What We Attract

Interestingly, the world still appears to be falling apart in 2020. Nothing has changed. Everybody is still carrying on. Keeping on keeping on.

Do you think these days will be read about in history books? Will my grandkids ask me what I was doing when Brexit happened?

Yes dear, I was eating my crumpets and having my tea and planning to add toilet roll to next week’s shopping list. I expect when Germany went down in WWII people were cooking dinner and serving up rationed potatoes, just like any other day.

People just keep on keeping on, because, honestly, what else is there to do?

Other than be informed and try to help as much as one can by spreading awareness and donations and showing love. It’s easy to show love when love abounds, and hard to show love when all you see is moody hatred.

I live in Crewe, as I have said a million times, and more often than not, in this awful town, I experience negativity. There is a lot of poverty and uncouthness here, so when I am greeted nicely or experience something good from someone, I am genuinely surprised.

I think you also attract what you put out. I generally go about my day very negatively. Stressed and frustrated and expecting people to swear at me. The other day at the post office, I had a mountain of parcels to post and my boy began to cry in his pram as I was halfway through dealing with the cashier. The queue behind me grew longer and heavier and more impatient, the air became muggy and hot and I was sweltering under my coat and imagined my son must also be doing the same which is why he was fussing. He began to bawl loudly and the cashier next to mine said to the customer behind me, ‘If we could get that young man to SHUT UP, I could help you better’.

Folks, I was mortified and ashamed and stressed and upset. I was doing my best to finish my business quickly and hush my son simultaneously, and a bit of empathy would have meant the world. In that moment the heat of shame and anger crept around my face and as soon as I snatched my receipt I stormed out, muttering about how I despise Crewe and every single filthy, uncouth, ill-mannered, insensitive, horrible chav in this depressing grey shitty town.

There.

I felt ashamed afterwards for saying those things because it made me no better than they were.

Do we really attract what we put out?

Odd Exchange

I saw an odd interaction on Wednesday. I can’t quite shake it from my mind. It probably means nothing, but.. well, you decide for yourself.

I am sitting with my baby in a circle of other mothers with their babies. We are in the children’s section of the local library. Babies are cooing, the ones that are mobile are.. well, mobiling. Nibbling dirty goodies from the floor and gurgling at each other, chubby fingers reaching out to explore each other’s eyeballs. At the head of the circle is a woman who works at the library, with a notepad in hand.

‘Right,’ she says, ‘Welcome back mothers, and babies. Before we start this week’s singalong I’d like to go round the group and get all your names and your babies’ names.’

So round the group we go.

I’m Cindy and this is little Aiyla. 

I’m Anna and this is Kyle.

I’m Sarah and this is Amy.

I’m Lilly and this is Darcy.

And so on.

Until we come to an older lady holding a chubby little cherub with a bow on her head. The cherub, not the lady.

‘Hi,’ the lady says, ‘I’m Steph and this is my granddaughter Sofia.’

‘Oh!’ the library worker exclaims, ‘Stephanie! You probably don’t recognise me out of context.’

Steph squints at her, smiles politely, cocks her head.

‘We used to live on the same street in Goodbridge. A good many years ago.’

‘Oh!’ Steph says, laughing awkwardly, ‘Yes!’. Her lips lied to her eyes.

Yet she still squints at the library woman and cocks her head, almost unintentionally.

‘Yeah we used to have a good natter back then. Hahah. Right, who’s next?’

Steph relaxes visibly, sinking into her seat. She doesn’t look like she recognised the library woman.

Then the strange thing happens. A couple of new ladies walk in as we’re doing the introductions. We widen the circle and they seat themselves somewhere before Steph.. so that the library woman has to go back to them and get them to introduce themselves.

Then it’s Steph’s turn again, seemingly, because the circle is quiet and the library woman is looking at Steph, pen poised, ‘And you are?’ she says, pointedly, as though Steph is being slow.

Huh?!

Steph looks surprised, she stutters, ‘uh, yes I’m Steph and this is my granddaughter Sofia..’ and her voice fades away.

I thought it was all so baffling. How did the library woman recognise Steph from long ago in the first instance and then forget she ever knew her, and then proceed to also forget that she had already introduced herself?

What do YOU think?

Are we a society of narcissists?

Lately I have been very disillusioned with society. Not just because Donald Trump won. I know his winning has caused global stress. Not just because of Brexit, or that 25% of voters in France are far right voters.

All I see are selfies every where.

‘Love your body’

‘Lose weight’

‘body image’

‘thinspiration’

‘looks amazing’

‘Wow you look so good’

‘Wow look at you stunner’

And the likes and comments pour in and in and in until they are drowning in comments about their looks.

‘You ugly’

It’s all about appearance. Don’t get me wrong, a selfie here and there is fine. But a constant stream of selfies makes one seem, at the very least, self absorbed.

