some point between going to Spain in the summer and, well, some point within the last week or so when I suddenly though about wearing them again. I just have to remember when the tears start prickling at my eyes that possessions do not maketh the man (but they can maketh the man’s feet look really good and feel very comfortable. Oh shoes, where fore art thou?). [Oh, by the by, I’ve worked out a strategy to help with my inability to gauge timescales – I simply think back to what outfit I was wearing at the time (yes, for some reason, I have catalogued every outfit I’ve worn in the last two years in my mind and this - what can only be described as - superpower has only just been brought to my attention. I AM MOTHERFUCKING CLARK KENT! Sort of.) This obviously only works in the sense of ‘remember when we went to… and did…’. It will not work if you say ‘what were you wearing on Tuesday 12th May?’. For the record, one more time, I HAVE NO CONCEPT OF DATES. But if you try the first approach then I will immediately know what outfit I was sporting. If it was summery then it must be around summer time, same for wintry looks. Sazz friends are encouraged to put this to the test. I need to make sure it actually works and I haven’t just been tricking myself into thinking I have this superpower].

However, that wasn’t how I locked myself out of the house. I just thought I’d mention it.

No, what happened was that there were keys in the inside lock and the door was ‘on the snip’ as we say (I think everyone else in the world says ‘latch’ or ‘catch’). This means that you can only open the door by putting your keys in and turning. However, as I mentioned there were keys in the inside lock meaning that I couldn’t put the keys on the outside all the way in the lock to turn them.

Thus I was locked out without being able to properly lock the door in the first place. Welcome to my world.

This happened as I was leaving for work. I decided there and then to just go to work and worry about it later. I figured if I couldn’t get in then burglars couldn’t get in and also thought that if I had some more mulling over time then I could figure out a way of somehow solving this minor conundrum.

I got in my car, and, as I do every morning, prayed to all the appropriate Gods, said all the correct incantations, and it eventually grumbled into life so off I drove. Seven minutes into my ride to work I had a flash of inspiration. Lightbulbs flickered into view all around my head. If I can just fit my hand through the letterbox then I can take the keys on the inside lock out and then open the door easy as pie. A smug smile played at the corners of my mouth. God I'm good. I thought. Smugly.

Then I went to work, did work things, and finally got home ready to put my plan into action. I was, and I hope this goes without saying, kind of excited to see if this would actually work.

Question: Have you ever tried putting your hands through a letterbox?

Yes, I thought you would have done. As such, you will know that if you have arms that are wider in circumference than a strawberry bootlace (i.e. everyone but Amy Winehouse) then you'll know that the furthest a normal sized person can get their arm in is generally half way between your wrist and your elbow.

This does not leave a lot of 'bendability' to twist one's arm back and fiddle with keys in a lock. The most you can do is move it from one side and then back to the other side. And then back to the other side again. You can wave basically. That's it.

My cunning plan looked a little like it might have failed at the first hurdle.

What I need is something like an arm, but smaller than an arm and with some kind of hooking device,I mused. Looking around for inspiration my eyes fell upon such a thing. Hello Kitty umbrella. The only umbrella I've never successfully lost. Old faithful friend. I'm trusting you Hello Kitty umbrella. Work your Japanese cartoony magic.

Did she?

Did she fuck.

She was even more useless than my arm. Not helped by the fact that I was doing this blind. However, the feeling that this was quite similar to some kind of trial from the Crystal Maze did make me feel a little better. If I can somehow relate one of my predicaments to a tv show then it kind of makes everything ok.

I stood back and really took a look at what was going on. I was trying to break into my own house by using a Hello Kitty umbrella.

Something in my life had gone very wrong at some point.

A new plan of attack was needed. Maybe I forgot to lock one of the back doors! All that was standing between me and checking this out was the 6 foot fence that surrounds my parents property. How do you get over a 6 foot fence when you're a 5 foot 6 inch girl who is possibly the most unfit human being in England?

You climb your dustbin and scale down the other side. Thus fulfilling your Peter Parker quotient for the day. So that's what I did. In my mind I assumed It would be a hop and a jump. Easy peesy.

In reality? Not so much.

First I had trouble clambering on top of the bin. It had been raining and these new fangled modern bins are all smooth and slidey. Anyone watching me would, I imagine, be unable to shake the image of seals flailing wildly over rocks on the oceanside. But slightly less gracefully.

After eventually trying the running jump technique (failing), the hands behind ass, shimmy up with a jump at the end technique (success). I was now atop a bin. It pains me slightly to say this probably ranks top 5 proudest moments of my life ever. However, the journey was only half completed. A quick peek over the back gate established that I was not going to be able to jump. Not unless I wanted a broken ankle. I weighed up this idea but decided that explaining to the paramedics how I'd found myself in such a predicament would really be the uncomfortable conversation to end all uncomfortable conversations.

I will do anything to avoid middle-class embarrassment.

