The Return of Wednesday Girl - Coming Soon

Occasionally we all need reminding of who we are, and can only hope that there are people around to remind us.

So this return to writing my own meandering memoirs will be courtesy of Charolastra No. 1.

With my sincerest thanks.

---

In Three Days

After our two weeks of blissful awakening, upon my return to work, M went to France for a week for his mother's wedding, and we spoke every night. He texted me a poem one evening when we'd been discussing how torturous it was being apart so soon. He invited me to the wedding, and I refused, after initial deliberation - I was so touched that he'd told his whole family about me, and wanted me there at his mum's wedding, and was aching to see him, but I was still very aware that a month ago he was to have been there with another. And I just knew I couldn't handle being so obviously the replacement. Being at such a special, beautiful occasion and watching him look at me in that way he sometimes does, with great affection and gentle desire and passion, the look that makes me feel like the most beautiful girl in the room through his eyes; and getting a quick pain to the chest and an image flash into my eyes of him looking at her that way.

He does understand that, and why I'm going to feel like that every now and then, and I've told him before obviously we've all got our pasts, and I hate the idea of you having ever been with another girl, and in equally as primally immature a way I'm sure you hate the idea of me having ever been with another man; but the difference is that my past is in the past. Yours was last month. You can forgive me finding it hard to ignore that.

Having said that, it took all the sense and control within me to not jump on a train to France and be with him. With M who might not have been mine in March, but just might be mine in April.

So, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, but nights are short,
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn!
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,---
Only a touch and we combine!

Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights, at least the nights are short.
As night shows where ger one moon is,
A hand`s-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So life`s night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?

O loaded curls, release your store
Of warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Outbreaking into fairy sparks,
When under curl and curl I pried
After the warmth and scent inside,
Thro` lights and darks how manifold---
The dark inspired, the light controlled
As early Art embrowns the gold.

What great fear, should one say, ``Three days
``That change the world might change as well
``Your fortune; and if joy delays,
``Be happy that no worse befell!``
What small fear, if another says,
``Three days and one short night beside
``May throw no shadow on your ways;
``But years must teem with change untried,
``With chance not easily defied,
``With an end somewhere undescried.``
No fear!---or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night, now the nights are short,
Then just two hours, and that is morn.

The Secret Lives of Two People in Mayfair

Below is an email I sent The Yankeedoodle yesterday. There is a character in it, called M, who I haven't officially written about before, but my Post-box is full of unfinished drafts about him, and him and I, and the strange, slow, story thats been developing since we met.

For whatever reason, I just haven't been able to finish even one post about him. All you need to know is this; I met him in October, we work together, we smoke together, we spent a small, but warm time together over Christmas, and until now there's been nothing really real to write about him.


------------------------------------------------


March 2010 13:15

From: Wednesday's Child
To: The Yankeedoodle
Subject: The Secret Lives of Two People In Mayfair, Part One.

Yankeedoodle, my life is ridiculous!!!!!

Ok so I'm going to launch into the weekend I've just had, because, well I bloody have to tell someone, and obviously it's got to be you!! (You lucky girl, you!)

Deep breath, here goes..

Ok so Friday I spent the entire day in agony, taking so much codeine it's not even funny, which didn't even dull the pain the tiniest bit, ended up in A&E from 1am til about 6am Saturday, at which point I went to emergency dental hospital, then my own dentist, and got shoved full of every painkiller under the sun, codeine, morphine, morphine drip, you name it - I had it! Anyway, got home Saturday afternoon (about 3pm) and slept til around 7, was supposed to go out with Charolastra No.1, but cancelled obviously, due to inability to move or function - then I get a text, at around 8pm, from M (from work, the guy from work) saying "Fancy a drink?" and I immediately text back "Yes. Give me an hour and I'm there" but slightly less pathetically sounding than that obviously! So I jump in the shower, don't give myself enough time to think "errrrr what the fuck do you think you're doing..?" - he's never texted me before. And we've never ever met up out of work. I've fantasised about us going for a drink, but - well, we work together. Plus, he has a girlfriend, and his own life - why would he want to come out with me..? So he may not ever ask me again!

