Today somebody told me that I was being over-dramatic, and it scared me.
I'm pretty co-dependant in some ways, and I didn't realise it until recently. A lot of the time I'm around people, large groups of them, I get distressed and sulky and I shut myself off because I feel isolated or ignored or like I just don't really want to be there.
But I do like people. I like being alone with just one person, and usually any one person will do, because a one-to-one conversation is so much eassier to carry out that shouting and numerous topics and interruptions. If I get on well with somebody, to the point that conversation is so easy we're talking as we think things without encoding, it's like gold dust to me.* I met somebody a while ago who I was so similar to, and understood so well in some ways that it was as if they prodded through my intestines, set off wriggling motions in my stomach and high-fived my soul.
I also get attatched to objects and memories. M y drawers, my phone, my "C" drive are all full to the brim with things that I ignore and don't want to let go of. When I was a child I would stay up as late as I could the night after Christmas day because I didn't want it to end.
My French exchange partner has been so perfect and lovely over the last week she's been staying with me. We got on really well, her English is excellent and when I played her "I'll Be Your Man" (see last post) on the car radio she didn't ignore the music, like most people I play music to/at in cars, but she said she loved it and asked for the name of the song to write it down. On Thursday, I cried at random intervals throughout the day because I won't see her until March.
I felt pretty angry at my friend, who'd trotted into school at 12 o clock (we'd all had to be awake since 4am to drop the exchange students off, some had gone back home and spent the morning off school) and told me I was being over the top. But it was understandable. If it wasn't me, I would have quietly thought the same.
When my grandfather died, my mum called me; at the time, I was babysitting with my best friend.
"Grandpa George died," she told me, and the first thing I felt was guilt because I'd been talking cheerfully until then and then more guilt because I was surprised at just how much nothing I felt. I told Poppy, she hugged me, and I felt strange because I couldn't cry or feel or even think about it very much, at first.
Over the last year, exchange partners (German, then French) leaving have lead me into crying buckets but not deaths in the family, finding out the guy I thought I was in love with was in a relationship, even some really sad movies have possibly been more important but I never felt the same about any of those.
Apparently, I should sort my priorities out.
*Since last week's episode of The Apprentice, I've started using "gold dust" as a similie a lot. Forgive me.
___________________________________________________________
Again, that was a lot of self indulgent crap so I want to make up for it by talking about Nicci French.
Sean French and Nicci Gerrard are two ex journalists, I think, a married couple who write murder mystery novels and psychological thrillers under the joint penname Nicci French. As with a lot of books, I read "Losing You" on holiday because it was my mother's and I'd run out of my own books to read. It was brilliant, the twist in the ending was fantastic and I drank it all up within twenty four hours. I also read "Until It's Over", which I reaally liked and was beautifully written. it inspired me to want to write about roommates who were randomly thrown into living in a house together. And I did.
I was painfully disappointed when "Land of the Living" wasn't quite as good as the others, and now I think about it "What To Do When Someone Dies" was almost a waste of my time.
I don't know what the point to that was. You should give some Nicci French novels a try, especially if you like a story with a twist at the end - I do, and I was so shockingly delighted by "Losing You" that I think maybe my hopes were built up much too high by the time I read the others. But "Losing You" is absolutley excellent, and read some of their other books.
They're good. You'll like them.
No comments:
Post a Comment