01/10/13 - the reality

And so, it’s something like this: you’re sitting at your kitchen table in your home. Your mother is sitting at the other end of the table reading the post and drinking coffee.

Or maybe you’re there, standing in the kitchen feeling lonely and humiliated and angry. You’re not sure. There seems to be a blur between how you got here.

There’s snapshots. You’re staring at your hands, defiant and blushing beetroot in shame. You’re in your room, and your bag is packed and you’re not sure how it is that you’ve packed so fast, but maybe the driving panic that’s rooted in your stomach has given you superhuman powers.

You’re lifting your bag up 32 stairs. You’re on the train, sitting on top of your bag. You can feel your anxiety lodged in your throat. You’re at the airport. You feel like a scared little girl. You are a scared little girl. You’re going through security, and there’s a man behind you whose breathing is ruffling your hair. You try to edge further away from him. You are sitting at the gate. You’re holding Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone tightly in your right hand. And then suddenly you’re going through passport control at Gatwick, and there’s this woman, a complete stranger, who suddenly gives you faith and confidence in the few words she speaks to you.

And then you’ve got your bag and there’s your parents and you feel this weight lift off your shoulders, because you don’t need to hold yourself up all by yourself anymore. You’ve got the same feeling inside you that you get when you read Harry Potter.

You’re home. You wrap your arms around yourself and feel small and guilty and so much safer. You weigh yourself. You’ve lost ten pounds.

I will get through this.