So, instead, I bent double over the gate and reached to open the bolt. Again, I was doing this blind, stretched out to full capacity and leaning heavily on a plastic bin and not-exactly-stable piece of wood. I pretty much figured that this was how I was going to die. Falling from a bin and smashing my head open, all in an effort to open a gate. Just as I was about to convert to religion and ask God for help/just kill myself there and then the gate swung open. I hopped off the bin and looked round the back of the house for any likely entry points. I started wishing I'd watched that program with Dom of Kristian-and-Dominic fame wherepeople get burgled to see how easy it is for them to get burgled (I mean really. I hate people that say shit like 'and this is what I pay my tv license for?' but if they're saying it in relation to this show then more power to them). However, the house , as far as I could see had indeed 'Beat the Burglar'. It was tucked up safe. No living out of Julie Newmar fantasies for me. I was starting to contemplate whether or not to sleep in my car (honest to God, the reason I discounted it was because I didn't want to go to work in the same outfit two days in a row. Fashion dictates everything dahlink) when I remembered I had a corkscrew in my bag (don't ask) (well, you can... I like wine ok?). The back door keys have a lock that is slightly wider than the front door one so, on a whim, I tried jimmying the keys out of there with the corkscrew so I could use the keys I had on me to open the back door (again, if there are keys in the inside lock then you can't get the keys on the outside to go in fully enough to turn them. If I could push the keys out then it would be a bingo bongo bish bash bosh job done situation).

And that's exactly what I did. Saved by a corkscrew.

Who said being an alcoholic was a bad thing? (I know everyone does. Shut up).

* Which reminds me of the time Chloe saw my Moomin snowglobe for the first time and reacted as thus; ‘What?! You like Moomins?? Then why did you get all offended when I said you reminded me of a Moomin??’ I’ll leave you all to ponder that question for yourselves.

Alone Together

My boyfriend and I never argued before we lived together.

Obviously that is a lie.

My boyfriend and I definitely argued before we lived together but, in all honesty, only maybe enough times properly that you could count it on one hand.

I have one vague recollection of being in his bed one night and deciding that I was going to leave and getting up and putting on all my clothes and moving to his living room where I acquired my boots and then holding one of the aforementioned boots in my hand and being so tired that I let it just sort of fall to floor and went and got back into bed and that was basically the end of it.

I'm all about making a point, unless I'm very tired in which case I'm all about sleeping.

That was probably about as bad as it ever got.

The fighting before we lived together had mostly been about this one particular incident where he hurt me real bad. And even then it was rarely fighting, it was like, 'oh hey, let's sit down and talk about our feelings in a mutually safe and respected space' by which I mean, he knew he'd fucked up and was willing to take the blame for it.

As soon as we lived together the fights became actual fights. With tears and shouting and raw anger. Very suddenly we both stopped being nice to each other. It's difficult to guess at what caused this exactly, maybe something to do with just being too fucking tired to maintain the thin veneer of politeness, maybe something to do with him feeling like he was being attacked for being himself (whereas before our main source of contention had revolved around the shitty thing he did), maybe I just turned into a total fucking psycho.

Or perhaps a combination of all three.

My feelings are so fucking exhausting. They consume every inch of me. I feel things all the time. Like ALL the fucking time. Almost constantly. The times when I am not feeling something very intensely and thinking about things very intensely are all too few and far between and usually when I'm asleep (even then, I'm not safe from FEELING things in a complicated dream environment). It's wearying. However, at least I know how wearying my brain is because it lives in my head, no one else has the luxury of seeing how I made 5 out of two plus two.

I never thought however, even given my endless capacity for introspection and over thinking pretty much every action, look and spoken word; and his temperament for anger that we would end up having one of those fights that happen in a street (like, OUTSIDE where other people can see), in broad daylight, when both of us were completely sober. (To be fair we've never had a brawling, drunken street fight at 2am either, which can only be a good thing, but I feel like that's more dignified in a twisted roundabout way - maybe because you can blame it on the booze rather than just being emotionally unstable?)

This all came about because I felt like he didn't truly appreciate how fucked up I am thanks to having to endure four years or so of being made to feel like the world would be a better and easier place were I not in it. I had a whole shit-tonne of bad feeling placed upon my chubby teen shoulders and was made to carry it at the exact point in life when it takes all of one's effort, intelligence, and strength just to get through the fucking day. I was an outcast at school and I was an outcast at (both) of my homes and, it kills me to say it, but that still bleeds into my life now. I spent most of my adolescence feeling completely alone. So when I tearfully walked away from him when we were stopped after an exhausting half hour of "but that's not what I meant" on a leafy street on a cloudy day, it wasn't because I was trying to goad him, I wasn't trying to get him to follow me, I wasn't making a statement, I was just... alone.

He had a fairly nice family life, I didn't so much. Normally that is not a problem within the confines of our relationship but, for whatever reason, on this particular day, on this particular street I didn't feel like defending the fact that I think at least one of my step-sisters is somewhat evil and he didn't feel like defending the fact that he doesn't think any of my step-sisters are evil, in fact they all seem pretty much alright to him. It was the most pointless argument in the world, but it connected to my deep dark past and therefore it destroyed me.

