That Friday Feeling

A warm evening buzz filled the London streets around me. The chatter felt louder than it had been just an hour earlier, and the streets were flourished with work-attire clad drinkers, brandishing their pints as though trophies for their week of labour. Lines at the bar were populated with eager faces not yet served, awaiting their glistening first prize drink. Enter – the Friday feeling. The urge to grab your phone to see who is out, and head to the nearest drinking establishment to join in the celebrations of this socially anointed king of all days. The vibe that you would be alien to head home to put your feet up, and much wiser to place them miss-stepping on a cheesy dance-floor until the early hours. The excitement that builds up all day marked by turtle paced productivity, and an unwritten rule of – if you want anything done, have some respect and don’t expect it on a Friday.

 

There I was, walking through Borough High Street, past Pubs that somehow convinced its punters that standing well into the street with a glass made an £8 drink worth it, beginning to feel their energetic pull. Heading to drama class, I was off to get my own dose of letting lose, without the shortcut that alcohol provides, yet still feeling a ‘fear of missing out’. Alcohol allows all shyness, apprehension, nerves and negativity to depart from me when taken in small doses. Rather excellent jokes, if I do say so myself, are no longer scrutinised and run through an over harsh judgement mill, before being delivered. My voice is that much louder, and no one need ask me to speak up or repeat myself, or not respond at all having not heard me. The true introvert that I am shuts up shop for the evening, and a more sociable, extroverted Laila steps in my shoes. I find myself able to speak to all people, free from a self critic that I’m having far too much fun to listen to. I smile more, and in turn those around me smile back, with an infectious positivity which acts to keep both the topics and the rounds ongoing. The noise from the music, and my increasingly loud bar neighbours are all easily tolerable, despite shouting for hours at the top of my lungs. The adrenaline effect means the energy sapped from my week is not of concern, if anything I can keep on going; why would anyone go home – it’s Friday?!
But not this Friday. Entering my drama class, filled with 10 very different amateur actors and actresses, I intended to open myself up to experience the freedom, happiness and open-mindedness that alcohol provides, without a drop of it touching my lips. We began the class with an energy circle; ‘Laila will start’, the teacher declared, ‘don’t plan anything, just do any movement and sound that comes to you, and pass the energy on’. Thinking and not thinking, I jumped up and down ”Whoop, Whoop, Whoop” I whirred, flailing my hands as though fanning a fire, then swaying them toward the drama buddy to my left. A series of wacky movements and nutty sounds cascaded among the 10 of us, inhibitions declining and energy increasing with each round. Feeling self conscious, I let my turns pass quickly and preferred watching the remainder of the group, smiling at the sheer craziness of the scene before me. A bunch of kids, all in the bodies of adults, playing, present and creative – truly wonderful to see. We performed to each-other short plays we’d made in groups that involved dancing cats, bomb detonating bakers, and bitchy girl friends. In a Black Mirror style dystopia, my group decided on 3 characters; a pompous self indulgent scientist, played by me, presenting a proud trans-gendered man who was by the miracles of modern science, pregnant. Of course thrown in was a boisterous lady who was homophobic and anti trans-gendered pregnant men. Miss boisterous took me by complete surprise when she got so into her character that the audience considered breaking up the fight that ensued on stage! I giggled heartily after our scene as me and Mr transgender relayed to her our shock at the full on character that came out on our little stage, as she transformed back into the bubbly class attendee she began as.

At the end of the class, sitting in a circle to review, I realised I had connected with people I did not know just two hours prior. I had been present, I had laughed a lot, my voice had been loud and clear. I made others laugh, I had acted with little thought and worry, and an abundance of positivity. I had done all of this without alcohol, and I left grinning from ear to ear, with a new grasp of what else that Friday Feeling can really be.

