The middle of the bed

Tag: mental-health

  • Sad Soup

    When I am sad I make soup. We call it sad soup.

    It is not very good soup, not even particularly edible soup. It is not nourishment, not a gesture of love for anyone else or a moment of self care. It’s just a process, a compulsion. 

    I reach through shockwaves to gather whatever scraps in my home make up some kind of soup and I start mindlessly peeling, mindlessly dicing, mindlessly stirring. 

    The people who know me best know this about me, they whisper it like a code… ‘she’s making sad soup’….’oh shit’. 

    The soup is not made with love, it is made with sadness and it tastes like it. One of the kindest allowances I have made for myself over the last few years is to forgive myself the waste and simply throw the soup away at any time in the process. There is something deeply pathetic about forcing yourself to consume your own meaningless soup, never mind subjecting anyone else to it and even with good intentions and good ingredients the soup inevitably tastes fucking awful.

    This year I have made my fair share of sad soups. But, I have also realised as i sat down to write this, that I have been one myself. 

    Operating on some kind of unhinged auto-pilot I have gathered the scraps of my life, tried to figure out some kind of recipe and stumbled along to make something of it all. I have stirred the bejeezus out of everything , regularly added more liquid than necessary, made mindless mistakes, forgot what I was doing, turned perfectly good ingredients to mush or quit 1/2 way and tossed the lot.

    I’ve served myself up unbalanced and overdone only to see distaste in people’s eyes and I’ve refused to serve myself at all, simply turning off the lights to go to bed and deal with the mess in the morning.

    Today, for the first time in my very own home, sitting in the kind of sadness I always try to ‘sad soup’ my way through I reached for my big purple pot.

    I found the stock I made and froze last week when I had a burst of energy and a chicken.

    I grabbed the leftover vegetables from the first dinner party that filled my new table with friends and wine and laughter on Friday night.

    I chopped them slowly with the knife I bought in Japan with the woman who has guided me so wisely and patiently this year on what to cut and what to keep.

    I chatted on the phone to my mother, hope for future plans bubbling between us while the soup simmered gently on the stove I have finally figured out how to use.

    I let it do it’s thing, deciding I was in no rush to throw it out because the bin is all the way downstairs and my new home is warm and cozy and filled with children laughing and summersaulting around the living room.

    I added exuberant amounts of salt with the thought of one of my favourite chefs tipsy and barefoot giggling in the kitchen with me proclaiming that salt fixes almost anything,

    I added a leftover bunch of the fresh herbs I bought for a special dinner for the chef I love and remembered us all laughing until we could barely breathe as we surveyed the massive error in my herb volume.

    And just before I went to throw it away I tasted it once more….

    And to my shock, for the first time in a long time,  just like me….

    It’s ok. 

    It’s just taken some time, some patience, The perfect knife, a bit of hope, some fresh herbs and the love of two chefs.

    And I am ok.

  • The Biggest Loser

    The story of how I came to be sobbing uncontrollably at a kids movie with my bemused children squeezed in the kind of hug usually reserved for kidnap victims is one I’ve been wanting to share for a while. But the problem was that unlike lots of stories I’ve told lately, I couldn’t figure out where this one started or how to tell it. 

    Because I guess the truth is, I can’t tell this one without the kind of context usually reserved for midnight DnM’s and wine fuelled girls weekends. These big wet ugly tears weren’t for my obviously bruised heart, they couldn’t be traced neatly back to January and I certainly can’t blame Lilo and Stitch, but maybe I wasn’t ready yet to make it all make sense. 

    Because the truth, like most truths in our lives, is so much more complicated than I was ready to face and certainly far more than I was ready to own.

    The truth is that I have lost and left behind more things over the last 3 years than the 35 years before it and on more days than not, that washes over me in waves that knock the oxygen out of my chest with the kind of force that physically hurts.

    I have become intimately acquainted with loss in a very short time. I have lost 75 kilos and a lifetime of identity with it, I have left behind 2 jobs & teams that I loved and the career trajectory I used to define my worth, I’ve given up my home and moved my family between 2 countries, 3 cities & 9 homes, I’ve lost my best friend and partner of 23 years and the family unit that meant everything to me. I’ve lost close friends that felt like sisters and a brother who was my friend.

    And along the way I’ve lost myself, I’ve lost my shit, I’ve lost most of my ego, half my self confidence, a fair chunk of my naivety, ALL my clothes and any idea what the hell I’m doing half the time.