And then people become so depressed because everybody seems to have such a good life but they don’t. And their compare and compare and all the heads are looking up at those who have more instead of those who have less.

‘Oh her house is nicer than mine’

‘Oh his looks are better than mine’

‘Oh how come he can afford such a nice car wth’

‘She’s ugly’ -she is actually stunning-

And the SELFIES. Instagram is the WORST. All my friends, constantly uploading exact replicas of their face at a particular angle with different coloured lipstick on.

‘Ugh look at my eyebags’

‘Feeling pretty today’

I just feel like society is all a ruse. Nothing is real. People are just projecting themselves out there, hungry for attention. If you look at those who don’t have as much as you do, you become thankful for what you do have. And you become more content, and less ravenous for those likes, for people to appreciate you, for more and higher and better and bigger.

The other day I was on the train and there was a man sitting a few rows ahead of me, blaring music out from his phone. Three people stood up and walked away from him, but he was oblivious. One man tutted loudly and glared at him as he walked past, and the offender waggled his eyebrows at him, and did a little shoulder shake. It made me laugh. I admit, I was a little annoyed with the music, I was tired and his music didn’t sit well in my ears. but I didn’t say anything. So, this guy was happy at 6am in the morning. Why kill a guy’s buzz? Let him be.

I don’t know why that situation depressed me so much.

The screen over the carriage door said, ‘This train is for Stanstead Airport, via Leicester.’

And I thought to myself, what if I didn’t get off at Leicester. What if I just skipped work altogether and went off to Stanstead Airport. Bought a ticket to Somewhere with whatever I had in my account, and escaped it all. But then I realised that wherever I go there will be humans, and humans just don’t make me happy.

They are just so self involved. I am so self involved. A lot of people are. Not all of them, of course. But so many people are.

I want to escape but I don’t know where I want to go.

Maybe I have SAD, now? It probably is that. Lack of vitamin D causes depression, apparently.

Maybe I need to be nicer to other people. Cynicism is not healthy.

So, what do you think? Are we all becoming narcissists? Is this ease of access making it simpler for narcissists to bud and grow, when before such ideas would be smacked right out of their silly little heads?

Narcissus

What are you like?

Hi, I am shy.

I don’t smile at people.

People think I am ‘indifferent’ or ‘moody’.

I generally am, though.

But when I am not, I don’t smile at anybody anyway. I walk around with a perpetual frown on my face. That is my face when it is resting, and I am thinking about things. Mostly life, mostly what I am going to have for lunch, mostly whether or not my keys are in my pocket.

My ‘moody’ demeanour makes it hard for me to make friends, because its pretty off-putting. Most days I don’t want to make friends, because the general population make me very irritated.

The man who is parking on double yellow making it so I have to wait for the oncoming tide of traffic to wane so I can get past, for example. I gave him a right old glare as I went past. Was it necessary? No. Would it change his attitude toward parking on double yellow? Certainly not.

But it gave me pleasure and so I glared as hard as I could.

I am very good at glaring.

I am also good at being awkward. I say unnecessary things and make unnecessary faces.

Take the other day when I was waiting in the dentist waiting room. The assistant was a girl I knew from college and then uni. We were surprised to see each other.

She smiled so wide at me. That reminded me that I had to smile too.

She was blatantly in uniform, and when she said “Oh I work here now,” I said, without really thinking, because sometimes i faze out when I talk to people, I don’t know why,

“Oh really!?”

Then she tugged at her dark blue scrubs, “Yeah, look at my clothes!”

That was weird. Why did I say that?

I knew she worked there. She even had a name badge.

When the appointment was over, I went to leave.

“Well, thank you so much. See you Wednesday.” I said.

Then she said, “It was lovely to see you, Len.”

I would never have said that.

“It was lovely to see you too.” I told her. And it was.

“How’s married life?” she’d asked me, as I blew my nose loudly in the waiting room.

Ugh. Why do people insist on asking me that? It’s so annoying. I am not defined by my ‘married life’, just because I got married at nineteen.

Now I take to answering people like this;

“Yeah. It’s regular. We wake up and brush our teeth and go to work and school and do life, then go to bed at night. You know, the usual.”

It’s been two years. My life is more than just the ‘married’ aspect of it.

Ask me something interesting, like how is my ocean bream. Or what are my plans for the week. Or what do I think about the current situation. Any situation. I would say I think the bee situation is getting out of hand and they really ought to do something about those rats.

Ask me about my mental stability. I joke. That would be weird.

I will tell you, though, that I secretly think I am insane and might have some kind of disorder, because in my dreams people keep revealing to me that I am autistic.

I mean, that’s ridiculous, but it might have some truth? I am terrible with humans, absolutely terrible.

I never used to be, though. It is really since I left somebody who used to emotionally abuse me and manipulate me. Since I was influenced by him my social life juddered to a rusty old stop and I haven’t been the same since.