'I am not coming after you' he shouted at me as I felt my shoulders slump and my heels turn. I somehow managed to put one foot in front of the other again and again as I tried not to have a panic attack. He is supposed to make me feel less alone, not more! I thought to myself, not with anger but with a huge overwhelming sadness. I walked and kept walking as I tried to figure out where would be the best place to cut myself; on my arm would be more visible but easier to access if I found something sharp enough on the ground in the next five minutes. It would be more sensible to wait till I got home and find a knife and cut my leg, then less people would see it. I felt myself falling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. My parents would be pretty upset probably but the harder thing to handle if people discovered my cuts would be their pity and disappointment. I used to be a fuck up but now I've got my life together and it would somehow feel like I was letting everyone down who'd seen me go from a hot mess to a self-sufficient, useful member of society. I thought about the logistics. What it would be like to be an in patient in a psychiatric hospital. Would I be admitted even? The NHS is stretched already, particularly where mental health is concerned but maybe it would be easier to just give in, in the long run. Let my crazy run completely free. Stop battling it and just give in to it, other people do this all the time. It might be nice to hand over the keys to being responsible and sensible and just go full out mental...

On and on it went. My mind kept coming up with ways to justify the horrible hurt I was intending on inflicting to myself.

He rang and rang but I was too busy thinking about the best way of starting my nervous breakdown. I kept crossing roads without looking, half-heartedly hoping a car would smash into me.

Suddenly I sensed heavy footsteps behind me and felt a hand grip mine tightly. We looked at each other and said nothing but kept walking and walking.

I cried tears of relief this time.

I wasn't alone any more.

A Love that's Real

It didn't start the way most great love stories start. They had met and then they met again and that regularly continued, they agreed fairly early on that they wanting to keep doing this 'meeting up' thing forever and forever.

It wasn't like the love story that you read about in books and gaze wistfully at in movies. Epic, tragic, unrequited love. The sort of love that crosses oceans and desserts and ends with armies fighting one another and gallons of bloodshed.

This love was far more real than that.

She couldn't remember the exact moment she first thought it. In some ways it felt like it had always been there, and then, slowly (or quickly depending on your viewpoint), over time it had been discovered as an essential truth that neither could ignore. They kept digging into one another's life's and thoughts and opinions and kept coming up with interesting artefacts that just confirmed what they already knew; I love this person. The love kept growing as more things were discovered; silly things like crisp flavour preferences and sexy things like where on their bodies they could be touched to make them moan with pleasure and deep, dark things like the ways in which their exes had fucked them up. As more time was spent with one another, more things were revealed. They felt themselves growing from it; walking taller, feeling stronger, acting better. This wasn't a love that overwhelmed or destroyed or required the hacking off of chunks of one's soul to keep alive.

This love was far more real than that.

The montage sequence of their lives showed them walking along a beach at night hand in hand and smiling, kissing one another tenderly on the cheek on a German train, laughing till she had tears in her eyes in a restaurant due to his Alan Partridge impressions. All these moments were clearly crystalised in her mind but even then, between those highlights that their love also shone through brightly. These were the times when their love became more than just the sum of its parts. Just being in one another's company, being tender and understanding to one another, making one another laugh. Just sat in her flat or his. Saying nothing or saying everything. Just allowing themselves to be together. These times couldn't be described as 'exciting' but neither were they boring. They were a slow burn. A simmering passion and fascination for one another; a conversation that never stopped, a comfortableness that came in silence, they sappily stared into one another's eyes and said the words again and again that seemed woefully inadequate to describe their feelings; I love you, I love you, I love you.

Theirs was a love that was real.

It was made more real through it's imperfections. He hid things. She pushed him away. He stayed regardless. They talked and talked and talked until things became better and then they talked some more. In therapy she had learned that honesty is the only thing that works. Lying to yourself, tricking yourself, keeping things hidden from yourself might be easier in the short term but honesty will always out. It finds a way to escape and it will burn you alive. She knew honesty wasn't a short cut to happiness; but it was the only chance you could ever have at beginning to approach happiness (even if in the short term it requires you being burned alive). So together they stood hand in hand and did their best to learn. They agreed to walk through the flames of honesty together and managed to walk out the other side still in like and in love and still holding hands.

She knew they'd have to do this many times through their lives if they were to remain together but if they survived the flames once, she felt certain they would survive them again and again.

For theirs was a love that was real.

It was a love built on all those words mums tell their daughters that relationships should be based on; friendship, respect, trust. They would walk to the ends of the earth for each other, do anything for each other. But neither would ask the other to do anything. Just by knowing they could rely on one another meant nothing needed to be proven. There were no mind games, just frank open discussions. Manipulation wasn't required. (Why would it be when they felt like this?) She realised now that the thing that had felt missing all her life, a thing that she didn't have a word for, she had now found. It was a thing that set the universe into alignment. The crazy that she had laboured through before in previous relationships seemed extra-perplexing in hindsight - why would you put yourself through the stress of a relationship unless you had all this amazingness to back it up? She asked. It seems obvious now but I honestly don't know, he replied. She believed that the crazy they'd experienced before came from trying to bridge the gap between what it is and what you want it to be. That gap has to be filled with something and crazy seems like the obvious solution at the time; it's such an excellent distraction technique you never have to face the fact that what you're putting yourself through isn't real. There were no gaps or cracks in this.

