I’ve had a few sobering moments today and frankly, at the time this photo was taken I was feeling decidedly sorry for myself. I was stood on a station platform in thick snow and wondering whether I’d make it the whole journey home or end up stranded in an hotel somewhere because of snow on the train line. I took the shot in two takes only, with my camera balanced on my handbag on top of my suitcase on top of a station bench. I managed all of two shots because I was terrified of a. my precious camera falling off its precarious perch, b. someone grabbing it and making a dash for it, c. my train coming in before I’d got it packed away and ready to go. Looking at the pic, I look decidedly bedraggled too in spite of feeling as though I looked pretty OK earlier in the day – snow doesn’t do a lot for either your hairdo or your self-esteem.
The phrase ‘nothing changes….except everything’ came to my mind, not for the first time today because I’ve stood on this platform so many times before in bitter wind, snow, rain, hail…and if truth be told some nice weather too though that seemed like a very long time ago as I stood there this afternoon.
Although I had a wonderful evening with Liz, David and Sparkie (not to mention a take-away curry) last night and despite the charm and luxury of the surroundings, I had a bad night. My nightmares have been rearing their heads again and last night’s was a corker – my Uncle David (the one who unceremoniously threw out my Nan last Christmas), had parked his lorry in the lay-by outside our house (which wasn’t our house if you see what I mean) and was systematically trying to kill me in different ways. My nightmares aren’t always so far from the truth and I was very relieved to speak to DM this morning and find he was fine…..remember Rosie? I woke this morning, what seemed like moments after finally getting off to sleep, feeling about as far from refreshed as it was possible to feel. I don’t know why I’m suffering so much with them at the moment – maybe it’s the sign of a troubled mind….I have no idea if the two are linked.
Liz, who is a perfect angel of a human being, took me to the station and as I climbed into her beautiful car, parked in a fabulous garage next to her husband’s Porsche and reversed out of the drive of her exquisite and comfortable home, I thought to myself ‘where did I go so wrong?’ When I met Liz thirteen years ago, she and her husband didn’t own a home and I’d already been a home-owner for many years, yet now we are again living in squalor – whatever possessed us to do this thing? Nothing changes except everything.
I caught the train from Liz’s home-town to the office and travelled exactly the same commuter route I used to travel when I was living in Sandhurst. My stomach churned with a ‘groundhog day’ feeling when I saw the owlish little Harry Potter looky-likey on the train that I shared my journey with so many times in the past. Nothing changes except everything. My commute was the same, yet now my home is 250 miles from work, not the mere 30 that it was for thirteen years. I plucked the first of a pile of books that my little sis, Jan, sent to me via my Mum this weekend from my suitcase, having finished the wonderful ‘Innocence’ by Kathleen Tessaro yesterday. Don’t be fooled by that book’s cover – it may look like pure, unadulterated ‘chick-lit’ – it’s actually quite a dark and extremely well-written (shame about the editing though, I spotted a few ‘howlers’) tale of love and betrayal that I found both depressing and strangely unsettling at the same time.
I’ve remarked several times recently that I’m so emotionally fragile these days that I try to stick totally to happy/funny tales of love and friendship with people skipping around in lovely dresses and living ‘happily ever after’ with their dream lover. Jan had taken this on board and decided that she had just the thing for me that would fit the bill and kindly sent them over in the generous-hearted way that my sis always has in everything she embarks on. She told me that the books had all had her in hysterics and she felt sure I would love them. She’d even gone to the trouble of putting post-it notes on them telling me the order in which I should read them. They turned out to be the ‘Shopaholic’ books by Sophie Kinsella.
I thought they’d not be my ‘cup of tea’ but that I’d probably quite enjoy feeling superior to the ‘Shopaholics’ (let’s face it, the number of times I can feel superior to anyone these days is small) so I put two of them into my suitcase. This morning, I fished out the first and started to read it. As I did so, a little card fell out from between the leaves of the book. It was a little home-made card, from small child to ‘mummy’ though not Jan….the child’s name was illegible but certainly not either of my nephews’ names. I realised two things with a small pang. The first was that the mother of the child would probably have ‘missed’ the card – a sweet memento from her baby. The second was that I would never experience that feeling.
The book was so utterly depressing that I failed to see any humour at all in the catalogue of shopping that took up the first hundred pages or so. I realised forlornly that I was going to have to parcel up the books and send them back to Jan unread despite her kind gesture. I ended up buying a book (again without the last book token, Mum) for my journey home tonight.
When I got to Epsom, one of my colleagues was also in the station. I thought I may be able to share a cab with him to the Racecourse for our meeting so I asked him if he was heading there and he said ‘no he was going to the office to get his car and driving up there’ but he didn’t invite me to travel with him so I ended up in a taxi alone. Nice huh?
The meeting was a difficult one for me for reasons that I can’t really go into here. Suffice to say that my professional world has unravelled more-or-less completely since I moved to Cornwall…..much more so than I realised would be the case, perhaps naively. That’s not to say that there have not been highlights in my day. My dear friend Patti was at the meeting unexpectedly so seeing her was a huge boost to my flagging spirits. I am always shocked and more than a little surprised at the number of people who sidle up to me at the end of these meetings to tell me that my presentation far-outstripped the rest and that none of the other presenters compare to me. As these comments always come from within the teams, not from other Directors, I always end up feeling humbled and more-than-a-little chuffed.
When I struggled back up the steps of the station to come home, followed my old commuter route through the station where for years I would have jumped off the train and into the waiting arms of DM, just a few minutes drive from our beautiful, fully-functioning ex-home, knowing that I faced another four hours of my new journey, all that was in my mind was ‘whatever possessed us to do this?’ ‘When will I find my equilibrium again?’ ‘When will I wake up without the crushing weight of ‘what have we done?’’
As I write, I am buoyed-up by sitting at Plymouth station, knowing that it’s just a few moments to the ‘twinklies’ of the Tamar and Cornwall is waiting for me. I am utterly convinced that sooner-or-later, the problems of recent months will start to get resolved – hell, we can now spit in the sink, what more could I ask for? But of course the best bit is that there won’t be any nightmares for me tonight – I will have the protection of being loved and needed back within my grasp. I am lucky. Tomorrow is another day and it’s going to be a good one. Nothing changes, except everything.
Last year, I was also a long way from home....
