Running and going nowhere
I have a friend called Francois. He used to live in South Africa. One day he woke up in the middle of the night to alarm bells, and found that the family on the neighbouring farm had been cut up with machetes.
This wasn't what made him leave, but it was a part of it. He used to own three houses and run a chain of off-licences. Now he works 14-hour days in a restaurant in my town. Sometimes when I go for a walk late at night, I call in on him and we share some lemon tea. He used to paint, he tells me one night. Now he doesn't. He doesn't do anything much, except work.
You're running away, I tell him.
Aren't we all? he said.
There are many different ways to run away from something. Sometimes it's physical distance. But it can be refusing to make plans, or through sex, or joining a monastary, or simply not talking one day.
For me one of the ways was working. I found sometimes I didn't know what to do with myself. So it was easier to keep busy. So busy that you don't have to think. Or see people. Or feel sad. You just fall into bed at the end of the day too exhausted to remember your dreams.
One night I started crying, for hours. Loud enough for my brother to come in and try to comfort me. He's not someone I talk to very much, and sometimes I feel like he's a bit untouchable, but that night he was great.
I told him I was too tired to keep going. He said don't go anywhere in the morning, have some rest. I told him I couldn't. I had to, I had to keep going.
Running and getting nowhere.
I spent a great deal of the last few years in that state, on a knife-edge, exhausted and sad. People used to marvel at how motivated I was, but it was fear that drove me. It was the fear of that sludgy feeling I got sometimes in the morning, the desire to just crawl under the sheets and never come out. I thought if I didn't keep going I would never get up again.
It just started to mean that I would spend most nights crying, because it tends to catch up on you when you're lying in bed willing sleep to come. You can't spend every moment being busy. It gets you in the end.
Getting up in the mornings is a good thing now. I like how the strand looks when the new tide has washed it clean, thin ribbons of sky left discarded on the sand. I like feeling prepared for the day ahead, like the newness of everything, the possibility of morning air.
And I like how I feel.
This wasn't what made him leave, but it was a part of it. He used to own three houses and run a chain of off-licences. Now he works 14-hour days in a restaurant in my town. Sometimes when I go for a walk late at night, I call in on him and we share some lemon tea. He used to paint, he tells me one night. Now he doesn't. He doesn't do anything much, except work.
You're running away, I tell him.
Aren't we all? he said.
There are many different ways to run away from something. Sometimes it's physical distance. But it can be refusing to make plans, or through sex, or joining a monastary, or simply not talking one day.
For me one of the ways was working. I found sometimes I didn't know what to do with myself. So it was easier to keep busy. So busy that you don't have to think. Or see people. Or feel sad. You just fall into bed at the end of the day too exhausted to remember your dreams.
One night I started crying, for hours. Loud enough for my brother to come in and try to comfort me. He's not someone I talk to very much, and sometimes I feel like he's a bit untouchable, but that night he was great.
I told him I was too tired to keep going. He said don't go anywhere in the morning, have some rest. I told him I couldn't. I had to, I had to keep going.
Running and getting nowhere.
I spent a great deal of the last few years in that state, on a knife-edge, exhausted and sad. People used to marvel at how motivated I was, but it was fear that drove me. It was the fear of that sludgy feeling I got sometimes in the morning, the desire to just crawl under the sheets and never come out. I thought if I didn't keep going I would never get up again.
It just started to mean that I would spend most nights crying, because it tends to catch up on you when you're lying in bed willing sleep to come. You can't spend every moment being busy. It gets you in the end.
Getting up in the mornings is a good thing now. I like how the strand looks when the new tide has washed it clean, thin ribbons of sky left discarded on the sand. I like feeling prepared for the day ahead, like the newness of everything, the possibility of morning air.
And I like how I feel.
posted by Riona at
8:25 AM
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