It was a love that was real.

Sometimes jealousy would creep it's way into her brain or his. Previous paramours, hook ups, flings, long term loves. All these fed the paranoia pixies that each resided in both their brains. They shot the pixies down with truth and understanding. They didn't need to hide anything or pretend to be fine. They just discussed how they were feeling without accusation or recourse long into the night. She knew the pixies would always be there but their power was lessened greatly by not giving into them, by acknowledging them, by wanting to ensure they were kept to a bare minimum in the other person's brain too. They spent hours in bed, trailing their fingers along one another's bodies and turning each other on, feeding their burning mutual attraction. Talking breathily about their deepest fantasies, enacting those fantasies out. She felt relaxed and happy and sexy when she was with him in a way no one else had made her feel before. She knew now that this was what it was always supposed to be like, it seemed silly on reflection but without anything else to compare it to she had put up with much, much less. It every conceivable way she had put up with much, much less; mentally, physically, emotionally.

But she didn't need to put up with less any more. She finally had a love that was real.

Berlin

There are no short cuts. That's the first thing to know.

Well, I mean, yes okay, literally there are short cuts. There are alleyways and side streets. You can duck into the u-bahn and pop out the other side, no ticket required. You can skip merrily from one side of the Tiergarten to the other. You can zip behind the back of the central train station to get from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate.  But in life, where it counts, there are no short cuts. I know where literal and metaphor meet (I had a great big literal/metaphorical wall carve me up and represent ideology and be the cause of actual human deaths - I get this) but the metaphorical is where it counts most really. And in that space here's the one thing I've learned if you care to listen: there are no short cuts.

I think it's fair to say I have been through a lot. Been the epicentre of a lot of fucked up shit. Also been the site of some truly wonderful, exciting, joyous occasions. Good people have lived here and evil people have lived here, but, as is generally the case, many many more people have lived here that have fallen on the spectrum between those two states. It's an ever moving target with most of them. Rarely do they think about where they fall on any given day but I can feel them struggle with their dilemmas incessantly; moral, logistical, banal, life changing; dilemmas are being fought within people's consciousness constantly. Sometimes they genuinely don't know which path to take. Sometimes they know what the right thing to do is and yet still can't bring themselves to do it. Sometimes the right thing means losing out on other Good Things. It's hard for them, not that I could help even if I wanted. I've found the best thing to do is just let them fight their own battles whether it be individual, ideological, or political. The only thing I can do is be here. Silent but alive.

I don't remember when I came into being exactly. I guess there's a part of me that believes I've always existed but I know that's not true. But then, you don't remember being born do you? When did you know you were alive? Can you imagine what the world was like before you existed?

Exactly.

I started small, really small. A few tiny wooden houses that had little windows and low ceilings. You would not recognise me from the rows of apartment blocks and skyscrapers that exist within me today. Life was slow and steady back then, the dilemmas people faced were no less complex, however I think they had less time to dwell upon them. The main priority was survival rather than introspection. I personally like to keep a balance between the two, though I have a certain luxury in knowing I will always exist. Like I said, I've been through a lot. I've had to endure huge chunks of me being destroyed, bombings, riots, separation, all of it. The one thing that remains constant? Regeneration when the fighting is finished. I always continue growing no matter how much damage there has been. However bleak the outlook, I always come out stronger eventually. It's sometimes difficult to hold on to that fact when things do get bleak and black and sad and angry, but deep down I know: I'll come out ok. It might not happen quickly, or in the way I would wish, but I'll still be here; existing. Molding myself around what people need and being molded by people depending on what the circumstances dictate. It's a symbiotic process. It couldn't be anything but.

The other thing I've learned is that categorising the people here in any way, shape, or form whatsoever is pointless. They are all little unique snowflakes I like to say (with a pinch of knowing sarcasm and a dollop of genuineness). However, you can't get away from the fact that the snowflakes all look and behave pretty much the same if you're not examining them up close. I think people forget that; from far away they all look the same, up close they are all unique. But they meld together so easily and that is required if anything is to change - snowflakes can't change the world alone. But when they all get together they can transform me into something beautiful.

It's difficult to categorise me too. I see this as a point of pride. Start at my centre and walk fifteen minutes in any direction and you'll find a different feel, look, and atmosphere had you chosen to walk in the opposite direction. I like that about me. I enjoy the opulence of the Reichstag just as much as I love the graffiti that adorns the walls on my crumbling outskirts. Most other cities don't wear their history on their sleeve quite so defiantly as I do; it's just one of those things that I like about myself.

I live and breathe and exude everything my inhabitants need me to. I'm there with them when they feel completely alone, when they're joyful, when they're angry, when their babies are born and their loved ones die. I'm always here offering what I can - which is myself. Being here. That's what they need of me.

I got here by stoically playing the long game: there are no short cuts.

Dear Me

Dear Future Me

I have only been with my boyfriend for around four months. I am 28 and this is the longest relationship I have ever been in. I am completely in love with this man, he makes me feel safe and loved and myself. More myself than I've ever been before.

