Nothing Comes Easy But A Broken Will

I am still here, I'm just a bit tired and preoccupied.

Work is going well, though it's more exhausting than I expected. It's been quite a few years since I had a job that requires me to report in every day at a certain hour. I was unemployed from January 2015 until September 2015 (and had been mostly on sick leave since September 2014), and before that I had a year or two where I taught a few classes a week and marked homework and spent several hours preparing debate topics and essay questions and classwork, but that still probably only took 20-25 hours a week, and hours were flexible. And before THAT, I ran the helpline four nights a week. Which, fair enough, was longish hours - 48 hours a week, split into four 12-hour shifts - but didn't seem like so much time, because I did it from my bed and could lie down and read.

I think the last time I had a 9-5 job was some time around 2008.

The funny thing is that it's not the work that wears me out, it's the idleness. At home, looking after mom and the house, there's always something to keep me occupied. When I'm working on a project (clearing the hoards from one room, or stripping the paint in the bathroom, or clearing out the garage, etc) I might work 8, 10, 12, even 14 hours at a time - and that's manual labour. And I can handle that. Yet going in to work and spending so much time sitting in a chair listening, thinking and talking, absolutely wears me out.

On a typical day, I get up at 6.45 (5.45 if I'm running, but I haven't been lately because of all the slugs on the paths), bathe and dress, leave the house at 8, get to work around 8.30, busily set up the classroom while eating breakfast, and we're ready for students at 9.30. Then I have very little to do from 9.30 until 2.30 - mostly I hand out papers, write stuff on the whiteboard during class discussions, and occasionally help with spelling and stuff. (I did more the first week, but got reprimanded - gently, but still reprimanded - for overstepping my bounds.) At 2.30, I clear up the classroom and do paperwork, which takes me until 3.30 or 4. Then I go home, take a bath and go to bed around 6pm, only getting up to use the bathroom, and sleep until 6.45 the next morning. I had strep throat two months ago, and while it wasn't a bad strep (not like the one that nearly killed me in 2010 or 2011), it's changed me from being someone who sleeps 3-4 hours a night comfortably to being someone who can sleep 12 hours every night and still wake up groggy and tired. If I don't obey the call of sleep when it comes on, I literally fall asleep in the middle of what I'm doing. My body keeps moving for a few minutes after my brain turns off, so if I'm walking my feet will keep moving until I face-plant into the floor, or if I'm typing my fingers will keep going, even if they're typing crap. I've found a few status updates of mine that start out totally fine and then descend into gibberish because I fell asleep halfway through writing them.

(I'm actually falling asleep while trying to edit this post. I just have fallen asleep five or six times in the last quarter hour. Please excuse any typos that have occurred from my hand dropping into the keyboard.)

It's sort of a strange job. It's a frantic rush at the beginning of the day - an hour isn't really enough time to set up, but the security guards won't let us in earlier - and fairly busy at the end, with a lot of idleness inbetween. Idleness tires me. It always has. It's why I could never handle going on a show like Big Brother.

I've started taking my Japanese textbook to work with me, and working on lessons whenever I'm not needed.

I don't mean to sound like I'm not enjoying it, or that I'm not grateful for it. I am grateful, so much so. Whether or not it leads to permanent employment, the company took a chance on me when nobody else would, and I can't even begin to say how much that means. Yet I do feel like I'm not being fully utilised; like I could be doing so much more, giving so much more back to them. I find myself volunteering for things like coffee-making duties, things that aren't really in my job description, just because I need something to do and because I want to take some of the work off my mentor. He has so much on his shoulders, so much that I can't help him with because I'm not qualified. All I can do is make coffee and set things out and make sure the paperwork is up to date. I feel - not useless, exactly, but a bit superfluous at times. I suppose this is something I'll get used to. Over my lifetime, I've gone from being the only competent adult at home (even when I was a child) to being one of two (at any given time) who took responsibility for a centre and 25+ teenagers, simply because there was nobody else around to do it. I've never sought out responsibility; rather I've had it thrust upon me over and over, and I've always shouldered it because if I don't, nobody will. I'm a bit of a control-freak. I've had to be. So it's hard to adjust to being not only part of a team of responsible, qualified, experienced adults who don't need me to look after them, but also the FNG, the one who has to learn from everyone else. It's disorienting. I'll adjust, in time, but for now it makes my head whirl and I have to keep catching myself whenever I try to take over.