    This series of losses and passings and changes has washed over me, wave after wave, dunking me under, while I flail about trying to look semi-dignified. Trying desperately not to drown.

    But the Truth I had to face before I could write any of this down is that I dived into this water of losses, blindly but willingly. All by myself. 

    3 years ago I was sitting in a quite suburb I hated, crushed into a faded version of myself under the weight of expectation, boredom and neglect in a life built around everyone but me….. and as I felt myself fading into nothing, I made a choice to start losing things.

    I did one of the bravest things I’ve ever done and had bariatric surgery hoping to lose enough weight to be a healthier, better version of myself. My hopes of losing 30 kilos and being a strong healthy woman with basically no aftermath were almost hilariously short lived. My body apparently didn’t care about my goals, it was going to blow the stats out of the water no matter what the consequences. Within 18 months I was in and out of hospital, less than half the size I started. I could taste starvation, I was scaring the people around me, I was unrecognisable in every way. Stripped down to bones and survival. Loss to the extreme,

    Before I took this step I’d done the research and I knew the statistics around what could go wrong, what I could expect to lose and that one of the most common outcomes of major weight loss is…. Divorce. But still I dove in.

    Shortly after (apparently not content with this level of disturbance) I also decided to pack everything I owned into a container, throw routine and security out the window and move my entire family to thailand for an ‘adventure’. I knew it was disruptive, I knew my exit strategy was weak. But still I dove in.

    At the same time I opened my decades long relationship to make space for exploration for my partner, and eventually discovery for me too. What if he decides he likes someone more than you? Said my friend. ‘Then he should be with them’ I said with my head high and my heart in my throat as I defiantly stared down potentially catastrophic loss and obviously… dove right in.

    Loss has come for me over and over for the last 3 years. The things I knew with arrogant confidence, the plans I had laid out for my life since I was 15, my unshakeable knowledge of what my family will look like, who I am, what I am, what is right, what is right for me. Almost every aspect of my life has had some element stripped away until it feels like there is very little of me left to recognise.

    On one of my very first dates at the ripe old age of 36, an earnest Moroccan tech guy asked me over pizza if I felt I had what it would take to build back the life I have now if I lost it all one day. At the time I was confident I could. That my brain, my family, my drive would be enough to build it back.

    But I have learnt something at the bottom of all this. Just because I could – doesn’t mean I should. 

    The thing with loss it turns out is that sometimes we need it more than we can consciously face.
    Did I have any idea how big an impact that first step would have? Fuck no. Would I take it back? Never.

    I have gained an independence I had embarrassingly little idea I needed, I have had to find new ways to succeed, I have pursued pleasures and experiences in ways that would make that Moonee Ponds Mum blush. I have found myself in a new community with people who have stood with me as each piece of the old me was lost, handing me the tools I needed to uncover the truth of what is left of me. I have fallen in love with someone who saw the truth of me before I could, I have built the foundation of my new family unit the way I know is right for us.

    So when a rather surreal kids movie ended with a chaotic little alien introducing his new little family to someone trying to take him back to where he came from, the waves of grief and guilt and fear subsided a little and I caught my first breath of fresh, clear air.

    “This is my family….I found it all by myself…It’s little and broken…but still good. Yeah, still good.

    And as I squished my innocent popcorn covered children while the credits rolled and the concerned looking mum next to me ushered her children away I could finally forgive the version of myself who so blindly, desperately and bravely dove into those waves 3 years ago. 

    Maybe one day soon, I’ll even thank her.

  • 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’.

  • Winning

    The internet talks a lot about who ‘wins’ breakups. If you can’t say definitely if you were ‘Team Jennifer’ or ‘Team Angelina’, be real – this isn’t the blog for you. Princess Diana’s ‘Revenge Dress’ remains a sartorial historical moment that must haunt Camilla to this day and I can’t be bothered googling it but I assume the Kardashians have trademarked ‘revenge body’ at this point. My bitchy little instagram algorithm has its own take too; constantly providing me with unsolicited inspiring quotes about what makes a breakup winner; who re-couples first? who ‘glows up’? Who erases the other on social media like they never existed?

    But the truth is that the only person my body is getting revenge on is me, it’s run down, hungry, sleepless and irritated, I have to credit any and all ‘glow’ to liberal usage of elf cosmetics ‘halo-glow’. And the thought of deleting the photos of my little family as it first took shape from instagram sends me right back to the right hand side of the bed for a good cry. 