Mr Grey

The morning scramble began with a colleague’s text which read ‘want a lift to work?’- an offer now an hour overdue, rendering it invalid. Throwing on a black and white checked dress combined with drama-class friendly leggings, I sprayed my far too masculine ‘ENERGY 5’ deodorant, and headed toward the mirror for the final touches. Never too concerned about my look at work, I side swept my puffy mane into a rather clumsy plait that I hoped would be viewed as fashionably messy rather than as a reflection of my morning haste. The final wrap of my hairband around the paintbrush like ending of my locks was halted by a vision in the corner of my eye that stopped me in my frantic tracks. A grey hair. Zooming in by moving closer to my mirror, I learnt that it could not be excused as being bleach or a lapse in my vision. There it sat, lacking in pigment and slightly wavier than the other hairs, spitefully angled above them. I grabbed it, eager to uproot it and pretend I never saw it, longing to live in a Peter Pan world where I need not acknowledge the possibility of age related limitations. I cut off a friend mid sentence recently when she, quite logically, suggested that my newly found experience of hangovers may be due to me surpassing the big 3 – 0, turning to Google who returned to me the relieving results that no, hangovers do not worsen with age.
‘The trouble is, you think you have time’, I stared at my disappointed reflection remembering this quote, that referred to the greatest human folly of all time; the denial that we will all become sick or old, and that death certainly awaits us. We are all on the way to this death, with no idea of when the date will be, yet many of us walk filled with endless procrastinations of the things we will do in a future that we are not even promised. For this reason we must make the most of each day with the acceptance, and not denial of , the ultimate end to this episode. It is only with this darkness and ending in mind that we can appreciate and fully live the light – and not in a reckless YOLO sort of way. Braving another look at my new wispy grey hair strand I decided against yanking him from his new home. Tying the final loop on my braid I stood up, slowed down the morning exit, took a few invigorating breathes in and appreciated this slice of my life in the here and the now, ready to fully live this day, grey hair and all.

The Darkness In Between The Night

A trickle of sweat met at the peak of my spine, meandering its way toward my now-heated bed sheets. To accompany it, a drum like thud  pulsated through each limb, and I soon realised that these vibrations came from my amplified heartbeat. Rolled untidily in my  duvet, eyes open wide I faced a terror of my own making, within the atmospheric shadows of my bedroom. A ghoul with no body, yet no need for one. He meant me only harm, yet communicated none. He hovered as I quivered a motionless squirm. He edged his way closer as I feebly attempted to pull back. A branch like claw extended its way onto my torso, with a weightless touch that only deepened my sensory confusion. “Oh!” – I internally yelled. Now I felt it swerve its icy slime like hand in a creeping motion. It made a sudden jolt toward me, aligning itself with my dilated pupils. Terrified, I realised the futility of my escape, for I could not move a muscle.

I was trapped in this hellish moment,  despite full on fight or flight responses being fired by my desperate system. This was sleep paralysis. It is something I experience occasionally, but that never becomes any less terrifying with time. I share my room of darkness and silence, with only a menace dreamed up from horrors of my mind I did not know existed. A menace, I should add, who I am quite literally paralysed to run away from. Each time it happens, I wake up believing that this is it: this is the time I am paralysed for real, and still I can’t even move to express my devastation.

 I once read that the fight or flight reactions have a third, more passive and less spoken about sibling; the freeze response. With the freeze response, you can guess what happens, and it has been known to occur for many people in threatening situations. Those who elicit it are often left questioning why they did not run or fight the person who placed them under threat. Reflecting back to facing my nightmarish shadow, I wonder how distressing that must be. To know you should not be somewhere, yet your body defies you and there you remain. To know you want to lash out, yet be unable to communicate that to your limbs effectively. I imagine there are some parallels to the uneasy state between sleep and wakefulness in which I found myself last night.