Anyway, 9pm I find myself in a bar on Centre Point with M, alone. He's drunk, and I'm high on morphine. It was bizarre, we've spent so much time along together in the office chatting, and on our little fag breaks, but had always had the sort of safety that the backdrop of 'being at work' provides. And suddenly we're both very aware that we're dressed like we do out of work (we matched actually, both in very cool black and white, looking a bit rock and roll) - so we proceed to get drunk, and I swear we chatted for like 5 hours straight, just me and him at a little table in a bar, our faces getting closer and closer together til the last hour when we sat chatting with our faces literally no more than an inch or 2 apart. It was amazing, we talked and laughed about anything and everything, not even flirting, but eventually we address the me and him thing. He says something about our time together over Christmas, and I joke that he knows nothing about who I am, and he proceeds to think out loud about what he sees of me "I would say Wednesday’s Girl is.. an independant moderm day type of woman.. Intelligent. Very intelligent.. Had an interesting upbringing.. Openminded. Openminded about sex.. Interested in literature and ideas.. isn't sure what's coming next in life"..

Anyway, it's like this massive weight has fallen from me, because I didn't make it all up, all those times we spent together over Christmas, it's not that I read too much into things, or it meant more to me, he felt it as well! Victory! We do have a connection - I didn't make it up!!

Anyway, we bump into some friends of his, and we dance together, and it's funny and friendly, but late on in the night in the early hours of the morning we end up in this booth, just the 2 of us, sitting leaning towards each other as we have been all night - but it's different, quieter. We both fall silent and look into the distance a bit, in our own little world, and he moves his head slightly so that our cheekbones are touching. And I swear, just that little bit of skin on skin contact sends lovely warm tingles down my spine, and I let my eyes meet his, and we just stare at each other for, well for like 5 seconds, but it seemed like forever. (Blugh, I know how ridiculously twee I'm sounding, but it's true!)

So yeah, I glance away and he says in a tone of voice I've never heard him use before "Look, you know, right..?"

It's like any time we've ever spent together has been leading up to this. I say "I know" softly. And I do, honestly I know everything he's considering saying, feeling..

He's silent for a moment and I feel it coming. "I have a girlfriend."

The music is pounding, and theres people dancing and rushing around us, but it's like a movie, it's like everything is in slow motion and we're in our own little world.

"I know" I say, neither of us looking at each other, but with our faces still lightly touching. "I like her."

I feel his breath on my cheek. "Maybe in another time.."

I smile sadly and reply, "I don't believe in fate."

We sit in silence for a little while and I pull away, take a deep breath and make a joke about getting a round of shots in, and he laughs. And we slide back into our little routine of I'm funny - you're funny - lets smoke. It's like it never happened.

I swear, Yankeedoodle, it was that freaking epic! I always talk about how life isn't a bloody movie, people who think that it is are stupid, it's the small seemingly meaningless moments that have the real substance, there's never yknow, the backdrop of violins and mood music, real life is boring. But I swear, it was like a freaking Baz Luhrmann movie!

Anyway, so we carry on drinking and chatting til close, when we stumble arm in arm into a cab and listen to his ipod in the back seat (Smashing Pumpkins are always going to remind me of that cab ride), and I drop him at his house (in bloody Stratford no less, cost me 40 quid that cab did!) and get home, entirely fucked off my face. He texts me in the morning, hungover as hell, apologising for being so drunk, and having a little dig at me stopping the cab to take a quick piss in an alleyway ("Yes M, I took a piss in an alleyway. I'm just that kind of girl!")

So come work on Monday, I'm feeling a little weird but quietly pleased with myself cos I loved Saturday night, and I can't help but feel a bit vindicated that he does actually feel something for me, if just a little something! But I can't quite shake the self-doubt that actually I've ruined the allure of being the girl at work - I'm a real person now. Which is never as exciting.

