I Miss You

‘‘I miss you”. I sign off a text to a friend with these three words just as I walk into the bathroom to apply the Oestrogen gel I have been trying for the past two months. I decided to go on HRT with the consultation of my doctor to help with feelings of despondency like these. When I visited her pre-lockdown I initially said to her that I was feeling tired, sad and low. Also forgetful and muggy-minded. For a naturally bright and optimistic person, I wondered was I depressed or was it the stress of the pandemic? The worry, the isolation? I didn’t know how to tell the difference. She said HRT would lift the clouds and that it would take three months perhaps.

It’s almost three months now and my mind is clearer. I also have better energy which is nice. I am converted and committed to HRT and will continue the path set out for me.

But I am still feeling more sad than usual, and with the clearing of the cloud my GP promised, now I know why. By diminishing the effects of hormones decreasing, I can see better the reasons I feel sad - I know now it is the result of the absence I feel. Of the things and people I miss.

The week gone by seems to have been a horror of a week for a lot of people. I wrote a post on Instagram about homeschool and how much I loathe it. About how it causes me to feel as though my life is disappearing into the melee of Seesaw, class Zooms, lunchtimes, snack times, P.E on YouTube, 10-minute‘ brain breaks’ and so on. And the response was incredible. So many people feel the same.

For those of us who are parents, daily tasks poured in from different schools using different platforms causing us all to work our entire days (and nights) around a schedule we didn’t choose - it felt oppressive. Of course, a routine is right. We all need structure to these fluffy, borderless days that bleed into one another - we know it is right for our kids and for us - it just felt harder this week.

Perhaps it’s January. Perhaps it’s the rain, and the dark, bleak mid-winter-ness of it all, but perhaps, more than that, it’s the things we are missing.

We are missing our own work, our own purpose, our own sense of self as mothers, sense of identity as isolated single people, and purpose and harmony in parent or non-parent couples. Whether business owners, employed, freelance or unemployed, we are slowly being subsumed into one big soup of lockdown overwhelm.

And it’s ok to say so. It’s ok to complain. In fact, it’s necessary to how we process hard times and move beyond them. Being stoic serves nobody really. And neither does staying static. Once you can move past the complaining, it’s all good. We connect via shared complaints. You see me, I see you. Better out than in and all that jazz.

There are a lot of motivational platitudes floating around the internet telling us to look on the bright side - I am a hope merchant myself most of the time - but sometimes they grate because now we need honesty. Now we need a real sense of solidarity to get through this. Not clapping in gardens necessarily - no, it’s an emotional connection of the deepest sort we need. To feel like someone else feels the same stuff you feel. We’re missing the small things now, not shopping trips and far-flung holidays, we’ve come to terms with the absence of such fripperies. We are missing contact and conversation. Sitting solo in our kitchens, we are missing playing our part in the world.

To feel like someone misses the same things you miss, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is a bonding experience. To feel like the person you miss misses you too…

Furthering the feelings, I came across this video by Dave O’Carroll and a poem written by Dublin-based stylist and cool human, Jan Brierton, and they both got me thinking about all this. About the threads that tie us and how fragile yet also strong they are - nurtured by connection, depleted by missing each other.

One friend and I have fallen into a pattern of texting each other at weekends suggesting faux things to do. Things we used to be able to do. They read like this:

Pint in Grogans this evening?
Yes! Lovely, will be having an early bite with some other work pals though, we’ll join you around 8? They’re fun, you’ll like them.
Perfect! Maybe a bit of wander after and then Ukiyo for some dancing?
Big time, can’t wait - laters x
Laters xx

Or…

Lunch and gallery?
Yep, when, where?
Coppinger, 2?
Deal x

And…

You and kids around here, pizza night @7?
Yes please - what colour wine?
White - please and thank you.
On it x
x

And sometimes on Sunday mornings, texts like this one make us laugh…

Feet sore - too much dancing and fun
Me too
Who was that person we talked to?
No idea - nice though
Didn’t like him - attitude.
Fair enough. Cinema?
Yep, time?
6? For multi-popcorn and many Maltesers
100%
X
x

Followed by the eyes to heaven, exploding brain and crying eyes emojis…

And those texts make me sad because that’s what I miss - I miss my liberty. We are all missing liberty. I miss making plans with people. I miss my friends so much it hurts a bit. I miss seeing our kids play together. I miss my family and the simple chats we’d have around our parent’s kitchen table. Mindless and inconsequential at the time, but special and precious in memory now.