 Unsure of for how long he would stay or if he would ever leave, I lay mutely pleading with the presence before me, longing for this moment to end and for my physical abilities to return once more. The pounding of my heart only got louder, and my paralysis only more concrete. The ghoul grew larger. It’s form continually shifted in an increasingly darkening projection of the mind from creatures, to demons, to large angry breathing monstrosities, all of which I was desperately helpless to escape. I felt the weight of the shape shifter, now pressing on my chest, whilst glaring soullessly into my eyes, increasing my fear that this would be my ending; that this ghoul would take my life.

‘Change tactic Laila’, a break in my panic allowed me to think. At this point I decided to deny it was happening; ‘Nope, I am not afraid of that thing because it is not even there’, I repeated to myself mentally in my catatonic state, reminding myself of advice I had been give at age 8 when having bad dreams. And finally – the spell was broken – I was free from the dream, my room contained only me once again. My hand was now liberated. Comforted by this I reached for my iPhone, sure to put the torch on for at least the next ten minutes, until I braved an attempt to sleep once more – hopeful I would not get stuck within that dark place in between.

Monday Night Viewing

As I watched the unfairly depicted South East Asian characters storm the streets in the film I was watching, I heard some shouts and screams emanating from the real world around me. Waltzing around my kitchen, so as not to appear a nosey neighbour and still keep one eye on my Netflix movie, I watched pacing around as 3 teenagers below lay on a large circular swing in my road’s park. One of them was letting out a loud fox like cry as some sort of boys joke I will never quite grasp. An elderly ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ type resident of my square repeatedly asked them to leave, prodding ‘Cry Boy’ and not taking no for an answer. The boys, eyeing each other in a voiceless egging on – antagonised the woman, going further than ignoring her demands by gluing themselves to the swing and shouting at her to ‘F*** off’ amongst other insults.

Looking to the left of the landscape it soon became clear that the reason she wanted the trio gone was to clear the play area for the 4 year old boy who lives above me, who was sat with his Mum, bobbing on the springy bird seesaw. ‘Let the little boy come on here and clear off’, I could hear the conversation more clearly as the voices climbed that few notches louder. At this point the Mother and just past toddler came closer, showing a humbling back up. ‘My son wants to use the swing, can you move?’, added the Mum with more a statement than a question. The teenagers paused , it appears only to select the most cutting of responses, ‘Your stupid son can f**k off too’. The 4 year old let out what I can only describe as a baby dolphin like wail, sensing the nasty turn this debate had taken. Admiring Neighbourhood Watch, I gazed on as she poked the boys, demonstrating that her might in bravery surpassed any physical advantage that the boys possessed.

This was becoming quite entertaining, as awful as that sounds. I considered pausing ‘’No Escape’’, pondering the appeal of viewing human suffering whether it be through the TV screen, or my window pane. My attention darted back toward the square’s park, seeing that the boys decided to jump up and run in unison, and I felt a bit uneasy seeing that the human suffering was heading toward my block. Rather astonished at the parallels to ‘No Escape’ where the main charecters hotel building was being stormed by manic rebels, I heard the boys rushing in, egos in full force; competing with who could be the meanest, who could care the least. I crowned the champion of this sorrowful competition to be Cry Boy, as he sucked in a clump of phlegm and hatred, releasing it in a vicious spit towards cute little ‘Baby Dolphin’ boy who they met at the block entrance, and who again wept with a sound that makes me sure this name is apt. Guilt at watching this arose in me, and I questioned if my involvement would be of any use, but seeing that Neighbourhood Watch was already on the phone, the only action I took was to pause my Netflix. The police soon came, the boys soon fled, and I found myself questioning their motives. The ego I can understand, and the running from the police, I even slightly fancy for the adrenaline rush it would provide, but the attacking of cute little Baby Dolphin, I just do not. Surely it makes them look weak to one another, rather than macho, to do such a thing? As Baby Dolphin’s father came home, and the story was relayed I ducked safely away from view, wondering if there is a darker ‘Harry Brown-esque’ section of society that I choose to ignore. I questioned would I have had the persistence of Neighbourhood Watch, and if caught, what punishment Cry Boy would really face. And perhaps the darkest thought of all, was why I found this scene entertaining, and why we get such joy from watching suffering on screen. For now Baby Dolphin was taken inside, safe in his Dad’s arms, and I heard his cute little sounds echo through the buildings corridor.