Hard work is sort of a compulsion for me. I spent so many years feeling like a parasite because I was lying around, sick and disabled while my friends were going to school, and then sixth form, university, working. I understand intellectually that disabled people are not parasites, and I'd certainly never judge anyone else for being unable to work or support their family, so I don't really know why I judge myself so harshly. It might be something to do with the years of being told (by teachers, parents, doctors) that I'm not really sick; that fibro is not a legitimate condition. Nowadays we know enough to understand that it's an autoimmune disease and a neurological disease - though we still have a dearth of knowledge on it in general - but England is still far behind America in acceptance of the condition, and in the early 1990s it was almost unheard of to find a doctor, let alone a layman, who would accept that it is a legitimate illness. For years I was told that I was attention-seeking, and then that I had school phobia, and then that I had Munchausens. I often feel like I internalised all the things that people (even my mom!) said about me during my teen years, and even though my head understands that I'm not lazy or unmotivated or selfish, my gut doesn't really grok it.

 Since I've learned to manage the fibromyalgia in the last ten years or so - it's still a painful and exhausting illness, but I've learned the tricks for handling it and pushing through it - I've been forcing myself to work almost nonstop. Since the brain damage I've been almost compelled to work myself to the point of exhaustion. For ten years I've basically worked, slept and read. My social life and love life have suffered for the last decade, and in the last few years they've been almost nonexistent. I've neglected my bio father's side of the family. All because I have this need, this urge to...I don't know. Prove some point, I guess. Maybe to prove that I can be a functional member of society, rather than a parasite. Whether I'm trying to prove that to others or to myself is unclear.

I will not break, dammit.

I could take time off if I wanted. I don't have to go in that early, or go every day, if I don't want to. My mentor keeps telling me to take it easy, but I can't. My brain won't let me.

My mentor - who I shall hereafter refer to as EG, since he reminds me of an El Greco painting - is one of the nicest people I've ever met. I really struck gold with that one. He was my teacher before he was my mentor - I took courses with him last summer and this summer just past - and I adored him from day one, but my respect and admiration for him grows by the week. My only concern is that he's so nice, he finds it hard to criticise anyone, and frankly, I need criticism. I'm going to screw up in this job, probably a lot, and I'm worried that he isn't going to pull me up on things and give me a kick up the ass when / if necessary. He's so gentle with his criticism (and effusive with his praise) that I have to read between the lines to see what he's actually saying, quite s lot of the time. And I don't always do well with subtleties.

I'm learning. Hopefully he's learning. I'm damn sure the students are learning. With luck, we'll adjust.

I have no idea how EG feels about me. With someone that nice, they could well hate you and just never show it. I like to think that he likes me, and that I make his job easier, but...time will tell.

Question: What do you think of men who cook?

I like men who can cook. I'd even say I have a definite preference for men who can cook. Cooking itself doesn't matter to me so much, since I'm not really into eating* (yes, yes, I know I'm weird), but I like what it says about the man:

- It says he's not caught up in old-fashioned gender roles
- It says he takes pride in creating something and in being self-sufficient
- It says he has the patience to learn a skill and refine it over time
- It says he's interested in the details

These are all good things, IMO. It doesn't have to be cooking - I also like men who sew, or knit, or garden, or fix cars, or refurbish their house, or a bunch of other things.

Attraction is a complex event that occurs when a lot of factors line up, but if I had to pick one single characteristic that I find most attractive in potential partners, it would be a can-do attitude. Not the cockiness of youth that screams "I'm awesome at everything, but don't you dare make me prove it!" but a quiet confidence, because you know you're a competent adult who can do a lot of things and can learn anything that you can't already do. I like people who say yes to things. Can you go buy me some tampons? Sure I can. Can you raise a child? If the situation comes up. Can you make a soufflé? Never done it before, but I'll give it a shot. Can you learn to speak Vietnamese? I don't see why not. Can we hike Mongolia on our next vacation? Sure, that sounds like fun.