I then get a text from him on Monday evening, while I'm sitting in bed watching Dark Angel in my pjamas - 'Any chance you're in town? Fancy a drink?' and I reply I'd love to but I can't, just taken my antibiotics for my teeth - he says he's out with some friends, but can't help but wish that I was there, and that Saturday night was the best time he'd had in a long time. I say it was for me too, and that I'll see him tomorrow at work (I'm secretly massively touched that he's telling me this). I then get a text from him at around 10pm saying "Just got home. So what are we doing next time?" and I think yay! there's going to be a next time! and reply "Well I think eating is a good place to start. Where we finish is up to you. x" - which I instantly regret and think ah crap, I've gone a bit too far, and shattered our lovely little pretence that we're just friends, so he's going to think I'm pushing for something more, blah blah blah - basically I panic that I've overstepped the mark and ruined our little game.

I get a text back half an hour later just saying "Dinner tomorrow?" and I swear, my heart is racing. It's ridiculous, but I think oh my god, are we actually going to step it up? Maybe we'll have an adult affair, maybe we'll become really close friends who never get together but secretly fall in love, maybe I'm the girl thats incredible enough for him to cheat on his girlfriend with, maybe we'll actually, finally, kiss...

Then I think shit, actually, he's drunk. And carried away with the afterglow of our Saturday night. He's going to regret sending that text in the morning. So I text him back "I'll give you until midday tomorrow to change your mind. If not, I finish at 6. x" and he texted back "Good so do I. I'll take you for cocktails at 6 then, dinner at 7. "

So I spend the entire morning freaking out about what to wear, and getting annoyed at myself for panicking, it's just M, we're just having dinner, he's seen you a million times in every shitty/amazing work outfit you own! So I put on a lovely understated work dress from Zara, cream, perfectly fitted, brown leather belt (makes me look a bit like Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, but whatever) and go to work feeling pretty good, nervous but a little excited at the possibility. I spend the entire morning redecorating the upstairs bar with Miles (new guy I'm working with - whooole different tale) and keep glancing at the door for M to arrive, and at just before Midday I'm standing next to Miles, looking at a candle/flower display we've just made, deliberating over whether it works or not, and I hear him saying 'morning' to the barstaff, then he comes over and says 'morning' to me and Miles, we swap a little conspiratory glance, and while Miles is wittering on about the fucking flowers, M just says to me quietly, "I broke up with my girlfriend".

I swear, I've never been so lost for words! I just sort of stuttered an "Oh shit, M.. I'm so sorry" whilst not fully being able to hide the fact that I was finding it quite hard to breathe!

Anyway, we go for a cigarette immediately and actually, he is a state. He's hungover, a little dejected, and looking generally like he's going to throw up. We talk it through a little, I ask what the hell happened, and he basically says Saturday night he had such a good time, and he got the silent treatment from her the next day, then he went out with his best mate last night, and got back and got the silent treatment from her again, and he just was sick of it, of the boredom - he said they love each other but there's just no passion, and that he wants to feel his heart race again, he'd forgotten how that felt (glances at me quickly) and Saturday reminded him essentially of how life could be.. They've been together for 4 years, and they've been comfortable, but not really happy for the last 2 years..

Anyway, I spend the day in the office worrying about him, and waiting to get off work so we can go for our drink ("Just a quick one, if you're still up for it..") and suddenly it's all about being his friend, and supporting him through a breakup, and putting aside our little game which suddenly seems so unimportant and pathetic. So we go for a drink at the pub down the road, and I swear, I've never seen him so dejected. But we talk it through, and we have a few glasses of wine, and I tell him straight that he needs to stick to his guns, and yes he doesn't want to hurt her, but one of them had to be courageous and bite the bullet, or they'd waste their 20s, and then their 30s, being together out of kindness and comfort.