I’m craving a different environment - our own four walls are closing in on us all, everyone wants to be elsewhere. Everyone wants their own space, their own time and their own needs to be met. And it’s just not possible right now. Nobody’s house is big enough for the space we crave.

Last week, when feeling particularly pissed off, I fired off a round of texts to a selection of friends I call ‘the committee’, they don’t all know each other, but they know of each other. And they know the importance of the committee to me - they are my closest friends - both male and female - together, over time, we have solved the world many times. Some for decades, some for a far shorter span, but all as close as family and vital to my life. They are my essentials. My non-negotiables. I pass all things I do in life by them - not always for approval per se, but for sounding out. And it works backwards too - I hope. One day I’d like to introduce them to each other. I often wonder would they get along, with having me as their only common denominator...

The committee knows my need to talk things out, to walk things out. So often we’ve come together in pairs (no WhatsApp group here - they are strangers to each other) and disseminated dialogue, assessed options, reviewed relationships, bosses, partners, recipes, TV shows and with one particular pal, the contents of our fridges!

Yes, it’s our thing, “what are you having for dinner, show me your fridge”, and so the call goes to video and fridge doors are opened to remarks such as “oh THAT cheese? Really? What’s your plan for that now?” or even, “where are you off to with that much celery?” and “what’s in that bowl, some 101 things to do with mince thing?!”, referencing the cooking styles of our younger, student, lasagne reliant years.

It’s that familiarity I’m missing. That touchpoint. That shared heritage. That laughing, that giving out, that steam being released. And no, it’s not the same on Zoom or FaceTime, it’s just not.

Being told off for being ridiculous, being told you’re too good for certain situations, being told you’re over-reacting, underplaying or accepting something you shouldn’t. Of being told you’re loved. Of being told a secret.

It’s that I miss; conversations where something happens. Where life gets moved along a little - where shit goes down over a glass or three of wine. Now the most we have are the “what’s for your dinner’s?” and “did you watch Back to Life yet?” texts. The “any news? ” texts get laughed out, with the “as if’s” coming in swift.

I guess it just all feels like loss. The loss of a year. The loss of feeling safe. The loss of confidence. The loss of mental peace. The loss of social skills and feeling as though you have something to say, something to contribute. I know I could probably only tell you I’m going to make Jamie Oliver’s Harissa Chicken for dinner tonight if you called and asked how I’m doing. Conversation feels a bit broken now. I hope we recover this.

And while I strongly believe in being hopeful and keeping your head up and your heart light, sometimes we just have to admit what we feel. And admit it out loud otherwise, it rots and festers and leads to doctors and antidepressants and sleeping pills and other such supports when perhaps all we need is a committee of friends, some HRT and a good, old-fashioned whinge to someone who loves you (and who won’t hold you to anything you say!).

And that’s what I sent out in my raft of texts this week - words on how much I love and miss them, on how I can’t wait to dance and drink wine with them in summer, of the smell of the barbeques, the sound of the kids laughing, the music, the zest of the lime in the margarita, the salt of the sea, the feel of the hug. The hug…

The long-lasting tight squeeze of the hug we will give each other and how it will turn into a sway and how we might just cry when we do it. And how we will not let go. For if we get there, it means we made it. We made it.

“I miss you. I love you. Hold tight. We will make it.”

I take some deep yoga breaths, knowing I need to work with what I have, and I send another text…