#sevenyearhangover

I’ve had hangovers. I’ve likely had more hangovers than you’ve had hot dinners. 

After careful consideration I’ve concluded that I was born without that part of your brain that stops your hand connecting with a glass and raising it to your lips. The part of your brain that activates when you’ve drunk so much that you can no longer see your fingers or feel your mouth.

I usually wake up in the small hours of the morning and scoff a handful of Nurofen. A few hours later, when the alarm pierces my brain, I stand up, suck down a carton of orange juice and eat as many slices of vegemite toast as required to get one down that will stay down. And that could be as many as six…

Even so, nothing I’ve ever inflicted upon myself compares with this prevailing sense of awakening from the longest night. The feeling that my eyes, heavy with fatigue and filth, are blistering each time I blink into the sunshine. I’m exhausted from waking too early, determined to cram as much into each day as I can, all the while ignoring the shadow of the last seven years spent lounging, overindulging, consuming, and all for no good reason.

That’s how it feels; that’s how it feels moving to London after seven years in Paris, it feels like a hangover. It feels like I was forcing a slow-release gluttonous feast upon myself, a feast that felt good at the time, which was a hellafun while I gorged, but knowing that ultimately, it was doing me more harm than good. #denialissomuchmorefun 

Paris was a beautiful dream that had powered my adolescent ambition. I’d imagined myself dawdling along cobbled quays, my hand draped through the arm of a man who wore a scarf nonchalantly and heterosexually. I’d dreamt I’d wake up every morning and trace a slick of liquid eyeliner across my lids, then tie an Hermes scarf to my black leather handbag for no obvious reason, but secretly knowing it would flutter in the breeze as I darted across a busy intersection mirroring my fleeting steps in silk. I’d speak nasally and throatily, as I seductively pronounced words that sounded better than yours because they were en français.

Then I woke up.

I woke up to the inevitable reality that I was never going to be French much less française. I didn’t know how to seduce, I know only how to aggress and affront. I didn’t dawdle; I stomped, with purpose, at speed. My eyeliner appears to have been painted on by my 2-year-old niece and I am about as mysterious as Duplo™. Essentially, I am available only in primary colours and any moron can figure out how to use me.   

Reluctantly, I accepted that it was time for me to leave.

In a week, I packed my bags. In a day, two very fit men packed the 52 boxes in my furnished flat; 52 boxes that I accumulated in the short time since I arrived in Europe with a single suitcase. The eve of my departure, my friends packed any remaining voids in my circulatory system with the innards of some 15 bottles of champagne. Then, on the last Sunday, I stumbled; or rather I fell, into the train that propelled me under the channel to where I was rightfully meant to be.

I was meant to be in London. #pastywhiteskin #cumberbitch #hiddlestoner #yorkshirepuddingissalvation

In London people stand on the right of the escalator because there’s a sign that says one must. In Paris that same sign would serve as an impromptu ashtray or used chewing gum receptacle. In London, the cars stop when they approach pedestrian crossings allowing pedestrians to cross. In Paris cars stop only for large flat obstacles like limestone walls or national monuments. In London men allow women to walk into a lift first, an act passed from parent to child that we know as manners. In Paris manners interfere with the French prerogative for self-preservation.

Paris was my lover, not my friend. She never loved me as much as I loved and admired her. In London, I’ve found myself again. My salty tears of regret have been washed away by the salty tides of the Thames. 

I live on the South side of the river because the Sowf is where the people who aren’t named Arabella or Beatrice or Hamish or Benedict live. Unless you are intimately connected to landed gentry you live under the river, away from posh palaces and pony parades. I’ve extended my pride in hailing from the wrong side of the tracks a step further by opting for the east rather than the west. There’s no point in denying my roots, I am far more comfortable living with the people who have just one Christian name and no Roman numeral suffixes. One block behind me is Jamaica Road and the post-modern beginnings of the council estates. #thejasmineallen #innit

Every day I wake up, I dress, I shower, I brew coffee and I smear vegemite over a slice of toasted bread. I do all of this in a small flat that has all of its walls and no portion of the ceiling missing. I do all of this without hearing a single sound from any of the surrounding flats. I do all of this in peace and quiet. I live in Europe’s biggest city and I hear nothing but seagulls.

Every day I walk the length of Southbank to my place of work. I work in St Giles, a notorious corner of London once the epicentre of London’s syphilis epidemic. Rather ironic that someone who is to all intents and purposes celibate should spend her days in the company of promiscuous phantoms of brothels.

Still, my twice-daily walk along the river has afforded me the time to reflect on what I am, what I’ve been and what I want.

Yesterday I went on a blind date hastily organised with the aide of an app on my iPhone. My iPhone and I, lubricated with an ice-cold bottle of Pinot Grigio can accomplish just about anything. I have access to all the facts, to the pixelated faces of my family back in Sydney, the gallery of actorly studs I stash in Pinterest, the mappy thing that tells me which bus to catch and the endless stream of communications that allow me to do my job. A job I love.

The Pinot Grigio ensures I can do all of this and smile.

I smile as I cross the bridge that joins my office to my home. I smile as I sit alone in the dark at one of London’s myriad theatres. I smile as I force my way through the cornucopia of Borough Market to the little cheddar place I like. I smile as I lick the sparkling cider that spills over the lip of a pint. I smile at James, our concierge, whose clipped greeting reminds me that someone here knows (and cares) I’ve made it home. I smile.

And that, my very tolerant friends, is the not-so-secret story of #bridgetbythebridge

 

Scouring for skeletons or seashells?

 

Comments

[Craig Thomas]

Bathe yourself in the quiet, bask in the politeness, drink up the generosity of spirit and friendliness!

Love you!

[Kirsten]

Love it!!! Have missed your musings. Thanks for coming back! K x

[Lelia]

More! I need to read more!
x

[#bridgetbythebridge]

Thank you so much for the positive response everybody! It really does mean so much...As you can imagine, my confidence took a bit of a knock over the past few months, but now, I'm back, louder and shinier and redder than ever.

[Jo]

Oh how I've missed your words.

[Matt Devine]

Love this! It sounds like a place in which you will thrive!

[Zorbathegreek]

More noise, More light and (if anyone can do this, you can) More red!