Anyway, blah blah blah, analysing the situation, supportive words and a bottle of wine later he eventually perks up and we end up staying there til 10pm, chatting about his past and my past, and sci-fi, and the Victorian ages, and all sorts, being deep and meaningful whilst still cracking jokes - and neither of us want to go home. But I pull us out of it and say look, you need to go home and wait for your girlfriend (ex?) to get back from work so you can talk it through, and have the big painful breakup conversation. "God I hope she doesn't cry" he says, and admits there's a real danger that if she cries, he'll just say let's give it another shot, because he doesn't want her to be hurt. And I try and impress upon him that he can't do that, it's not fair to either of them. Look, please don't get back with her, I plead, and hope it was convincing enough that I meant it as a friend.

Anyway, we part at Green Park station, and swap a little sexy look while we kiss goodbye (on the cheek..) and I spend the entire tube journey home wondering if I actually have gotten myself in a bit too deep. It's nothing to do with me, really, there's a sad, adult situation - a relationship is dying, and he's having to put it out of it's misery. And what then? For me, I mean, thinking totally selfishly - I may eternally be the Other Girl, but I sure as hell ain't no rebound, let me tell you!
Plus, Jesus, it's only M! Grumpy, abrasive, judgemental, not the most attractive, possibly repressed with a drink problem, M. Out of all the men I know, he is the most unlikely. In so many ways.

But he makes me laugh. And honestly Yankeedoodle, when he stands just that little bit too close to me, smelling faintly of Diesel and cigarettes, I get a little dizzy. How do you fight that..?

Aaaargh, anyway so here we are, finally at the end of my insanely overly detailed story (I'm so sorry, I just had to let it all out, and you seem to be bearing the brunt of my emotional rantage!!)

What a ride, huh!

So here I sit, on a Wednesday morning, alone in my little office, drinking my coffee and listening to Sade's By Your Side (gotta love the bar music policy of "chillout tunes" which when you're hungover and emotionally spun around at 10:30 in the morning, make you want to kill yourself!) Plus, M gets in at 5 today - and I swear, I've never dreaded him coming in to work before, it's an entirely new feeling, but a massive part of me feels like he's going to walk in and tell me they're back together. And I'm going to feel like a twat. A Massive, Emotionally Subnormal, Inappropriate Twat.

Mangoes and pineapples, mate. Mangoes and fucking pineapples.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


From: The Yankeedoodle
To: Wednesday's Child
Subject: Re: The Story of Two People In Mayfair, Part One

Oh. My. God. This is quite possibly the best, craziest, emotion inducing (for something that doesn’t directly affect me) email I have ever received.

Hot Damn. We need to get together to debrief on this- email just won’t do it.

xxxxxxxxx

Back In The Game

Ok so I haven't blogged in over a month now - this is for several reasons.

Firstly, my life just went a bit mental, I moved flat (back to the Vale) and everything at work went a bit haywire. Too much change at once. Secondly, I have no internet back in the flat. Thirdly, I've done that thing where I've left it too long - you know when it becomes harder and harder to catch up with an old friend, because you just don't have the energy to do the "....so, where do I start?" thing.

So, I've decided, I'm not going to explain my absence. Instead, I'm going to get straight back in the game. Stay here, blog, and await my next post. It will be with you shortly.

I'm glad we're back together, blog, I've missed you.

The Lazy Idealist / Finding Colour.

I'm feeling a little weak, identity-wise.

It's probably because my life these past few months has been my job, which much as I'm putting so much into it because I care about it, I got offered a massive promotion just before Christmas which I still haven't decided on. Well, I think I've decided I'm not taking it, as I'm not quite ready for the commitment. At the risk of sounding a little melodramatic (when has that ever stopped me?), I'm scared of taking the next step. Which is ridiculous, as being Sales Manager would be essentially doing the same thing I'm doing now, with half the hours and double the pay. Bluebelle has really stepped back and let me take over since we discovered I'm good at the job, and care about it a hell of a lot more than she does, so it works out for both of us. And Head Office have requested that I take the training and move up asap, which is a massive compliment, and I risk screwing up my chances within the company because by rejecting the opportunity now I may never be offered it again. But something is holding me back. It may be fear, just simply fear of failure. But I don't think it is - I've been doing the job for the last 2 months anyway, just without the title. Or the wages. I really think I'm just not ready for the commitment.