Or I should say he made me feel safe and loved because he told me a couple of weeks ago that he had been in regular contact with this girl who he was fucking right before we started dating and she sent him dirty pictures of herself about two months ago (they were for him to 'remember her by' as they had been working together and that was their last week in the same office).

This has made me completely lose my mind.

In the interests of full disclosure, when we began our relationship I was also seeing other people for the first month and a half but was completely open about this fact (and in fact he ended things with this girl after our second date while I continued to see two other men right up until we slept together for the first time). He has said the contact he was having with this girl was 'banal and mundane' (things about work, about her boyfriend - yes she has a boyfriend) and I believe him (obviously excepting the dirty pictures she sent him of herself, which in my mind is the sexiest pictures anyone has ever taken of themselves in the entire history of the world).

We have talked this through endlessly. Why he kept things from me (not really sure - but mostly didn't want to hurt me, he knew this girl didn't mean anything to him so why risk upsetting the girl who *does* mean something to him), why he didn't tell her to stop texting him or tell her the pictures were inappropriate to send (not really sure - but mostly didn't want to upset her. And I sort of understand this because those guys I was dating to begin with both got in contact with me a couple of months after I broke things off with them asking to meet and saying no to that was incredibly hard and not something I think I'd have been able to do without two years of therapy behind me. But then, the point is I *did* do that because I knew it would upset my boyfriend to meet up with these people), why this hurts me so much when he 'technically' hasn't done anything wrong (I think I'm lacking - I'm not the sort who'd send unsolicited dirty pictures of myself to an ex lover, I imagine she's thinner, prettier, better at sex than I am - I feel betrayed, I thought he was the honest one and could teach me to be the same). He has not once made me feel stupid for being upset, he's been incredibly supportive and understanding in a way that no one in my family and no one I've ever dated before has been for me.

So why can I not let it go?

I have tried focusing on the positives; life will get shitty and he's proven he can be there when you need him to be, he's shown with his words and actions time and again how much you mean to him, he knows he's made a mistake and is sorry and won't do it again. I have put myself in his shoes and think I understand how and why he let this happen; that he was cowardly, yes, but not malicious. This wasn't done for kicks it was done out of a misguided sense of trying to keep the path smoothest for everyone involved. I have tried to put myself in her shoes and end up feeling sorry for her - she's sent pictures of herself to other men they worked with as well (and, might I reiterate, she has a boyfriend herself) which suggests to me she's the sort of person who has this unending desire for validation - something she doubtless never received from her father if my calculations about human behaviour are correct. She's broken and trying to make herself feel better as best she can. We have all been there surely?

So why can I not let it go?

I feel like I'm ruining this thing; this thing that seems precious and rare and beautiful. I'm ruining it by thinking too much about how he's hurt me, I'm ruining it by being fine and then suddenly not being fine, I'm ruining it by the (overwhelming at times) desire I have of wanting to run away as far and as fast as I can (my daydreams have me quitting my job, leaving my home and going to Africa to work in an AIDS clinic to while away my days focusing on other people's real problems, rather than my imagined ones). Why can't I just accept things for how they are? That this happened and he's admitted it, told her to not contact him (now), and wants only me. It's not even like he's done anything that bad so why can I not just let it settle? I'm starting to honestly feel unhinged, suicidal thoughts that I thought I'd banished a long time ago are starting to creep in to my brain. I hate myself. I thought I'd healed the broken person I was. I thought I was ready for an adult relationship and all that entailed but I'm wondering if I'm just not someone who can handle love. That I'm better off alone where hurt like this isn't an issue.

I think I was being too naive before to think that this thing was perfect. By revealing all this to me does it not make it more real and by extension even more 'perfect' (whatever that means) than before? He's revealed he's an imperfect creature but so am I. So are we all. But how do I make this stop hurting? How did you work out and work past betrayal? What do I have to do to let all this go?

Yours
Past Me

Dear Past Me,

Here's a thing I know seeing as I used to be you - you're looking for a magic, instant solution that's going to erase all the hurt and put you right back where you were before you found out you and your boyfriend are both human.

Good luck with that!

I don't mean to be facetious (I do a bit) but it's just not going to happen. You know that's not just going to happen. You spent the last two years of your life coming to terms with the fact that that's not a possibility. What I want you to do now is slow down and breathe and take in the view around you. Stop worrying about becoming me, where you're finally stable again, and focus on being you right at this second. Let's examine the facts: You know these feelings don't just disappear. You know they have a right to be felt. It's all very well going around putting yourself in other people's shoes but have you thought about putting yourself in your own shoes? It's okay to be angry, it's okay to be hurt. Whether or not you feel your response to all this has been proportional (and I know you don't) is not really the issue at the moment. The issue is what do you feel? Don't turn away from that. Don't push it down. Just let it happen. You deserve that much at least.

