I’ve just got in from a date and I’m eating Dhal in my room thinking about how I've just spent the past five hours. Lockdown has presented its difficulties to me in many ways, but my reclusive, reserved, more private side has revelled in the diminished amount of human contact we’re all now living with.
Dating is and always will be a minefield in my eyes. I've read books on how strong women should be. I've listened to podcasts, I've looked up articles and I've watched Ted Talks on vulnerability (this one is actually pretty good). I often envision myself as this super powerful, independent and nonchalant women and I attempt to embody her every day, suppressing my anxious, stressed or scared qualities in the hope that a better, well rounded me is what the world will be presented with.
Today, in a groundbreaking revelation, I was going to learn that I can be simultaneously strong and vulnerable. One does not cancel out the other.
Yes, really.
I’ve struggled with anxiety for a long time now but it peaked, as it is well documented on here, during my studies in Edinburgh. Back then you could scrape my self-worth and general mental health off the bottom of a heavy-duty boot with a stick before flicking it into a nearby bin. I spent the years after I finished my degree rebuilding who I was, steadily crafting a better and stronger version. It's something I'm still working on to this day.
I used to believe if you tell yourself something enough times it will become true. Pushing against my own anxiety, fear of failure, fear of public vomiting, fear of embarrassment and general fear of life took all the power I had within me to control. I’d be exhausted after a wave of nerves, listening to an endless stream of podcasts to try and distract my mind from racing. It was debilitating. It fucking sucked.
Then some stuff happened. I took a lot of big jumps. I did a lot of brave things. I forced my anxiety way down and started to separate it from other things that sparked the same emotion. I realised that when something is important it’s natural to be nervous, the wires just get crossed sometimes, that happens. I wasn't panicking, I was excited. Or I wasn't panicking, I was hungry.
Anyway, back to this date. There I was dressed like a tennis player (don’t ask, the outfit just happened to turn out that way) immensely enjoying myself when I suddenly got this overriding feeling in my stomach. Like someone was stomping in a puddle, except it wasn’t a puddle, it was my stomach acid. Then it disappeared. Then it came back. Then it was upside down. Then I was lying down. Then my stomach acid got pushed up my throat and I thought it was trying to come out to say hello to everyone. Then my date suggested getting food and I thought I was going to see my lunch dripping through the grates in the road as we sat outside a restaurant waiting for some takeaway dumplings. I was staring at a hub cap belonging to a car parked across the street while he was telling me a story I couldn't follow because I couldn't hear anything he was saying; I was too busy focusing on trying to regulate my breathing. I could smell food but we might as well have been sat in a rubbish tip as the aroma coming from the kitchen was rotting my brain. I responded intermittently with ‘hmmmm' and ‘yes' and ‘yeah' (which was about all I could manage) as my mind did summersaults.
Then I did the most miraculous thing. I told the guy. I turned to him as he offered to save some dumplings for me, which I was vehemently refusing, and I explained what was going on. Horrified by my own admission, I apologised and continued to repeatedly say sorry as I gripped my knees, feeling the sweat pour from my hands. To my complete surprise, he was totally calm. He got me to sit with my back straight and my shoulders relaxed (we were still outside this restaurant by the way) as he asked me questions and tried to help steady my breathing. He sat with me until I was feeling better and took me through some meditation exercises. People were walking past and all I could think was ‘fuck this is so embarrassing’ but he just carried on. It didn’t matter. My meltdown, me feeling so helplessly and utterly vulnerable. It didn’t matter.
We walked to the nearby park and my legs moved like Bambi on ice. I felt as if I was just seeing light for the first time after a period without it, as my stomach acid stopped churning like a slushy machine and my heart-rate resumed to a normal rhythm. The date, to my surprise and joy, carried on for some time after that. We even ended up lying in a park looking at the sky wondering how high a bird could feasibly go.
Once home (fed and watered) what I came away with was this: it’s okay, all of it. Life. Who we are. Who I am. Who you are. Show up, be a mess, be yourself. Life can be unbearably difficult but it's also beautiful in so many ways. Nobody is perfect anyway, it's all a myth and as I learned it's a pointless exercise to be anything but yourself. You're doing great.
(I’ve neglected to mention that I ended up with grass stains on my elbows and bird poo on my arm. I was wearing a cream knit jumper and I had to scrape the shit off with a Sainsbury's receipt I found at the bottom of my bag)
(I think that’s supposed to be good luck but it didn’t feel it)
(Actually, by the end of the date it kind of did feel like good luck)
(Also Mr Date Man if you ever read this, hi, thank you)
Bye for now,
Lauren xo
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