Which is also ridiculous, as me and the team are already discussing what we're doing with the bar next Christmas, implying we all assume I'm still going to be there this time next year, which I'm more than happy to commit to - it's the emotional commitment. Knowing I belong to a company. That I'll have to answer to people beyond my immediate team, that I'll be titled and assessed and integrated, and that I could be moved to another bar at any given time because someone at Head Office who I've never met has decided I'd be better elsewhere.. Once you have manager status, they own you. I don't mind belonging to my bar, I do mind belonging to the company.

Anyway, I guess I'll just see how this one goes. It may be a totally irrelevant discussion in my own head, as we've got a new General Manager starting on Monday which is going to change everything, for the better or worse is yet to be established.

I don't like change, it scares me. And I think I'm scared of getting any more attached to the bar than I already am, because I'm secretly preparing for a time when something changes and I'm no longer comfortable so I get my stuff and leave. Having not invested too much in it will minimise the pain when it's gone, or I've gone. I hope that's not what I'm subconsciously doing, what a terrible emotional philosophy...

I still haven't quite shaken the feeling that I'm a spectator in my own life. Just passively watching things happen, not really feeling like I've caused anything, that I'm waiting for something, for a light to go on, waiting to stumble into my life and go 'Ah! that's where you've been! I'm not really sure where I've been or what I've been doing and why, but I'm here now - let's get this thing started!'

Does everyone feel like this? Or do people actually feel like they're living their lives? I mean I know it's cliched, a disillusioned 20-something waiting for their life to start, but honestly - this can't be... it? Can it?

It must be the curse of the Jack-of-all-trades. I've always been just generally quite good at everything. I'm smart, I've got common sense, I'm friendly, I'm relatively capable - give me any job and I can do it pretty well. I'm smart enough to do most things, but you'll never notice. And it makes life decisions relatively unbearable - the paradox of choice.

It's always been like that - at school, I was the all-rounder. You know the type, seemingly good at everything, but never really excelling at anything. I spent years being good at everything, trying desperately to find something I was great at. Because I'm the sort of person that can't be great at something unless I love it, and will most likely be so thrilled at being great at something that whatever it was, I'd immediately love it. If I could just find something I was great at, I'd be set. Hello happiness and contentment - I've found something to go for. I've found my thing.

As it stands, being just pretty good at whatever I do is a massive pain in the arse.

Don't get me wrong, there are things that I love, like music. But I've discovered over the years that you can't make something more than it is, and loving something doesn't immediately mean that you want it. It's easy to romanticise the arts, but it takes a hell of a lot of strength & disregard to go down that road, and when I did I fell at every hurdle. Now I'm too weak, and too responsible to continue. Years of picking myself up and trying to jump the hurdles with a broken leg and a broken heart taught me to know when you're beaten. Music and I are going to remain old friends, but it's taken all out of me that I can give, so I'm going to persevere in trying to move on.

But, where to move on to..?

I'm the closest to finding a career path now than I've been before - even with psychology I was never anywhere near this clear, it never felt as mine as this does, but still.. I'm wary. I know it may seem melodramatic, but I've always known I'm that kind of person, particularly with my deep-set ever-present fear of wasting time, of not having a life worthy of all the many lives I've ever dreamed of, that a job is never going to be 'just a job' to me. If I'm going to spend literally half, if not most, of my time doing something, it better be worth a damn.