    In early, hazy, painful days, someone who loves me told me about this concept of ‘winning’ . I could see his pain as he gently broke the truth to me that I needed to win for myself and for my kids, I needed to get up off the floor now…soon…please?

    I don’t know why this surprised me or why I rejected it at first, denial? arrogance? stubbornness? I’ve always ‘run my own race’, much to my parents’ stress and distress I’ve outright rejected the easy paths they lovingly prepared for me in favour of my own special brand of chaos and authenticity. 

    But what I’m slowly learning is that he was right.  My mission to learn to sleep in the middle of the bed was a first step, a nice easy horizontal step, but the truth is I’m in a fight for my life. Not against people’s perceptions, not even against my ex, but against myself. The truth is I have to find a way up off the floor, I have to win my own battle.

    And i could do it the way I’m expected, I could rock a revenge dress, I could rebound with lighting fast toxicity, double down on the halo-glow until you can see me from space, I could maybe even delete the first photo I posted of my baby girl because he’s in it? But that’s not my style. And I mightn’t have much else right now but I sure as hell have my own style.

    So I find my ‘wins’ in small moments and good days. In biting my tongue when I want to unleash, in an evening without tears or a memory without rose coloured glasses. In fighting for truth when it’s hard, In sitting in front of a room full of people and telling them a story of shame with grace, In making hard decisions alone or cooking something new and scary, in the quiet peace of a home without slamming doors, in sitting in this fucking mess in shock and still finding space to laugh and dance and write and try again and love.

    And I find it just laying here on the right hand side of the bed watching my daughter sleeping peacefully on the left, because she just gave me my mothers day card and it turns out… she doesn’t need me to win by anyone else’s rules, because this is all the win we need.

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  • Grace

    I truly believe in forgiveness, I believe in the power of it. Not just ‘turn the other cheek’, not just that holding onto things is bad for your soul. I genuinely believe that the intellectual exercise of finding empathy and understanding for the situations and people that have hurt us can be transformative, and can help us turn the ugliness of anger and pain into something beautiful.

    The ugly truth is though, that I’m not there yet. I’m not even close. For me, for him, for mistakes made, words said and unsaid, for choices made over a lifetime that led us to this point and for choices made now that compound this ugliness.

    Breakups are undignified at the best of times. Something as personal as the entire structure of your life shattering into pieces would hopefully be private, but it’s not, it is unceremoniously public. It is interesting, it is gossip, it is a rollercoaster of emotions and endless choices you thought you’d never have to make. It is disappointing your grandmother, it is explaining to your children why you can’t be everything they’ve always known a family to be. It is friends choosing sides when you haven’t asked and friends not choosing you when the most vulnerable parts of you wish they would. It is a million tiny paper cuts of loss. It is crying in the car and on the floor and at the bar and over brunch. It is undignified anger and pain, it is regret for the past and regret for the present and lingering regret for the future. It is….messy, chaotic and ugly.

    I could write a narrative of one-sided victimhood (god knows it’s how I feel sometimes), I could write a narrative of personal triumph, of dignity, of ‘thriving’. Fuck it’s my blog, I could write utter fiction and I could write myself a character that is above and beyond it all. I could write beauty where there is ugliness and maybe, maybe you’d even believe me for a minute.

    But for some reason I find that even uglier. I find that even more undignified. I may be on the floor but what I am learning each painstaking day is to have a little grace for myself while I’m down here.

    I talk a lot about grace at the moment, hoping the people around me will hold some for me, being surprised by those who do and those who don’t. Working to learn grace for myself, feeling its power when I succeed, feeling lost when I do not. 

    It is my friends that first showed me the power of grace in this moment. Some still do. It is my psychologist who encouraged me to learn to hold it for myself. How to have empathy for the ugliness in me and around me, how to truly believe that it’s ok not to be ok. It is in small moments of grace that I can write this without shame, laugh at hard truths with friends, find the strength to say no to things that no longer serve me and be brave enough to chase the things that do. 

    Grace is the empathy of friends who hold space for ugly moments, Grace is my parents driving 7 hours to distract my children so I can fall apart. Grace is the man who holds me crushingly tight and wipes away tears he didn’t cause when I can’t keep going.

    Grace holds me calmly as I sit cross legged on the floor looking at the shattered pieces of my life slowly figuring out how to reshape them into something beautiful.