Right, that's the hardest bit out of the way. Actually letting yourself feel the things that you feel. So what next? Well, this is the second hardest bit - showing your feelings. Notice my turn of phrase there; I don't just mean talking about your feelings in a calm rational manner, but showing them. You're becoming extremely adept at the talking about them; "It made me feel x when you did y" but, although this is an important skill and that cannot be understated, it's just a part of the process to help you. It's what will form the bedrock for the actual showing which is where you'll start the healing. I know that's going to be difficult for you. Showing your feelings means showing yourself means making yourself vulnerable. And you hate that. You've spent a lot of time trying not to do that, but making yourself vulnerable is where you get the things that mean the most: Love. Truth. Meaning. Healing. Growing. These all come from allowing yourself to be vulnerable. There's also that other flip side of the vulnerable coin: Hurt. But is this guy not worth that? Do you not want to take the leap with this one far more than you've ever done before? Not just because he's better for you than the others but because he's willing to take the leap too.

And what does the leap look like? Well I've been disingenuous here slightly because it's less a leap and more a continuous road. Something that can be skipped along happily at times, that you'll just quietly trudge along at others, and occasionally something that'll be incredibly treacherous. You'll get through or round this or you won't but if you do decide to slay the dragons/reveal the wizard/escape from the townspeople then your only chance at triumphing over these challenges will be to team up and do so together. I understand how difficult that will be for you as you've come to rely solely on yourself but when you're tired, or sad, or angry, having another person there to share that with you and help you through it is not a sign a weakness but that of strength.

I think the other part of this you're finding difficult is the idea that, not only is there a magic solution to this problem, but that when you're fine with this you'll be fine forever. It's not going to work like that, however much you wish it would. You will be fine, then you won't, then you will again. The thing that gets you through that? Keep talking, keep showing, keep respecting yourself and him. This is how those metaphorical dragons get slain. They'll only overwhelm you if you pretend they don't exist, if you stand up straight - with him, and wield swords of truth together it'll increase your chances exponentially at destroying them. Maybe you won't kill them completely, maybe they'll come back in a different form. Whatever happens as long as you stand side by side to fight they'll never win.

That perfect love you thought you had? That wasn't real. This is what real looks like. Real is the thing you've always said you wanted. So allow yourself to have it, warts and all.

Yours,

Future Me.

I Was a Camera

Act I: The Arrival

I feel numb.

That's the first thing I recognise. The first truth that emerges. Slowly my eyes open and I try to make sense of the cacophony of sights, sounds and smells. A jumbled whirring of noise and colour, shapes and discord.

I remember something; a man. I can't make out his face but remember intently looking at his hands - stubby fingers topped with bitten nails that are holding a hand rolled cigarette.

'Sprechen sie deutsch?' A voice comes to me out of the ether and I try and focus on the direction from whence it came.

'Err... nein' I reply. My tongue feels heavy and too fat for my mouth.

'Oh good!' Comes the reply. 'My German is horrendous, though I am learning - just terribly slowly - but it's nice to meet someone who's even more alien than me!'

'Where...where am I?' My vision starts focusing more clearly and I can make out an impossibly glamorous woman who must be in her early twenties louchely decorating the end of the bed I am currently lying upon.

'Fraulein Thurau's guesthouse my darling, we found you slumped in the doorway late last night, well, early this morning. Passed out completely! Don't worry, I have been there myself...' she winked conspiratorially 'I always recognise a soul in need as a result. Can't tell you the number of situations I've been in where I've needed a kind stranger to set me to rights again, so I asked some passing gentlemen to help me bring you in and here we are! I've convinced the Fraulein that you're an old friend of mine who took a funny turn so she wouldn't ask too many questions... not that I don't have a few questions myself you understand.'

I try to hoist myself up so I can take in a better view of my surroundings. I couldn't tell if it was the speed and volume with which this creature on the bed was talking that was making me dizzy or if it was just a natural side effect of... well, of what I wasn't sure. Of whatever had caused me to be here I supposed. In this unfamiliar, odd, colourful room. Filled with colourful but odd and unfamiliar things I noticed. A gramophone? A fur coat draped over a chair? There was a painting propped up against a wall that looked like a genuine Gustav Klimpt...

'So what brings you to Berlin? Seeking fame and fortune? Been left bereft and broken hearted? Just wanted to be where all the action is? I would class myself as a little of all three truth be told darling!'

'I'm... I'm not sure... I still feel a bit dizzy'

'Looking at you, I'm guessing you're one of the broken hearted. There is nothing wrong with being a romantic my darling but you've got to learn to be pragmatic at the same time. A girl can't trust anyone but herself. That's always been my motto and it's seen me through thick, but mostly through thin!'

I said nothing but my heart twinged as she said all this. Another truth was trying to break free and see off the feeling of numbness but I fought against it. Whatever it was could wait until later when I had my bearings a bit more. It seemed she was waiting for a reaction so I laughed politely. Her expectant eyes seemed satisfied by this and she relaxed her heavily made up face into a smile.

'Drink darling?' she enquired.

'Umm... Water?'

'Psscht! Water! Not in this room! How about a scotch? That should put colour in your cheeks again darling!'

I acquiesced sensing that it was easier to comply than argue where this individual was concerned.

