Leaving again.... in All Good Things

Tomorrow I fly to Singapore, and in the three weeks before I get home again, I’ll be going to Hong Kong and Dubai as well. This has to stop. Everything in me doesn’t want to go....the sole reason I’m going is financial. There’s been no bloody work in the UK all year, well, very little, and now it’s the Easter holidays so there’s nothing, so I have no choice, and so here I go again…

I can’t remember if I mentioned the terrible panic I had last time I flew out of the UK. I’ve become so afraid of flying for so very many reasons. But I have a good seat this time, at the top and at the very very back, so I should be okay, not surrounded by too many people. But still, another 12-hour flight, trapped in a tiny tube thousands of feet up in the air stuffed in with far too many people.... I really can’t bear it.

There’s the potential of a new job. A job where I’d earn about quarter what I earn now, or could be earning now if there was work, but a job that I would enjoy, with the company that I want to be a part of more than anything. It came up today, and it felt like I’ve been waiting for it for months. So…should I apply? There’s no guarantee I’d get it, and to be frank the odds are against me (other than my passion for the company), but, wow, the very thought of it fills me with a tremor of hope. Court the last couple of days was horrific, one of the worst speakers I’ve ever had to deal with, and I know I can’t go on. I’m only doing it for the money now, so that I can afford all the shows, etc, that keep me going, but if I’m doing a job I love, I won’t need all that to keep me going because I’ll WANT to get up every day and live my life.

Currently I want to close my eyes and be unconscious for the next 21 days until I’m home again and reunited with the people I love, 21 days from tonight I’ll be back with them, but it’s only been 8 days since I last said goodbye and already it’s killing me. Internet contact is not enough. Even smiley pictures and jokes. I need those arms around me in a way that scares me. I’ve never been this....needy....before.

I saw Will last night, went over to his place to fetch my suitcase, which I’d loaned him. It was awful. It’s only the second time I’ve seen him since we split up and he felt like such a stranger I couldn’t recognise him. I sat there, as we talked about his latest paintings and I pretended to be interested, looking at him with amazement that I’d ever known him, that I’d ever been close to him. I couldn’t bear for him to touch me. My skin crawled. I started having a panic attack just being near him, was having to do my breathing exercises to try and calm down, and eventually I just had to leave because I couldn’t stay, couldn’t be there, couldn’t be in that awful flat which destroyed my spirit and my soul, near that man who nearly annihilated me.

I know I have a different life now - thank God - but yesterday emphasised to me just how necessary my escape was. I would not have survived, staying there another six months until the end of our lease. It’s costing me double rent each month (yes, despite him moving his girlfriend in, he’s being an absolute dick about it and making me hate him even more even more even more even more) and it infuriates me - but I’m free. I escaped alive. Which, to be honest, sometimes I wasn’t sure I would.

But I did. And hopefully soon I will never have to have anything to do with him again. Ever.

I supposed we should actually get divorced. God. It was so much bloody difficulty just to get married that I’m leery of taking on any legal process again. I really wish it could be annulled, like it never happened. Being divorced keeps all the baggage there....

Why couldn’t I at least have married a rich man and been able to get some money out of him—instead of a fucking free-loader artist who sponged off me for years and never gave me a single bloody thing. At all.

Okay, calm down. It’s nearly over. Remember that.