Sitting with the pain.

Some days there is no other choice but to sit with whatever discomfort has settled in your chest. Some days the emotion you are experiencing feels like actual physical pain and there is nothing to do but let it wave through you. It might feel like you are drowning, but eventually the wave is going to spit you back out onto the shore. You just have to relax, close your eyes, and wait for the moment to pass. Even if that moment lasts for days, it will end.

I say this like it is easy. I say this like the feeling of helplessness does not emphasise the pain with additional rising panic. I say this like my instinct is not to fight, even when there is nothing to fight, even when the only option is to let time heal.

Time takes so long to heal, but when I look back it will be no time at all.

Today I have sat with such pain. It is still there. I needed to write this down just to say that I have sat with pain all day. I needed to call into the void (that is not the void but instead filled with so many lovely people) and say hello? is anyone there? i have felt so much pain today. 

And as soon as I write that down, as soon as I hit 'publish', I know the pain will go away a little bit. Just a little bit. At least there is one way to take away some of its power.

My brain is a bad friend.

I think it was Deborah Frances-White who did a skit on 'The Guilty Feminist' podcast in which she imagined that the negative voice inside her head was her psychopathic room-mate. It sounded like a thriller. No person would ever speak to another human like that, let alone someone they loved and cared about.

I remembered this the other day when I was imagining what it would be like if I said the horrible things I can say to myself to my friends. The result would be that I would have approximately zero friends afterwards and it would be completely understandable. Imagine, for example, if a friend came to me straight after a breakup and I said "Well, of course this means that you will never, ever find love again and you will suffer with this heartache for the rest of your life. Also, you must have done something to deserve it because you are probably not worthy of being loved." Rightly so that friend would likely back away slowly and never return.

The thing is, not only would I never, ever say that to a friend, or even a stranger, I wouldn't actually believe it. I have complete and utter faith that every single person in my life is not only worthy of love, happiness and success in whatever form that might take but also that they will inevitably find those things throughout their lives. I believe so wholeheartedly in my friends being deserving of love that I will personally be the sole provider if things should ever come to that.

Why, then, is it so easy to believe and say the complete opposite to myself?

As I was writing this my dad sent me a blog post by Mary O'Malley about the concept of things being "unfair". This line seemed particularly apt: "But then I remembered that our minds have been trained to struggle and, instead of contracting, I began to laugh." And then, "There is absolutely nothing that your mind does that you need to judge." My dad didn't know that I was sat in my room writing this blog post, so perhaps he is secretly telepathic.

Of course the voice in my head is a harsher critic of and a worse friend than I would ever be to another person but the key is probably in recognising this. I have set a challenge for myself that the next bad thought I think about myself I will ask, "would you say that to or believe that of your sister? your friend? a girl you met drunk in the pub toilets?" and when the answer is inevitably "no" I will, like Mary O'Malley, simply laugh. And those kindly, gentle, beautiful things I would say to the people I love I will repeat to myself because, like everyone else, my feisty little head deserves that too.

My virtual support group.

I often find myself plunging into books and podcasts as soon as anything goes wrong, or not how I'd planned it, or when I am overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the future. The books are almost primarily autobiographies or memoirs written by women and the podcasts follow the same sort of theme. I want desperately to find similarities between my life and the lives of women that I admire. I am mostly drawn to women because I feel I can more readily relate to their experiences. I need to know that they failed, that they felt heartbreak, that they had bleak thoughts about the days that lay ahead of them. I try to fill myself with as many examples as possible of the light at the end of the tunnel. I seek constant reminders that, no, it will not feel like this forever.

Comparing my own life with the lives of others has its benefits and downfalls. It allows me to remind myself that I am not alone, that there will always be 'downs' but also many 'ups', and that if I work hard my life will eventually ebb and flow in the direction that was meant to be. However, the comparisons can often become arbitrary and futile. If I find out, for example, that at twenty two the author had a string of successful relationships, a job that was leading her to her dream career, and she wasn't still sleeping in her childhood bedroom I instantly think of my own life and assume that I have already failed. What I forget in these moments is that, actually, I am not living anyone's life but my own. To compare something as completely personal as relationships and aspirations is to ignore the nuances and even the beauty of my own experience.

At the same time I find reading and hearing the witty, clever words of women who are wiser and more experienced than I am incredibly soothing. I escape into the actual lives of others to quieten my own mind when it whirs on and on about the future, or about the state of the present. I think particularly at this moment in time when surrounding myself with other people is impossible, instead I surround myself with a sort of virtual support group, finding voices that can soothe a troubled heart.

Oversharing therapy.

I have no qualms with airing my dirty laundry on the Internet and in my writing. Of course, it depends on what the laundry is but if it is something I would talk about openly in person then I will write about it and share it online too. I know that I have said this before, but right now I am finding myself airing my dirty laundry all over the shop.

I have no qualms because in every single sense sharing my pain, my worries, my thoughts with almost everyone available is intensely therapeutic. It allows me to connect with others when I feel lonely or afraid, it allows me to process how I am feeling, it allows me to ground myself in hope and move forward when staying in my own head makes me feel like I am drowning. Occasionally, it allows me to comfort others as well as being comforted myself. That is usually the sweet spot - to feel less alone, to have helped another person, to know that we will both get through whatever it is.

