The more I think about it, the more I think she had it right. The Queen of Hearts, one of the most hated story characters of all time, is one of my favourite. The Queen wore pretty red dresses, she played croquet and probably drank Pimms and had the balls (read tenacity, strength and self preservation) to chop the head off those who hurt her. I can see myself swanning about in red fancy dresses, playing croquet, sipping Pimms and fishing out the cucumber on a daily basis. I can’t imagine my life would be in anyway sad or upsetting if my only responsibility was to put on some lipstick and whack a few balls with a flamingo.
While that last bit sounds like a euphemism for something that I haven’t done in a very long time the rest I could manage quite easily. But alas, I am not the Queen of Hearts. I do not collect them, steal them or abuse them like they were takeaway coffee. Hearts do not collect in the pockets of my pants or on the notches of my bedpost. The only heart that I have is my own and like everyone else’s, it’s broken.
I used to think that when you’re heart broke it would shatter. That pieces of it would break off like broken glass and stab you until the edges wore down again. The older I get I realise that’s not how it breaks. Your heart, when it breaks, bleeds. The edges get all raggedy and chunks of wasted muscle sluice off slowly and bounce around your heart leaving it raw and exposed and aching. It makes your whole body sad and raw and on the verge of looking into a cavern that is bottomless with blinkers on your eyes to stop you from seeing the ladders and fields of flowers that grow just over there past your croquet pitch. While that imagery is a little depressing please be assured that just one chunk of your heart tearing off doesn’t get you to the edge of the pit. It’s when there’s chunks coming from all sides and you can’t remember the last time it didn’t ache that you get here.
I have star tattooed on my wrist that has five points. It’s supposed to remind me that the parts of my life are in balance. That it’s my real job, living, that is supposed to keep me balanced and remind me of what’s important when I go on day to day living. Lately, my star is way off. It looks Dali has had a particularly bad trip and redrawn it on spindly camel legs that have melted in the sun with the swirls of Chupa Chup wrapper. The sad bits that I think are happening to me have all blended together and for a little while I couldn’t tell them apart.
It started quite small. My internet wasn’t working and I’d missed the first three episodes of the Walking Dead. Small crisis. It didn’t warrant tears but without my weekly Darryl fix, I thought my daily life was going to become less satisfying. Then it spiralled. I missed my dad, my mum went on holiday without me (and without my dad), my baby turned 21 (he’s not really mine) but mostly it became quite apparent that what I wanted, and who I wanted, quite clearly didn’t want me. And there it is. The end of the line. The Queen of Hearts moment where I could have just picked up a flamingo whacked a ball and had his head taken off all at the same time. But that’s not what happened.
Not getting the response I wanted is not something I am new to. When it comes to men, I am the Queen of Almosts. I almost have relationships frequently and quite often sell my heart for a lot less than a Pimms. This time though, I tried to be better. I did things differently all with the same result. Another almost left me broken and missing a rather large chunk of heart muscle. But by then it was too late. That no coincided with a bad dad week and all of a sudden my blinkers hid the world from view. From inside the blinkers there was only self loathing, pity and hatred. From the edge of the pit, that one no (actually there wasn’t a no, just silence – that’s worse than a no, right?) became ‘no man will ever love me ever again.’
For my entire life my dad was the one man that loved me always. That was his job and he took it very seriously. When things weren’t going right, a hug from dad and ‘you’ll be right, grub’ was all it talk to make all of the nos of the world disappear. All of the sad, bad, self loathing, hating thoughts would disappear (or at least be pushed way, way down where the feelings go). And this time there wasn’t one. No one to call me grub and no one to make it better. Well, that’s what the blinkers said. Then a breeze picked up, or maybe it was an insect flying at my eye and it knocked it, or a piece of chocolate fell out of my face and pushed it aside, but anyway, a blinker faltered, and out of the corner of my eye there was a flash of colour.
When I actually took my eyes out of my own self pity and my mouth from the chip bag long enough to see, there may have been no one to call me grub, but it turns out there was a line of huggers a mile long. People who loved me had noticed my blinkers, my tears and rather large steps away from the ladders and Pimms glasses. There were hallway hugs, Tinder games, planned intervention meetings, exercise buddies, wine buddies, people who took the food out of my mouth, surprise chocolate packages, dinosaur drawings, a PT who let me hit her and made me lift heavy things, Taco Tuesdays and Wine Wednesdays and mix tapes of downloaded TV shows. They told me that I will always be sad sometimes. They told me that I was allowed to be. (They also told me I wasn’t allowed to eat my feelings – but they can’t be right all the time) There isn’t anyone to call me grub anymore and there isn’t anyone who is going to hug me like my dad did but there are people in my life in really long lines who will hug me and love me regardless of my blinkers. I am lucky to have those lines, I know that and I am grateful that they let me keep my blinkers for just a little bit, but when my face is so far in the cheezles box that I can’t see out, you do have my permission to kick me in the arse before you hug me.
I am not the Queen of Hearts. Mine is fragile, broken and has massive cracks. But so does yours. One no doesn’t give me the right to a bottomless box of Cheezles. It gives me the right to turn around and love the people that choose to love me day after day after I’ve opened the first box. To those people, I am grateful, the ones that say yes to me before I’ve even asked are the ones I need to choose to spend my time with. My PT and I thank you.
life in big frilly knickers 