I love men who can. And a man who can't cook (or clean, or sew on a button, or change a tire, or diaper a baby) is most likely not a man-who-can. Nothing wrong with that, you are what you are, but I probably won't be interested.


* I'm not saying I'd turn it down if someone offered to cook for me, mind you. I eat. I even enjoy it. I just don't adore food, the way most people I know do. I'd be happy eating the same thing every day as long as it tasted good.

This post originally appeared on www.quora.com .

Once More, Unto the Breach

I am starting a new job tomorrow.

This makes me nervous. I've had precisely one new job in the last thirteen years, which was organising and cataloging a private library. After doing that for a few months, drawing a fortnightly paycheck and wondering why my employers didn't provide me with the necessary equipment and told me to take the day off more often than not, I found out that the whole thing had been set up by an ex-boyfriend who was worried about my finances and living situation, but who knew I wouldn't take money from him. Several times over the course of our relationship, he proposed that we get married, more for the sake of mutual convenience than anything, and several times I turned him down because we weren't in love, so he found a new way to try to take care of me.

He meant well, and I can understand what he was doing - he's the type of guy who looks after his friends, and supports his girlfriends. But it crushed any belief I had in my own abilities. It was only the second job offer I'd had in my adult life. The first came from a man I did a great favour for a long time ago. On my thirtieth birthday, this man called and offered me the job of most writers' dreams - researching and writing articles for a magazine in Milan, with a generous salary and an excellent relocation package. Plus, y'know, Milan. But I knew it was to return the favour I did him rather than because he thought I could do the job, and I couldn't handle the thought of being the deadweight, the one unqualified employee who was hired out of nepotism and who everyone else had to work extra hard to compensate for. So after a few months of vacillating (because Milan!) I turned it down.

Plus, my brother's family had just moved away, and my father was dying, and I couldn't leave Mom.

So here I am, with only the third job offer in my adult life - because I'd been working at the youth centre since I was 17 - and all those feelings of inadequacy are flooding back.

I was recommended for this job by a former teacher of mine. I took an I.T. course this summer - offered for free through the Job Centre, to people who are out of work (including carers like me) - and I did so well on it that a few weeks ago, my teacher asked me to come back and be a TA for him when his coworker went on maternity leave. That wasn't supposed to be until November, but on Friday I got a call asking me to come for an interview with his boss today, and today they hired me, starting tomorrow.

Intellectually I understand that I got the job because I did well on the course. Not only did I manage to do three two-week modules during the two weeks I was there (so six weeks' worth of learning), I got 100% on both my exams. Yet there is always this little voice inside that says you can't do it, you're not qualified, you're biting off more than you can chew healthwise, you were only hired because he liked you and felt sorry for you. You're a fragile princess who can barely look after herself, and has no hope of ever being a functioning member of society.

People outside of my blog(s) rarely see my feelings of inadequacy. In person, I appear to be supremely confident, to the point that several bloggers here have been surprised - and a few have been quite put off - when they meet me. The cool, competent façade is almost always how I present in person. I wouldn't even call it a façade, truly, because it's something that I've worn for long enough that it's become a part of me. And the funny thing is, it's not a lie - when I'm in motion, I have every confidence in my abilities. I've always functioned best during a crisis, but any time that I'm actually acting, moving, I don't falter. I know that I'll get to work tomorrow, on time, well-organised, dressed appropriately, and do the job with no hesitations. I'll do it well, the way I do everything, from paid employment, to navigating a foreign country, to planning a funeral, to coping with the aftermath of an attack.

It's just when I stop that I get overwhelmed with the sense that I can't do it.

It's strange that I have these two sides to me, and that they're both so dominant. You'd think that the confidence and the inadequacy would neutralise each other, and I'd simply have an average amount of confidence with occasional bursts of anxiety. But no, I swing between the two extremes. As in just about every area of my life.

Sometimes I wonder if I am two people trapped in one body.

My tits and ass are certainly large enough for two. :)

Question - What do you think of Cara Delevingne's decision to quit modelling?