'Do you want a drop of water with it?' she sort of lightly said this, completely oblivious to the fact she'd denied seconds ago that such a liquid would ever be allowed to pass the threshold here.

'Sure' I replied, smiling gently. More of me was coming back now. Memories started rushing in to fill the gaps all at once: the man with the bitten nails gesticulating wildly with his cigarette, me hurrying past him and tripping over his feet or a tree root or something? It was all... it felt like one of those dreams that's very real at the time and then you wake up and think you're being silly for believing in it so much. It was like that but without the feeling silly.

'What year is this?'

'What year? Oh dear, maybe scotch is not a good idea for you after all' she said handing me a glass but furrowing her brow as she did so to let me know the level of her concern (I suspected the level of her concern rarely raised itself above a furrowed brow and a sidelong glance). 'It's 1931 darling, the most exciting time to be alive and we just so happen to be in the most exciting city to be alive in! Berlin has everything you could want, need, have ever dreamed of, never will dream of. It's fabulous!'

I downed my scotch in one go.

I had travelled through time.

What the fuck.

Act II: The Adventure

Margot was the perfect tour guide. If I were so inclined then I would have believed meeting her was fate. She was the perfect host to the Weimar Republic way of life. Known by everyone, adored by most (though not all); she knew where the action was taking place - and more often than not she was the cause of it. It took me a while to adjust. It wasn't just the shock of being in a different time; it was like a completely different world. The air itself felt different; crisper somehow, with a colder edge even when the warm sun danced around us. The smells were unfamiliar; everyone smoked for a start and tabacco seemed to be constantly lingering around me - it was like a ghost that followed me everywhere I went. Inside, outside - it was always there. Although German was the preferred method of communication it didn't really seem to matter where one was from. Even an English lass such as myself who would have been an enemy of this country little over a decade before (and soon to be so again as only I knew) was welcomed and encouraged to join in. Everyone under thirty seemed to have this mad passion for being alive. There was a constant whirr of activity - putting on shows, writing, debating, drinking, fucking, loving; everywhere you looked everything was attacked with an intense fervour. I guess they had seen with their own eyes the brevity and fragility of life and decided to make the most of it.

It was thrilling to be around.

There was no way that I, molly coddled white privileged and middle class I, could understand what these people had been through. Not just losing an entire generation of men - fathers, husbands, brothers, friends - but the years of hardship that came after it as well. When money cost so little that it would take a wheelbarrow of notes to buy a loaf of bread. When we have everything we could ever desire at our beck and call nowadays it was incomprehensible to me to think that most of the people stood round me had endured a poverty so consuming and insidious that they could not, would not, take anythign for granted.

And yet here I was; it front of all this spectacular derring-do, watching people genuinely live for the moment, watching them 'persevere and continue working' as the Max Planck adage goes, and I was nursing a broken heart.

My lover hadn't died, he hadn't run away, he hadn't been beaten to a pulp by creditors coming to collect what they felt was owed them; he'd just broken my heart. Very simply that was what haunted me. Such a boring, usual story; he'd betrayed me and it hurt. I was tired by even the idea of it. Everyone gets hurt in some way at some point in their lives but I hadn't seen it coming from him. All I wanted was to not be thinking about it any more. Margot sympathised for all of five minutes and then felt that I needed to 'get under someone to get over him'.

I wasn't so sure but smiled and nodded just to keep her happy. Although it seemed silly to be in a hive of decadence, fun and creativity and not sample some of the delights that were on offer I was happy to just observe these frolics, I felt no desire to become a part of it.

Which ran quite counter to the ethos of the Weimar children, in their dingy little shabbily chic clubs filled to the brim with the freaks and the geeks who drink and laugh and frequently fuck - those that didn't fit anywhere else in the world (though I was starting to suspect no one felt like they belonged anywhere and that was part of why they'd created this completely new society, to build a home for those that felt like they'd never had a home before) - who seemed to be all about living fully in the present. The past was boring and ugly. The future, well that would take care of itself (...to a degree I felt like telling them). The present was were it was at. Working, playing, they were considered of equal value. They wanted to do as much as they could, create as much as they could, lest it all disappear in front of their faces again.

Of course it wasn't all fun and games, the air didn't just hang heavy with the stink of cigarettes but also political ideology. Not everyone had taken the lessons of the first world war to mean the present should be celebrated and enjoyed. That one should pursue one's passions and create as much art, science, music, psychological theory, thatre, comedy, as one could manage. Some people decided that fear and oppression would save them. These people, I suspected, also seemed to feel rudderless and metaphorically homeless. Instead of building a new way of being like Margot and her friends were doing they wanted to take from what other people already had. They weren't about building from the ground up, they just wanted everything they'd never had and didn't care who they had to hurt to get it. They wanted the easy option rather than the more difficult, working for it and earning it and making it yourself option.

I worried that this was also my way of dealing with pain and fear and hurt. Wanting everything to be better right now and not caring about how I got from here, where it hurts, to there, where it doesn't. Any time I felt these thoughts get too heavy for me to carry Margot would appear and make me feel light again: 'Christopher Isherwood is here darling, didn't you say he's a writer you admire? Let's go talk about how devine it is to prefer boys to girls'

And so we would.