Plus, the mentality of 9-5 work, living pay-cheque to pay-cheque, living for the weekend, terrifies me. It may be the subconscious trauma of growing up and noticing that every woman I ever came into contact with lived the same life. Every Filipina woman I met was interchangeable, whether they were 25 or 55, they seemed to me the exact same person. Growing up in the slums/mountains, having a child or 2, getting married, moving abroad to work like a dog to send money home, living the prime of their lives in a strange city where nothing has any meaning beyond money, how they can get it, how they can stop from spending it, how they can afford to feed themselves and still have enough to send their husband back home who is now a lazy drunk, and the baby they left who is now a full-grown teenager that they've barely seen, until they gradually became older, then too old to clean rich people's houses, so die cold and alone and far from the family they'd spent years paying for but never really knew, or - even scarier to me - the women who became empty husks of people that had, and I remember these clearly, the ones with the look of defeat in their eyes. No, not even defeat.. acceptance. The look in their eyes of people who had long accepted their fate. The look of caged birds, who had never imagined the wind in their feathers, who had never dreamt of freedom.

That look has haunted me my entire life. The acceptance, the ignorance, the lack of fight - I have the luxury to be able to imagine more for myself, to demand more from my life, and if I don't take that and do something with it, then I spit in the faces of all those women. Those glass-eyed, deadened, colourless women whose lives were spent getting by. Who were once young, but with seemingly only one path to walk, and walked it willingly, fully accepting of their fate, or rather their lack of fate, their lack of story, of colour, of music. You live, you work, you eat, you die. And I'll be damned if I don't walk my very own path and look back knowing I lived a real life. Full of colour.

The thought of knowing all of this yet spending my 20's finding any job to get me by so I can afford to pay rent and occasionally go down the pub and wonder what I'm going to be when I grow up, then spending my 30's saving whatever money I can in whatever job I've ended up settling for, just for the meantime, to buy a house and pay a mortgage and take that holiday I've been putting off for ages, then spending my 40s in a house I bought because it was a good investment at the time and it was close to schools for the children I never planned for, having forgotten about the holidays I once planned to take, and the career I once wanted, then spending my 50s wondering where my life went and didn't I once have the world at my feet..? I'm pretty sure this fear is the root of all my various inner turmoils.

I'm also pretty sure that I'm doing fuck all about it.

I hope somehow I do end up being the kind of person I always dreamed of being when I was 14. When I was young at heart, before I grew up and was faced with actually having to be who you wanted to be when you grew up. Knowing that the 14-yr-old you, if she ever saw what she was to become, would be so disappointed.

But hey, the 14 yr old me never had to pay rent, or bills, or plan for the future - what did she know? Fuck her, the lazy idealist.

(At least she knew who she was, and what she wanted..
At least she was trying to find her colour.)

"Are You Happy?"

I hate New Years.

I'm currently alone in my flat, drinking a glass of red wine, listening to the fireworks down the road. Funnily enough though, I'm not feeling down about it. I could have gone to Brixton to see in the New Year with Pickled Lily and the Stig, or stayed at work (where I've been all day til about an hour ago), or joined Charolastra No.1 in Camden Road, or joined any of the various of The Cats strewn around London Town, but somehow I ended up here. And, with the week/month/year I've just had, I think it makes sense. Plus, I've had a bit of champagne at work and haven't eaten, so would likely have gotten sicky-drunk, which is never a good way to start the year. It's the first New Year that I can remember without Pickled Lily, which is a bit weird, but we're doing our own New Year's on Saturday - we always were just that little bit late for everything anyway!

I might go to bed. I'm the least stressed I've been all day, feeling pretty warm and tired.

"Hello Wednesday Girl. How was your Christmas?"
"Are you happy?" ".. No. But it's not her, it's my life."
"You should stay here. Have a drink, stay with us."
"When I see you walking with her, I have to cover my eyes.."
"You have to decide what you're doing now, so that I can make plans."
"Can you come upstairs please."
"Are we meeting up then, little Firefly?"
"Yeah, Wednesday Girl, because it was all my fault, wasn't it."
"I think the world of her. And I know she thinks the world of me ..even if there's nothing really there.."

Things that are playing through my mind as the year begins. All over again.

Wednesday's Child.

Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day,

Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.