I really am such a fool in social situations, and I really don’t want to make any friends, and the friends I do have get on my nerves so badly that I rarely see them, and when I do, I have to force myself to be all nice and say ‘I love you hahaha’ when really I don’t love them. Not a whit.

Oh dear. Who knows. I’m happy, though, the way things are. I think I need to meet people more like me, though. I generally attract folk who aren’t like me at all, which is probably why I struggle to enjoy their company.

Anyway.

What are you like?

On Necks

I think necks can be very beautiful things. There is something whimsical about a slender, elegant neck protruding gracefully from the seams of a lacy dress. That is the vision I had for my own wedding dress. The only difference, of course, is that my neck is anything but slender and graceful.

I feel as though my back hunches outwards a little more than I would like, and my neck crouches on top not unlike a small frog. It’s all about posture, they tell you, and I have terrible posture.

Well the wedding dress was nice and I had a lovely day and didn’t think once (not once!) about my neck so all was well and ended well and now my dress is up in the attic somewhere and it might be gathering mould so goodness me I really must sort that out.

I like the paintings of elegant ladies with their heads turned sideways, their necks stretched out as their smooth hair softly curls behind their ears.

In many cultures long necks are seen as beautiful assets to a woman’s features. For example in the Kayan tribe in Thailand women wear brass rings around their necks from a young age, adding rings as they get older to elongate their necks. Some women sport 20 pounds of rings around their necks!

However despite their necks people can be beautiful. They can be beautiful in spite of them too. They can also be beautiful without taking into account how pretty their necks are. Their necks could be their sole redeeming feature as well.

This woman sports a long neck. She is stunning.

 

This woman has very little neck. She is stunning too.

I woke up Saturday morning with a tremendous neck ache in which I couldn’t move towards my left at all. I reckoned I must have slept wrong, took some ibuprofen and carried on with my day. Because it was the weekend and he wasn’t commuting to work, D drove everywhere (because he reckons I drive too slow and my car is a rattly old thing) so this morning when I got in my car and turned to look over my shoulder at the ‘blind spots’, a sharp pain seared through my neck and into my shoulder blade and I gasped in shock.

Google tells me it could be a variety of illnesses ranging from a simple pulled muscle to lung cancer. Lovely. As a self diagnosed hypochondriac, I tend to stay away from WebMD when an ailment afflicts me because my mind goes into overdrive and I start writing my last will and testament and become emotional and clingy to my loved ones, much to their annoyance. My mother reckons I have had all the cancers so far, and come out miraculously unscathed.

So for this one I think I will carry on as usual and even go to the gym tonight and not lift any weights but step like mad on the step machine. I will take ibuprofen and force myself to eat my meals even though this pain is making my stomach churn.

The NHS website presented a link titled ‘Living with pain’ and I thought to myself, gosh, some people have to live with pain day in day out! This has been going on for three days already and I am beginning to tire of this constant ache. So, you know, it could be worse.

Have you experienced any neck problems? What are your thoughts on necks in general?

 

Oh, hello, stranger.

There is a woman next to me eating a tuna sandwich. Well, I think it is tuna. I can’t be too sure. You never can, with the wide variety of sandwich fillings these days. What happened to good old cheese and tomato? That washes down well with coffee.

This lady is sad, folks. Her face is flushed, and she pulls a tissue out of her coat pocket to wipe her eyes and nose. She also stares vacantly out the window for a while, and her shoulders slump as though the weight of the world is settled on them. She holds herself close to her heart, her knees inwards, her chest bent in on herself, as though she is curling up like a desert leaf to hold herself in and protect herself. Her posture suggests she might be nervous or uncomfortable.

She has a slim notebook in front of her. The cover is black, with green drawings all over it. She is left handed, and writes with her hand bent over her sentences. It is not a way I could envision writing. Her bag is purple, like space, dotted with stars. Her hair is shoulder length and curly, and she wears glasses.

Her eyes are sad, and I want to go and sit next to her and sprinkle some joy upon her day. But I don’t know how to. What would I say?

Hello, I noticed you look sad. Wanna talk about it?

Hi! I’m Lenora. I love your diary.

Oh, hello. Look at these pictures of cute squirrels I found on the internet.

Good afternoon. Do you think you could take a few moments to talk about our Literary Lord and Linguistic saviour John Ronald Reuel Tolkien?

Hi, I really like your hair.

Hello, ….

The possibilities are endless. But none sound remotely right.

Oh. She has put her coat on, and off she goes. Mayhaps she wrote all her sad thoughts in her diary, and now feels relieved to carry on with her day.

Perhaps she wasn’t sad at all, but had hay fever.

I wish I talked to her. I want to know what she has to say.

I don’t know how to talk to strangers though, without seeming like a creep, or uncommonly odd.

Well. Maybe next time.