Can you say no?

Can you decline a wedding invitation, a request to go dancing, an enquiry about your ballet shoes?

Can you say no to the girl who asked you to watch her sister while she spends some time with her boyfriend?

Can you say no to the woman who wants to go cycling with you… but you really want to be alone?

Can you say no… when someone says they will pay you £2.50 an hour to teach their son another language?

Can you?

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t say no and I was told all the time.. SAY NO. Say NO. No.

No, I said, to those telling me to say no. No, I can’t say no.

Even though I just did.

Say no to the man who says ‘come and see me, be brave.’

Alarm bells clanging and mouth dry and heart wringing in fear.

Say no, Lenora, please.

Say no.

Just say no.

But I did not say no.

Sometimes I think I have healed but then I wake up dripping in sweat, heart palpitating, from a dream in which I am saying yes to all the things I do not want to do. I am frantic and anxious and running away but I cannot escape him, he has his sharp claws dug deep into my back.

It’s been eight years.

I said yes for two years and then one day I said no and it took all my strength to do it.

And it took me seven months to stop hyperventilating everytime my phone rang.

Took eight months for the severe stomach pains to go away.

It’s been eight years since I said that final no, and I still dream I can’t say no.

So please say no.

Let your children say no when they’re little, so that when they’re big and need to say no, they should be able to.

Say no.

To the right people.

It’s okay.

Power

As a relatively powerless person in the grand scheme of things, I have had very little experience with the phenomenon of power.

Not many people have access to it, mostly due to a lack of desire on their part to be anything in particular. Which is a good thing, maybe.

Also, there is that saying, with power comes responsibility.

I omitted the ‘great’, because ‘great’ power only applies to a minuscule fraction of humanity. Not everyone is born to be an oligarchical king. And country leaders oftentimes don’t hold full power (like Donald Trump, thank God), unless they are Kim Jong-un. They have massive responsibility, but they shirk it, to their moral detriment.

My interactions with power are few and far between. There was that teaching stint I had for three odd years. I felt mighty then. I managed many classes of 30 children, at all age levels, and I controlled them very well. I was in charge, I was looked-up-to. I had authority.

I was also responsible for anything that might go wrong. But I enjoyed that responsibility.

I wouldn’t class myself as ‘power-hungry’, but sometimes, just sometimes, I like to feel impressive.

Even if it is for a very short amount of time.

Like cruising down a highway, the beast beneath me building momentum slowly in that German way it has (no acceleration, but excellent speed maintenance), the budding strength of the car creeping up on me until I’m doing 90mph and ripping past everybody else, engine growling, wind screaming, countryside scaping.

It is the most terrifying, exhilarating feeling.

Snaking from lane to lane, outdoing other cars, hands tight on the steering wheel, sharp bend approaching, swaying with the car as it grips, oh so beautifully, to the tarmac, and round we swing.

I feel electric, powerful, mighty, fast, euphoric.

For a brief few moments, I am the queen of the roads, the devil behind wheels, the racing champion, sailing in a beast with the wind currents. The car bends to my will, and lends its strength to my desires. We become one terrible entity.

I could fly off the tarmac and tear through the atmosphere.

I could do anything.

For a brief few moments.

And then, great responsibility crashes through my power-high, and I remember the tarmac, and the speed, and pain of impact, and I reluctantly take my foot off the accelerator, and slow down, and match the humdrum pace of other commuters.

Sometimes I am forced to because humdrum commuters create obscene traffic, and how very dare they.

I guess you could say I, too, am a humdrum commuter. But I don’t see myself that way.

I am the queen of these roads. Move aside for my majestic power.

 

Image Credit

Life

Sometimes I think I want children but then I remember I am an awks person who can’t look some certain people in the face or say their name. I hang up on phone calls mid sentence because I feel too awkward to carry on the conversation and I make a right fool of myself to strangers.

Also I don’t make the best decisions about anything and I think I have a lot of growing up to do. Like, a LOT.

I can run a house, that is easy. I’ve done it since I was eleven years old. What can I say? My mother gave me a tonne of responsibility. I can change nappies; I’ve changed hundreds. Probably. I had two younger brothers, one born when I was eight and one born when I was eleven, and yes I have changed both their nappies and babysat them and bathed them and took care of them and put them to bed and just the usual things the oldest sibling has to do. I also had a tonne of baby cousins growing up and I just loved babies so much, so I helped out a lot with them.

So I can do a lot of things mums need to do.

I can even deal with children very well, since I have had lots of experience. Also I work with young children, I know how to speak their language. I honestly do.

But, I still feel as though I am not grown enough as a person, to be able to bring another kid up. I am a bit selfish, and entitled. I can be very mean sometimes and while I have a lot of patience with children, I don’t really. I can go home and relax and I can send the baby back to her mama.. but when it is my own… I am the mama. Where do I send it then?

Also having a kid might be nice to begin with but all that exhaustion? Also to have to then spend the next twenty odd years taking care of said kid, not being able to be flexible, not being able to get up and go somewhere at the drop of a hat, schooling, nurturing, emotional availability…

Oh I don’t know.

My friend just realised two weeks ago now that she is three months pregnant, after bouts of nausea and fatigue.

She told me the other day that she went for her first scan with her husband and it was such an emotional experience.

‘Why?’ I asked, completely oblivious. Why should a scan be emotional? It’s just a scan, all preggers people have it. I carried on munching my Hula Hoops.

‘Well, because although you can’t see anything there, it’s just a blob really at this stage, you can hear the heartbeat of this person inside of you, that came from the both of you, and it’s just real, it’s alive, it’s there.’

Never did I feel so immature and out of it than in that moment.

I remember my own mother having scans, and us in the room with her, a thunderous heartbeat reverberating around the room and echoing in my mind. 

A child is real.

I remember once my mother went for her scan and the nurse sent me out of the room for some reason. I was ten. I peeped in through the half open door and I heard the woman say, ‘I can’t hear the heartbeat.’ and I saw my mother start to cry, and I didn’t realise how big it was for her and how much pain she must have felt. I saw the nurse consoling her and saying they would check again, and the jelly on her swollen stomach and then suddenly, the tharrump-tharrump, the thumping sound of life swelling through the room.

A child is not a hindrance or a plan or a barrier to life.

My mother’s silent crying in the cab all the way home.

It is life. It is a person. It is a human.

I don’t know. I know I am not ready.

But I also know that I am ready to be ready someday, and I suppose that is enough for now.