Category: personal
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I washed my face and hair
for the first time in recent memory
time seemed to have become like a dream
and I was unsure how long was long
(hours, days? Weeks surely weren’t possible).
A woman looked back, and her face pinched
in a quizzical expression because that woman
was not me. Worn, dark circles and eye creases
like train tracks long abandoned and leading to a station long gone.
But of course that was me,
that was who I let myself become.
I was the abandoned station. Forgotten except by the younger me
who broke the windows and scribbled obscene graffiti onto it
my mirror to the world. I hated her because she
let herself become derelict, and that’s what people saw me as
and I was furious that I could fail myself so badly.
I cleaned the stranger’s face with care,
it was time to start make repairs.
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When I woke up this morning – or, should I say, came out of my doze – I saw a beautiful white light painting the wall. I thought maybe – at last! – heaven had taken me home. Taken me to a kind, welcoming place where finally things are good, no more crying every day.
It was the dawn light. Because, as Hugh Jackman said in the The Prestige, the world is solid all the way through. Sometimes though, for just a minute, you can believe…
My life here is real, solid all the way through. My misery here is real. And I don’t know if it’ll ever change for the better.
If you can possibly spare anything at all, my Cashapp is £SaferThanHeaven84, my ko-fi is:
https://ko-fi.com/emmaslens and my paypal is emmaconner84@gmail.com.
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I wish I had kept the beautiful me. Instead I lost all of her. -
I destroyed one of my favourite dresses today. I was painting in it – my stupid fault – in the one corner of the bedroom I can work in. Our house is too small for anywhere else.
Thing with acrylic paint? It dries out. And when you’re depressed you don’t do much of anything. So my green paint dried so much I had to squeeze hard to get it out. All over my dress. I have an apron, so that was my fault. The small house, the careful savings of my benefits (for mental health issues)? Those are classist bullshit.
I just hate being so fucking stupid. Poor, stupid pathetic and thinking anyone wants to see what I make. All I make is pathetic rubbish.
Yesterday I found my first attempt at re-starting painting. I had printed out pictures of my “muses” to help reference from: Michael Carmen Pitt, Danusia Samal and Jamie Bochert. I hadn’t got to Rami Mslek yet. I looked at those accomplished and successful people and now I wonder what the fuck am I even doing?
I am a failure. That’s it. That’s all. I took a decent painting and ruined it because I thought I could make it better. I can’t even make my life better.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.
I don’t know.
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I am sorry to bring this topic up again, but my disability benefits were paid today (I get £304 a month due to ill mental health) and after bills and debts owing, I now have 50p in my bank to show for it.
I am selling the clothes from the wardrobe for several pounds a shot and doing online surveys for pennies, but truthfully it’s making zero dents in my situation. I have had a few generous people donate already and I thank them graciously for their kindness. It means the world to me. I wish I did not have to keep making posts like this.
But I still need help. It’s that simple.
If you can possibly spare anything at all, my Cashapp is £SaferThanHeaven84, my ko-fi is:
https://ko-fi.com/emmaslens and my paypal is emmaconner84@gmail.com.
Many thanks for reading and supporting all my work this last year (or last few months I should say).
I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year xxx
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I had my biweekly benefits interview today (apparently they tried to tell me to stay home and do it by phone. Oh well). These sessions are really more of a catch up and a subtle prodding at my mental state to make sure I’m not planning to take any baths with a toaster. Which several days ago was a not unattractive option for me. I was crying a lot.
(I know you are tired of hearing me talk about crying. Again, I’m sorry. I opened a mental Pamdora’s box and I can’t seem to find the lid).
Fortunately the mood passed. A good thing, I hope. The future can seem ominous, especially at year’s end. Suicide rates go up at Christmas for a reason
What I wanted to write about was a slight follow up from yesterday: little things. Little victories. I was seen by a work coach who doesn’t really know me, so we did the edited “this is what I want in life” chat. I don’t know what I want in life really, other than to create, so I usually stick to the one area of art I actually have some published work in: photography.
I had a photo used as part of an advertising campaign for the Sony RX100 MK2 model camera. It was a collaboration with hitrecord.org, a community I was a member of at the time (I still am, but take part in little of it anymore. My last check for my work from them was 27 cents. What can you say to that?)
Anyway, fifty of us were featured in their ad campaign. It was the most money I ever made from art: just over a thousand pounds. I bought a second hand Samsung laptop since my desktop was dying. It was the best computer I ever owned.
I gave the abridged story of this tiny triumph to my work coach. She did the politely impressed response. I shrugged, muttering I had done little since. I had a screenplay considered for broadcast here in the UK, and was featured in a few other hitrecord.org publications. It amounted to nothing in the end.
I know I sound ungrateful, and I don’t mean to seem so dismissive: I’m proud of my little achievements. That’s not the problem.
I’m ashamed thst I failed to turn them into anything but this utter mess, my failures. This life of emptiness and pennilessness. I failed. I am a failure, a loser, it’s that simple.
Little things can be good, but what we take (or don’t take) from them can be bad. Useless as I am in life, I took nothing but stupidity from mine.
So it goes.
Bloody Roses 