Muchness

Unsurprisingly I’ve had a lifelong affection for Alice in Wonderland. I have enjoyed sharing my name with a fabulous blonde menace who wanders off when she shouldn’t, making wildly bad choices and crazy but adorable friends, always saying yes to cake & shots. But lately, her fever dream seems a little too close to home and a line rings in my ears more often than I like. Says the mad hatter to Alice ‘You used to be much more…muchier. You’ve lost your muchness’.

And I have, it is true. I’m losing my colour. I know I am. I see it in people’s faces, tilted heads and sympathetic tones, in the slightly forced smiles, mine & theirs. I see it in the mirror.

It’s a strange feeling this fading, like I am somehow less than I was. Slightly harder to see, definitely harder to enjoy, I am slowly bleeding my vibrancy, my muchness.

And it’s harsh because if anything I am much more than I was. I’ve managed a lot of pain and reckoning in these last months. I am stronger, smarter, more self aware (not a fun thing to be – don’t recommend it) I’ve tried and failed and learnt and grown and fallen down and got back up all before lunch more days than not. But there is just no denying it, i’m bruised, i’m flat, i’m faded, I have lost my muchness.

And it’s not heartbreak, or change or regret. It’s not fear or anger or loss. I am just, simply…. tired. I am so so tired, bone-weary in a way I’ve never been before. I’m tired of hard choices and bad choices, of biting my tongue, of what happens when I don’t. I’m tired of tears and deep chats and unrequited tearful outbursts and ‘how are you going really? I’m tired of looking backwards with repulsion and forwards with trepidation.

The slow steps upwards followed by heart stopping lows, the days that feel like I’m trudging through mud, the endless battle to learn to sleep in the middle of the bed.

I don’t have much energy left to give to muchness.

‘I just feel like I never laugh anymore’ I say to my mum ‘I know’ she says, ‘I’ve felt like that’.

‘I just feel like I’m on a rollercoaster I can’t get off’ I say to my friend. ‘I know’ she says, ‘me too’

‘I just feel really tired’ I say to my son. ‘I know’ he says ‘It’s ok, I still love you.’

I’m just not myself’ I say to my person. ‘I know’ he says gently, ‘I see it’. 

‘I don’t know how to end this post in an uplifting way’ I say, ‘Then don’t’ he says, ‘keep it real’.