You’re ruining my Zen! Or Am I?

Sometimes the little moments in life can show you much larger things about yourself, that you hadn’t expected. When I was having a bath a few days ago – yes, a good old fashioned bath, I finally realised the usefulness of the time out it provided. The cradle of the warm water encouraged both a presence and connection with my mind and body I had forgotten. I found myself fascinated, dipping beneath the water, hearing my heartbeat, grateful and in tune with each pump it vocalised. I watched the candles around me dancing, sharing the aura.

There I sat, present, reflective, connected – ‘urgh, but look at all this crap around me’,  I found myself thinking as I frowned at the leave in conditioners, brushes and serums dotted along the bath panel. I decided on a solution to this newly found eyesore, and bought a nice little 4 drawer storage unit, which made me appear deceptively strong as I carried it home, such was its tall size and feather like mass. Eagerly filling my bathroom saviour up, then placing my candles around the bathroom, I knew my Zen like area was almost complete. My tranquility and peace were mere moments away, pending the moving of the remaining items  left on the floor – which belonged to my housemate. ‘Ok, it isn’t my place to meddle with other people’s things’, I reminded myself, tearing myself away from my project, and attaching myself back onto the remainder of my weekend. Turns out that this project in peace and mindfulness was already providing me with a rather time consuming distraction from the job hunting I had scheduled myself for the day.

 Two days passed, which saw me absent from my flat – and my part baked bathroom of peace. Upon my return, a sense of urgency to check whether the clutter of products had migrated to their new rightful home, returned with me. With a click of the bathroom light a smile washed over my face; ‘yes they are gone’ I sighed. The joy was short lived. You may wish to be seated for this part. The naughty items had not migrated to the swanky new drawers, no. They remained in the rusting metallic frame in which they first sat, having been merely shifted to beneath the sink. Taking pictures, I shared this with a friend, and was already plotting how to explain to the housemate the terrible mistake and disservice she had made to our lovely drawers, let alone to my plans for tranquility.

And there it hit me – the seesaw was unbalanced, the tranquility was already lost, all at my own doing. I was angry with a person who meant no harm to me, and at objects that should have no effect on me. I was so consumed by building this space and controlling all elements of it that I lost sight of my emotions and thoughts, creating a needless form of suffering which surpassed any peace that this magical drawer tower could provide. My peaceful place will forever be the trilling bird I can hear in the tree but never catch, if I do not pause and realise that it is not the bird I need to catch, but the trilling I need to embrace.

Telling The Family

Today I announced to the family my big decision. Originally opting for a subtle understated announcement, I somehow found myself dramatically declaring ‘I have an announcement!’, standing in the family kitchen. ‘I have taken the redundancy, I quit my job’, the words fell out of my mouth with an excited anxiety that returns to me as I type. Baba – the name I use to refer to my Dad, took his usual contemplative pause, as I sat yearning to know the thoughts that filled it. My sister in law sat beside me listening, and I already felt her supportive glow. ‘I think I want to be a writer, I want to use my creative side I’ve kept locked away for far too long’, I explained, adding to the tapestry of my decision. Baba responded with the warm words, which I know come from a place of parental unconditional love; ‘we will support you and I know you can do whatever you want to do’. My Mum and brother soon enter. I spill the beans, and am relieved at their faith in me. I had anticipated perhaps one panicked reaction in the style of; ‘You left your job and you don’t have a new one?!’, but feel at ease knowing I had four clearly favourable responses. Mum sweetly suggests ‘How about being a police officer?’, to which I politely decline – it seems a little different to writing, though I hear they are all bogged down with paper work.

