Messy Media Calendar – May 20th – 31st 2024
the race
I hate Tuesday mornings, but Monday’s I can manage: “I wonder if I’ll be better today” I say each Monday
but I burn my toast and I don’t really have time to burn another because I snoozed my alarm three times this morning.
I am wearing a skirt which I think I look nice in but I can’t stop pulling it down at the back and I wonder if everyone thinks I’m a slut even though I am a feminist.
I’m actually a really good feminist apart from when it comes to me and myself
but I’m a great feminist to my friends.
My best friend is quite cross at me today because she fucked her ex-boyfriend and I rolled my eyes as if I could have an opinion on this but the truth is I cry when she cries and doing this means she’ll cry more and it’s just me being selfish because I already cry maybe 5 times a week. Okay, fine, maybe 6.
And I am worried that when I turn 30 I won’t have any tears left.
Imagine I don’t even cry at my wedding or when I give birth because I spent them all on her, on my best friend, for fucking her ex.
I haven’t seen my ex in a while.
Although I don’t really think I can call him that because I live in a time where it’s not really allowed to commit to someone or tell someone you love them when you do.
God, it’s quite hard being me, except now I feel guilty because it’s not really, but it is I promise, and I know I’m dramatic but I do know this.
The other day one moment I’m laughing and the next
I am not, and I’m convulsively sobbing and girls I don’t know very well hold my shoulders down like they’re footing a ladder.
And we stand and smoke cigarettes in quite cold weather and look out at a lawn that looks nothing like my mother’s- there’s not a tulip in sight.
Oh that’s another thing, my plants just die.
They just die, even though I look after them better than I look after me.
I thought when I turned twenty that all my teenager moments that haunt me at night will finally be put right and it will all make sense and I’ll say things like “because I said so” and life will slot into place like the Drunk Jenga game in my living room
saying SHOT SHOT SHOT.
I am bored and exhausted all at the same time and I’ve started to hate drinking £3.50 wine because it just doesn’t taste nice and the hangovers are SO BAD and what’s the point in drinking if it doesn’t even taste good?
And my friends look at me as if I’ve gone mad because I’m meant to be 21 but I sound like I’m 50 even though inside I feel, at a push, 14.
I can’t be alone in this, or perhaps I am.
I want to be better but I’m young enough that I don’t need to be, really, and my parents drive me crazy sometimes but I crave my dad’s cooking and the way he makes me laugh and I miss stealing my mum’s clothes and the way she hugs me and I wonder if I’ll ever grow out of this because the thought of that makes me sick.
I can’t imagine that cuddling my mum will never be a priority and I say this to my friend and she vehemently agrees and messy little me feels okay once more because she is messy little she and we can handle this together, we are all just messy little we, and the race has only just begun, and I know I’m late to the starting line but here i come, so ready, steady, twenty, go.
