I am on the trampoline in my parent’s garden and I’m pushing my feet down into the springs with all my strength, feeling the force of it lift my body up in a rush. I’m aching a little from the exertion of it, so when my brain begins rattling around in my skull I let my feet slip from under me and I fall like an accordion onto the black fabric, stretching my hands out into the sky and marvelling at the expanse of it. As I watch the clouds I begin to feel my eyelids droop and my body sink into the fabric, heavier and heavier as I melt past the legs of the frame, past the grass and the soil deep into the earth. I’m cycling to work one morning in the summer, early, before the air is hot and thick. I’m cycling hard and my gut is aching. The city is shifting past my vision and I’m hoping something fun, and fascinating will happen to me. Then I’m in a tiny apartment kitchen – the only area of the house that got any sunlight – staring out of the window at the red brick wall the local cats sit on. A feeling is there, behind my eyes, that only occasionally goes away, when I am swimming maybe, or when I go for a walk in the park. It has the colour and texture of a concrete box. I’m finding it hard to get up in the mornings because of it and it’s making me tired in a strange way.
An arm reaches down, yanks me by my chest and suddenly I wake up spluttering.
I’m out, it’s okay. You’ve freed yourself, I say, chest heaving.
Ever since I can remember I have liked what old people like. I like going for walks by the river and spending time in nature. I like going for a coffee with someone and staying a little too long and talking a little too loud. I like sitting on the train and looking out the window.
That is why I came back.
—
I saw a job advertised in a garden centre that my mum used to go to for lunch with her friend. Once as a teenager I went there too with one of my friends and we had lunch, like little copies of our mothers. I interviewed for the position and they employed me straight away. At my new job, I am spending a lot of time scanning people’s pansies and red onion chutneys and local farm eggs. I spend seven hours talking to people and I didn’t feel tired afterwards. Strange things have started to happen, like I have proper breaks and they give me free food for lunch from the kitchen. My colleagues ask about my life and check if I got home okay. I spend all day surrounded by lovely plants and cards and locally sourced food. I sit in the car before I go in and I feel peaceful for a moment and when I leave the air is pure and clean and the sky is big.
In my city jobs, I am not exaggerating when I say that I don’t think they cared if I lived or died. A lot of the time I felt like most people wanted to be left alone to live their lives without disturbance from anyone. When I was at work I subconsciously knew I was being paid to perform a version of myself that was appropriate to the environment. However, I’ve never been a particularly good actor, and my real self would bleed through all the time. I used to be in meetings with police chiefs saying maybe we should think about the symptoms of crime; in cyber security jobs saying maybe some of the investment bank we work for aren’t that great; or in government positions saying maybe a lot of what we are doing is archaic and doesn’t work anymore. I could see the problems and I had ideas, but no one was wanting to hear them. I was never sure if it was because I was a woman or because they didn’t understand or because they knew very well but didn’t want to make any changes.
Over time, I developed a pavlovian response to work. My whole body warred against getting up and commuting, to the extent that I’d get up so late I wouldn’t eat breakfast and when I got into the office I would sit half dazed at my desk until I had to go out and eat something in order not to collapse. I’d try my best to psychologically trick myself into dealing with whatever I had to do for the day. I was in it for the long run, I would say to myself, hoping that with a little bit of perseverance I would one day break out the other end like a marathon runner tearing through a paper wall. Internal warring aside, I got on with my work, got promotions and people liked me. If you’d asked me at the time what I was working hard for, and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. I don’t think in all honestly I really knew, and the real danger about not knowing is it creates a vaccum for which anything can fill.
Now I sit here on the trampoline having made choices, wondering if it’s going to lead to anything. Is it okay to like the slow life? If it’s okay to be different and say differently and live differently? Will I always be alone for it? I try so hard to do things that are right by me but inevitably I end up back in my room staring out the window, wondering how I can be myself and not be alone. (Maybe I will have to wait a couple more decades before everyone my age gets a taste for jam and scones.) Wondering am I here now because I’ve got anxiety or depression or I’m a bad adult that can’t cope with ‘real jobs’ or
am I here because, at the end of the day, I just simply like it?