Talks of ‘Ken’ – an author friend ensue, and with a slightly raised voice over clinked dishes he’s re-washing, Baba interjects – ‘Oh by the way we have an email from 2005 from him that we did not reply to!’. A wave of nostalgia sweeps over me as unanimous belief in my abilities is portrayed by the quartet around me. My two year old niece crawls into the kitchen, adding to the disjointed conversation – rather humoursly she is pretending to be a baby, unaware of her effortless likeness to one. I tell them about my blog, to which Baba, classically unintentionally funny, responds ‘what’s a blog?’. I explain, and conversation soon jumps to the tyres I was supposed to sell on Gumtree, which still sit blinging in the garage (they are rather ghetto fabulous alloys – don’t ask).  My Dad declares ‘Oh great Laila – you can blog them!’, and I immediately wonder if I will regret having taught him this new word. My self declared (and accurately so) ‘blunt’ older brother chips in with his views on my writing, amidst a pining for a different career of his own as a writer about cars. 

All  the words are positive – and I can certainly count on him not to sugar coat things, which somehow makes his statements all the more meaningful. I hear murmurs of a quiet confidence within me, knowing that this decision just became that little bit more real, and that little bit more magical. 

I Quit My Job.. To Start A Blog?

I’ve taken the leap of a lifetime. I’ve done it. I have finally left my job. I decided I want to write. I will bid farewell to ‘Orange Man’ – a 55 year old, right wing depressive who hands out tangerines to a chosen few of us in the office. And ‘Predator’, whose sadness portrays itself in a more subtle way, with power plays over seating arrangements. She pokes her head out from behind the forest of computer screens glaring at her unsuspecting (and wrongly seated) victim. A host of other characters soon only to be seen in my rearview include ‘Sparrow’, ‘Bright Eyes’, ‘Bi-Polar’, ‘Transformer’ and ‘Terminator’. I chuckle to myself at the realisation that these names paint a hilariously mismatched group image, yet also that they in themselves reflect my yearning for colour and creativity, in a world with a penchant for greyness and rules.

I started my day with one colleague cheekily admitting to not having done any work for the past 2.5 hours, and his neighboring colleague trumping that having done nothing for 3.5. I smiled at their brazenness and was then distracted by the grumbles of ‘Orange Man’ to my right. He spoke of the years since the age of 21, when he entered this Abyss of a career, and how soon they passed him by. I am grateful for his honesty, his observations, and if I am honest – for his depression, for it pushed me to say I have to get out, and even if the grass is not greener, I need to see that grass, and wiggle my 31 year old toes in it once more. 

Having made my decision I left my office enthused and excited, wanting to share my soon to come freedom with every passerby in the street, such were the bubbles I felt inside. Yet as the hours passed, and the jobs I viewed, the comparisons came sweeping in. The deep feeling of inadequacy that kept me stagnant in a mediocre GroundHog Day swirled in my mind unwelcome, yet still welcomed in, like a slave to his master. Such are its powers, it made me feel I should not bother to write, as I would not amount to anything significant. This mindset had me quit ballet, Saxophone, drama, swimming, dancing, running, piano – I could keep going – all under the false guise that if I could not be fantastic at something, it would be laughable to continue to try. I sit here numb in the realisation, that this is the mindset of ‘Orange Man’, and I don‘t like citrus fruits enough to become him.

I am awakening to the idea that I may not be a ballerina, but I could still perform a Jèté with joy, I may not be a star actress, but I could giggle my way through drama class, and I may not be a prized writer, but if I want to, I can enjoy these words on the page. I can put my mind and emotions down; a part of me expressed in ink, unique to me. If I want to blog, I will start with blogging, not wasting my hours reminding myself of why I cannot possibly. So I am going to take this leap of a lifetime, I am going to start this blog, and inner critic – have a tangerine, ‘cos I ain’t no orange woman.