Night-time fears, being alone and frozen peas

How alone the dark of the night can seem. I woke at five this morning, and it took only a few seconds of consciousness for chilly pangs of anxiety to take charge of my abdomen. It was cold. I put my head under the duvet, curled onto my side and called for my Pheonix. But she was absent. Probably curled, egg-like, in some embers or rolled-up forgotten carpet.

My sons had both, unexpectedly, gone to their dad’s for the night. These days we don’t have a routine for this - I just encourage them to go when they feel like it - which is why, I suppose, I hadn’t made plans for the evening. Not that my life is full of social plans. And covid has knocked so much on the head, that doing very little is the new normal. 

I’d laid on the sofa, feeling listless, and watching a few episodes of series four from the set of nine I’ve become absorbed in on Netflix. It lacks intellectual weight and only just holds my attention, but the writer (can I say that?) in me observes the excellent character development and enjoys that it has a feisty black female lead; the romantic in me cannot help but be absorbed by the eyes and charisma of the male lead (who plans fun stuff and understands why handbags are a third lung and looks so dashing); and the part of me who loves lovely clothes enjoys the aesthetics of those. And the bodies they hang on. 

I rolled off the sofa and did some stretching and breathing while my before-bed HRT gel sank into my bat wing area. After sighing a bit and helpfully getting rid of half a box of After Eights, I decided to send my restless loneliness to bed, in the knowledge that today would be another day. 

But in my heart I was carrying the knowledge that, cumulatively, I’ve weathered an awful lot of lonely evenings, stymied by lack of energy, company, or the wherewithal to plan ahead. And liberated as I felt by my divorce, not all of the grass is greener. There are days I’d give my right arm to wake up next to the warm space that had been recently vacated by a man who had gone to make me a cup of tea that we would enjoy in bed together. (Not that this ever happened in my marriage, I must say, because he was not a tea or coffee-drinker, and we never woke from choice at the same time.) Thank god for the boys who wake up and say ‘Morning, Mum!’. And the routine of tending for them that, irritating as it can be, keeps me from the cliffs of mental abyss at times.

But, back to 5am. And the cold in the pit of my stomach. Am I doing the right thing, letting go of a busy and interesting job? That gives my life structure? That makes evenings and weekends feel precious, by contrast? Can I let go of a job that gives me a sense of status, connection, networking opportunities, insider knowledge? What if this is it? What if my body and mind never straighten out? What if I am destined for perpetual restlessness and sometime-loneliness? What if I lose my house because I can’t make my mortgage payments? What if I slip into a massive scary lonely mental rut with part of the purpose of my life stripped out of the equation - I might go for days without interacting with people. 

Fear of being alone is not something I’d ever really considered. But I am afraid. Afraid of not getting a place back on the treadmill if I step off it. Afraid of never finding someone who will be there to hold me in the middle of the night. Afraid that this is It. 

These are the things that were making me shake with fear. 

But what will really change if I don’t embrace free fall?

I turned on the radio. Heard an advert for a programme on modernism I’d have liked to listen to. Ignored a programme on city farms. Shouted at my cats several times to get out and leave me alone (I think they have fleas again). Turned the radio off. Steadied my breathing. The panic subsided. Sleep returned.

I woke up thinking how great an invention frozen peas are. All those meals for which peas have become the staple green to accompany the yellow and brown. Imagine if we parents had to shell them? How different life would be. Less circular. More broccoli. 

I was in a bell tent in a park on a hill with a bunch of women with babies I didn’t know and whose names I couldn’t remember. I was worrying about which pronouns to use to refer to them. Someone came in to announce that they were going to put windows in the bell tent and mirrors in the panes of glass in the street lanterns so that we could see the view.