I definitely applaud her for realising that she wasn't happy, and taking steps to change that. So many of us stay stuck in things that make us miserable because we're scared of change.

I quite enjoyed modelling itself. I was at the plus-size end of the spectrum (though not in the way that Tess Holliday or Crystal Renn were - I wore a UK 14) so I didn't get quite the same amount of crud from people about staying skinny, which I think helped me to enjoy myself for longer. Plus, I liked the pretty clothes, and it paid my way through college, and it was a job where I could work and concentrate on working out chemistry equations in my head at the same time, which is why I got into it in the first place. *laughs*

But I didn't like the industry. I didn't like working for a machine that perpetuated what I felt was one of the biggest legal cons of all time. I started out working in art modelling, and when I moved into doing photography for one particular photographer, I insisted on one particular clause in my contract: no photoshop, no airbrushing. Naive, looking back, but at the time it seemed reasonable. This was late 90s / early 00s, and people weren't quite so obsessed with obtaining the unobtainable. The first photographer was fine with that. The second and third were fine with that. And then somewhere along the line, people weren't fine with it. They'd be fine when we signed a contract, and then they'd try to bully me into it, or "fix" pictures behind my back. And I found myself thinking - I've been in hair and makeup for four hours, I've dieted and exercised my way to a fairly decent (if curvy) body, my skin is radiant, my hair is glossy, and I have an excellent photographer. Why isn't this enough? If you want someone with a longer neck and thicker lips and less muscular calves and a smaller nose, why didn't you hire that girl instead of me?

A while after my personal dissatisfaction started, I started realising how much fakery there is in the fashion and beauty industries. It sounds so obvious now, but at the time I convinced myself that it was okay to lie to people, because we were presenting a fantasy. Turns out, it's a fine line between fantasy and fraud. Faking it digitally has become such a thing that we now have anti-wrinkle creams advertised by women who have all their wrinkles airbrushed out. We have whitening toothpaste where the white is digitally added to the adverts. And I'm just not okay with that. Nor am I okay with working to advertise clothes that are only wearable by a tiny percentage of the population. If any other industry produced a product that was marketed to everyone but was only usable by 1%, or 2%, or even 5%, you'd call that a flawed product. Yet the fashion industry has managed to create things that the majority of us a) can't afford and b) can't get into - and somehow convinced us all that it's US who are faulty rather than the products, and that we need to starve ourselves and spend insane amounts of money to prove that we're worthy of being part of it. That's what I mean when I call it the biggest con I've ever known. Machiavelli would have been proud.

Don't get me wrong, I still love clothes. I love pretty things in general. I don't mind spending a fair bit for beautiful things that are made to last. And things ARE getting better, in some respects. But I couldn't ever be part of the fashion industry again, not even behind the camera. It sucked the life out of me by the time I was 21.

People get so caught up in the "fashion" part that they forget the "industry" part. It's a money-making machine, at the heart of it. And that isn't going to change. It doesn't matter how many Sati Marie Frosts burn out and leave - or even how many Cara Delevingnes do. Because models are disposable, even the successful, famous ones. They get tired, they get pregnant, they get fat, and most of all they get OLD, and when that happens, the industry is all too happy to trade you in for the newer model. (Pun acknowledged.)

This post originally appeared as a comment on www.manrepeller.com .

For Apollo, Who Shone Brighter Than the Sun

I have a body wash in my bathroom that isn't made anymore. Imperial Leather Foamburst with sea kelp and birch bark. I came SO close to throwing it out today when I cleaned the bathroom shelf, because it's really not usable anymore - it's totally lost its pressure, and I can barely eke out the tiniest bit. Certainly I can't get enough to wash with it anymore. I couldn't throw it, though, because every now and then I squirt a teensy bit onto my finger, and inhale, and you're there with me. That's one of the things that I remember the best about you. The way you always smelled like the ocean.

I have a redcurrant lipsalve, that I bought back in 2001, and I can't throw that away either. I certainly wouldn't use it - can you imagine the bacteria it must have picked up after fourteen years? - but sometimes I open it and smell it and immediately think, "Ah, Jay." If you were watching, you would be able to see the tension melt out of my body with the first inhalation. You didn't wear redcurrant lipsalve - that I'm aware of, anyway *laughs* - but I wore it, back in the days of Batchwood and birthday parties and the bluest eyes in the world staring at me from across a darkened room.