I have made friends through "oversharing", it has made way for life-changing opportunities, and I have connected on a deep, emotional level with fellow human beings.

So, in order to not drown in my own head, I will continue to write and share my way out of this pain, these worries, these thoughts.

Keep going, keep going, keep going.

Being twenty-two feels like the worst thing in the world even though I know that it might be one of the best.

The problem with being twenty-two is that I am not old enough to truly know that life is long and sprawling, and not young enough to see it all hopefully before me. Even though I know that it is all before me, and I know that it is long.

I know that life will keep being thrown up in the air and I may or may not get better at dealing with it but I will always get through it.

I know that right now my heart is hurting and it feels like it might never stop hurting, but I know that it will because it did before. At least I am old enough now to know that.

Being twenty-two feels like the worst thing in the world because I just want to know that I will be okay when I do not feel okay and I can't see into the future. I want my older self to come and cradle me. I want her to show me all the things I do, all the people I meet, all the love I have. I want her to come and tell me that the fear that spreads out through my chest right now is futile. There is nothing to fear.

There is nothing to fear but I am scared of wanting things in case I never get them. I am scared of disappointment because I know what it feels like and I want it to end.

But at the same time I am not scared of failure because I know that I never will fail. Not truly, not finally, not permanently. I know that I am strong enough and brave enough and wilful enough to keep going, keep going, keep going.

Being twenty-two feels weird because I know that there is a future self that is telling me all these things right now. She is there, and I am here, and we co-exist. I move towards her but she is never still. She whispers back to the self that I am now and says that my big, beating, bleeding heart only ever gets bigger, only ever keeps healing.

Being twenty-two is the best thing in the world because I am here, I am living, and my heart is beating so fast and so hard and I can look forwards and backwards and know that life is good and pain is good and love is always, always there.

And, being twenty-two, I will get up off the floor (get up, Mollie!) and keep going, keep going, keep going.

Hoping.

This is, without a doubt, the most bizarre thing I've ever experienced. I think for anyone who hasn't lived through a war or any situation that turns "normal" life for an entire population on its head this is so... weird.

I don't imagine that lockdown and the threat of a virus is anything like living through a war. I'm not going to make comparisons, because people are experiencing grief and fear in different measures, I just don't think they are the same thing.

But this is of course coming from a view of the world that, up until this point, life moved smoothly and without significant disruption. World war, cold wars, etc were a thing in the history books. Something we learnt about at school in the safety of classrooms. Disruption happened on a personal scale, only affecting one family, one person at a time. It didn't happen to everyone all at once.

I think the thing I'm most surprised about is how quickly we adapt. Nothing like a crisis to remind ourselves that life goes on, we make it through. No matter what happens, we will come out the other side.

There is also a reason for that. Most of us pull together in bizarre times like these. We re-group, reconsider, work as a community. We do it because we are social animals, because we need to protect the pack, protect the tribe, protect the human race. We do it because we are sentimental, because we feel love, grief and, perhaps most of all, hope.

What I hope continues into "normal" life once this is all over is the kindness we have finally allowed ourselves. Kindness to yourself, kindness to others. Forgiveness, understanding, being gentle. I believe it is proving the only effective thing getting us through. Everything else, the selfishness, the greed, the lack of community spirit, has proven entirely useless. We have found a much greater level of compassion, and it is allowing the world to keep spinning.

I don't know. Perhaps I am being too wishy-washy. Perhaps my ideas and thoughts are not grounded in any "reality". But I am just hoping, that is all, and it is getting me through.

Pontificating on 'The Tiger King'.

'The Tiger King' is a documentary on Netflix about private zoo owner Joe Exotic. It has been an extremely popular, binge-worthy event. You watch for the shock-factor, the voyeurism, the horror, the intrigue. I finished with a bad taste in my mouth.

It is like watching an adaptation of a Graham Greene novel. Every time you think you've located a source of good, a source of morality, every human involved demonstrates the capacity for potential, or actual, evil. On all "sides" there is incessant greed for power, status and money. There is incessant violence, incitement of violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation, betrayal, lying, entrapment, preying on the vulnerable. Deep, deep misogyny.

I felt so angry at the end. There are characters in this story who continue to behave in the most damaging, horrific way. They did not get their comeuppance.

But, of course, that's the point. I've projected my ideas of right and wrong onto this story and I expect them to be met with a sense of justice. I expect it all to come full circle.

As well as making parallels with a Graham Greene novel, I kept thinking that the structure of the documentary follows the same structure of a Shakespearean tragedy. A protagonist falls from some sort of elevated status due to an act of evil, and the whole story world collapses. I even felt, at some points, sorry for Joe Exotic as if he had some sort of tragic flaw. But I wanted the conspirators to fall too. I wanted 'The Tiger King' to be like 'Hamlet' where every character compliant in the moral wrong dies (gets their justice).

But Shakespeare knew, like Greene, that that is not how the world works. Our sense of morality is futile after a point.

Despite all this pontificating I am still holding out for a hero. The hero being any vague sense of karma, justice, satisfaction. I want Jeff Lowe, Doc Antle etc, etc. to have their worlds collapse too. That would be fair, wouldn't it?