But no matter how impressive the person she introduced me to I still found myself watching more than joining in. There was an essential part missing and I didn't know what it was. My heart ached and I didn't know how to heal it. I was starting to suspect that this adventure was caused by me desperately trying to escape. I had willed myself away, hidden myself from the world I knew. That's how it felt. I was in the place and time I'd always wanted to be. And now I was here I realised how futile that was. However exciting it may have been, how ever many lost souls there were crowding the cabarets and bars, this for me was all wrong. I needed to do the harder thing, the thing the Weimar freaks were doing, what Margot was doing; live in the present. My present.

And work at this until it's worked out. Build something new and fabulous that was like nothing that had gone before it. Persevering no matter what had happened before.

That was my only option.

Act III: He Returns

I don't recognise him at first.

He stood under a tree in a shady spot maybe 20 paces away. He seemed to be picking at his hands while a hand rolled cigarette dangled from his lips. It was the focus he was giving his hands that drew my attention to them...

And then suddenly it all came back.

His hands. His cigarettes. The stumble I'd taken.

He looks up at me and a flash of recognition passes through both of us. It's him. My lover. The one who betrayed me. He's found me here, in the past.

He walks up to me slowly, shyly, 'Hi', he say softly. 'I have been looking everywhere for you.'

'So it would seem' I ravenously search his face with my eyes. The slight stubble, the squareness of his face, those dimples. I devour every inch.

'I would go anywhere for you. I have gone anywhere for you. To here, where it's impossible for either of us to be. I'm sorry for what I did, but we can work through this.'

'How did any of this happen in the first place?' I mean both the betrayal and arriving here. I find each of them equally perplexing.

'I don't know' he sighs. 'But I think we can figure it out together. I think we can figure anything out together.'

I launch myself at his face and kiss him hungrily.

Persevere and continue working says Max Planck. Whatever it is, whatever you want to achieve; persevere and continue working at it. That's the only way. That's what the kids of the Weimar Republic are doing. I pull away from him and see his beaming, beautiful smile.

'Where shall we go now?' I ask.

'Anywhere you want. We can go, anywhere you want.'

Persevere and continue working.

Always.

Betrayal

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" he said.

"It's fine" she replied thinking; "it is not fine"

They talked about it endlessly in the following week; crying at times, laughing at others. She felt safe and sick. Broken and whole. She loved him and hated him all at once. Thoughts compulsively went round and round her head. What had this girl looked like? What did she sound like? Was she tall or short? What had she looked like when she was fucking him? Swirling thoughts that wouldn't let up. Working herself into a lather she imagined him holding this girl, looking at her appreciatively as she walked away from him, telling her how attractive she was. Things he'd said and done for and to her. In her head this girl was perfect. Small and slight; long dark hair, pouty Lolita lips, breasts high and firm leading down to a taut stomach and shapely legs. Sexually knowledgeable and aggressive (she would have to be sexually aggressive to be the sort of girl that sent unsolicited sexy pictures of herself to other peoples boyfriends). Laura was not sexually aggressive. She was unsure of herself and despite many compliments from past (and the current) suitors about certain physical attributes and her skills in the bedroom, she was not a conventionally attractive woman and she still carried the weight of being a virgin into her twenties around with her. Time and practice had filled in certain gaps in the meantime but she had never really lost the inferiority complex that comes from being a gawky, inexperienced, frightened-of-the-world teenager. Laura was sure the girl was a conventionally attractive girl who, though clearly in thrall to some serious daddy issues, would never have stood at the edge of a dancefloor feeling fat, unattractive, and unloveable as Laura had spent most of her formative years.

These thoughts gripped her from morning till night. Brushing her teeth, waiting for a bus, washing dishes after dinner. She'd be stood there feeling fine, or just stood there existing feeling neither fine nor not, and suddenly the thoughts of the girl would start swirling and drag her to a dark, dank place. A place she thought she'd never have to go again once she met him. Now here she was, standing on the precipice between sanity and the alternative and was not sure which way she would fall. Reason dictated stepping back into the realms of logic ("he didn't do anything once we were together properly, he only kept stuff from me to save upset, he didn't tell her to get lost because adults aren't taught how to create boundaries anymore"), emotion urged her to jump with wild abandon into the pit of self-destruction ("how could he not know this would hurt you? Thus he must have done it to hurt you. You're better off on your own. You will never live up to this girl. You're worthless to him, he's proven that. Give up. Give in"). She felt herself caught between these urges, these voices, unable to choose between them.

She'd said 'I forgive you' and meant it but now felt nothing but anger. She wanted him gone. She never wanted to see him again, then, just as suddenly, she loved him with all her heart and could not imagine her life without him. Flipping between these states like switching between channels on the tv. She hated her brain: 'just pick one!' she screamed internally, but it seemed impossible. Her heart and her head would not settle.

Laura knew this was what would be the end of them. Not his initial stupidity, but her inability to let things go. To settle.

This was the worst betrayal of all.