God, I miss you.

I sometimes called you The SBD. People wondered what that stood for; assumed it was something dirty. I let them, because it was easier than explaining how a therapist of mine had once tried to teach me to meditate on the image of a blue diamond, spinning in my mind, any time I felt out of control - and how the diamond image had always failed, because every time I tried to think of a blue diamond I could only think of your gaze.

The technique worked, even if I could never get the right image. YOU were my spinning blue diamond. You kept me calm. You kept me sane. You kept me alive, during the worst times. You saved my life more times than I can count, and I would have given up everything I had if I could have done the same for you.

I talk to the dead. Sometimes the dead talk back. That's one of my bigger secrets, one that I don't hide, exactly, but I don't discuss openly with many people either. And I find it both comforting and heartbreaking that you have never once been here to talk to. I'm so glad that you moved on quickly - so many don't, you know - and I have faith that wherever you are is exactly where you need to be, doing exactly what you need to do. Yet...I miss you. That's all. I wish you were here.

Though maybe not tonight. I probably wouldn't want to face your reaction to the box of mozzarella sticks, half-bag of curly fries, or four shots of Aftershock over ice that I had for dinner. That kind of shit is best kept to myself, not shared with beautiful boys who I want to have good opinions of me. :)

Hey, I never claimed that lack of vanity was one of my virtues.

In another two months, it'll have been a year, and some days I still can't wrap my head around it. My emotions are complex and often irrational. I don't understand how someone like me, who's been dying for half my life, who's been caught and thrown back by Death SEVEN TIMES so far, is still occupying territory on this side of the veil, and someone like you, who I never even knew to have a cold, could just up and die like that. Six weeks. I checked my Facebook messages for the one I sent you the day after I started dreaming and worrying about you, and it was six weeks - almost to the day - between me knowing something was wrong, and you dying. How can a healthy, active person, a person who's dedicated his entire existence to nourishing physical and mental health in himself and others, a person who's barely been sick a day in his life, go from healthy to dead in six weeks? It doesn't make sense to me. It's not logical. I should be old enough and experienced enough to know by now that the universe doesn't always run on logic - and most of the time, I do. But all my practicality goes out the window where you're concerned.

The alcohol is wearing off - about bloody time, it's nearly 6am - and I can't remember if there was a point to this letter. Maybe it was just to tell you I love you. Always have, always will. I've loved you every day of my life since I was twelve years old, and I'll love you every day of the rest of it. 

Rules of Engagement #1 - Brutal Honesty or Polite Bullshit

We all have rules in our relationships. Some are widely used by many people, and some are very personal. Some are across-the-board rules, some differ from relationship to relationship. Some are set in stone, and some are subject to exceptions.

Two of my main rules, veritable social laws that I try (read: occasionally fail) to follow with other adult humans, involve honesty:

- Don't ask questions that you don't really want an honest answer to;
- Don't tell people things that you know they don't want to hear, unless absolutely necessary.

Rule #1 is easy enough to follow (most of the time), but Rule #2 is considerably harder for me. My desire to not burden people with information that is unpleasant, hurtful, and not need-to-know, wars with my desire to not infringe upon their free will. I could deal with this by simply choosing to not share personal information, but that doesn't come naturally to me; personal privacy is not something I place a lot of value upon. In fact, I find myself getting itchy and emotionally claustrophobic when I try to keep secrets about myself and my life. I'm not quite an open book - while you usually get the truth from me, you rarely get the whole truth, because the whole truth is usually complicated - but I'm not a locked one either. More like a library of books, where all information is available to you if you know where to look.

One habit that I've developed over the years is asking people if they're sure they really want to know something. I find that people's questions are often idle, and answering them candidly can mean dumping a lot of information upon them that they didn't expect and don't want. I'm willing to share almost anything about myself with anyone who asks - but I do need to know that you genuinely want to know, even if the answer is unpleasant, and your question wasn't just you making small talk.

Hence my return question, when asked difficult questions: Brutal honesty or polite bullshit? Which do you want to hear?

Polite bullshit isn't always bullshit, of course. Sometimes it's a face-saving lie, but sometimes it's just truth with a bit of sugar coating. Sometimes it's an alternative truth, because some questions have more than one true answer. Consider:

"Sati, why do you always wear white dresses, and rarely any other colours?"

The Polite Bullshit answer could be, "White cotton keeps me cooler." It could be, "It cuts down on the loads of washing I have to do." It could be, "I'm lazy, and a white sundress means I don't have to mess around trying to match my clothes up." It could be, "I think I look best in white." These are all true, and all reasons why I prefer wearing white dresses to any other clothes.

The Brutal Honesty answer would be, "White's not a gang colour." Also true, and at times - depending on where I'm working - more relevant. It's an answer that a lot of people find jarring, though, so it's one that I use with caution.

Likewise, brutal honesty may not be truly brutal. Sometimes it involves things that you don't want to hear about yourself. Sometimes it involves things you may not want to hear about me. Sometimes it involves things that I think you don't want to hear, but you actually are happy about. For example:

"Sati, are you okay? You're shivering, and your breathing changed."

The Polite Bullshit answer might be, "I'm fine, just chilly." Or, "Nothing's wrong, just need to catch my breath." Whereas the Brutal Honesty answer could be, "For some reason I just imagined you kissing me, and it was a surprisingly arousing image."

See, I might think that you don't want to hear that, while you're actually quite happy to hear it. It's hard to tell these things sometimes.

I'm a cautious person, and a thinker. I take risks, but they're considered risks. Spontaneity is not in my nature - though I've learned to weigh up the pros and cons of something in a split-second when necessary, so I sometimes appear to be acting spontaneously - and I'll never be comfortable with rash decisions. In addition to thinking (some would say overthinking!), I'm naturally protective of others, and the inclination to protect people from unpleasantness seems to be my default. Of course, that's not always possible, nor is it always beneficial - for you or for me. Asking people to choose between the honest answer and the polite answer allows me to respect your agency and free will, while still (mostly) satisfying Rule #2, and protecting the sensibilities of those friends and family members who are not quite as deliberate with their questions as I am.

So don't be surprised if you get the question during our conversations from time to time. You could take it as a potential trigger warning, if you wanted. A warning that the subject might be uncomfortable listening. Alternatively, if you're so inclined, you could consider it to be my version of a red pill / blue pill offer. Choose the one, and stay in the comfortable, friendly acquaintance levels of small talk. Choose the other, and learn things about me that might possibly make you either run for the hills, or love me passionately.

Your choice. As always.

Pounding Holes

So yesterday I had a guy over. A lover. No names will be mentioned, for obvious reasons.

We're upstairs in my room, "playing chess". "Playing chess" is what I tell my mother I'm doing when I retire to my bedroom with a date or guy friend (unless it's Adam, then we're watching anime - and we actually ARE). Of course she knows we're not playing chess. It's just a way for my dates to save face. I don't give a shit what my mom knows about my sex life, but guys tend to have this weird embarrassment about facing someone whose daughter they've been fucking. *shrugs* Whatevs. Not that I play much these days. Until yesterday, I'd only had one opponent in the last three years or more. But I digress.

We're in bed. Or on the bed. We're moving around a lot, and so is the bed. What can I say, our chess games have always been energetic ones. He's not a big guy, so the bed should take us fine (my last chess opponent was half a foot taller and maybe seventy pounds heavier, and we never had any issues) - but he's strong. Very strong. And we're really giving that bed a workout. So I'm startled, but not entirely surprised, when I hear something crack and the bed drops down half an inch.

"Oh shit, we broke the bed!" I half scream half laugh.

He slows down.

"Don't stop!" I screech.

And I forget about the bed.

After he's gone home, I collapse and fall asleep, but I keep waking throughout the night to a squeaking sound. I tell myself I'll tighten the bed screws and check out the break when I wake up, but I forget. It's only when I go to bed tonight that the bed sinks under me at an angle, and I lean over the side to check out the slats, when I notice the hole. And it's not in the bed.

We didn't break the bed, we broke the fucking floorboard.