by Marian Keyes
After I grew up a bit and moved into disposable-income territory, I did all the obvious stuff – drinking too much, eating too much, spending too much, exercising too much, working too little, looking at every man as a potential saviour, visiting dodgy ‘psychics’ and buying an unholy quantity of shoes.
But in recent years I stepped up my game and moved into ‘second tier’ fixes (basically more expensive ones). Despite being ludicrously lucky in having a lovely job and a lovely husband and a great family (they turned out to be not dull at all) I always felt … I suppose the best word is afraid. Afraid and incomplete. So I did rehab, sobriety, counselling, craniosacral therapy, meditation, reiki, reflexology, sugar, no sugar, sugar, no sugar and ‘good deeds’ (basically offering lifts to strangers standing in the rain at bus stops – they never accepted but I got the warm glow of having done ‘a good thing’). And when all else failed, I bought more shoes.
Then! I moved on to the hard stuff. Convinced that some forgotten trauma was generating my feelings of ‘wrongness’, I started hypnotherapy, looking to retrieve repressed memories. But because I’m an outrageous people-pleaser, I used to pretend I was ‘under’ when I don’t think I was really, and went along with the therapist’s suggestions, speaking in a faint ‘hypnotized-style’ voice, as we searched for the one bad event that had broken me. However, after seven months I reluctantly admitted that actually nothing terrible had happened to me. It was a bad blow. Then I got back in the game and embraced acupuncture, persuaded that my meridians (whatever they may be) were out of whack. And I threw ‘chakra yoga’ into the mix (a strange form of yoga that involves – horrors! – singing).
I did a week in the Golden Door, a well-fancy holistic spa in California, where I was looking for spiritual enlightenment, but all they seemed to care about was that I lost weight. But I escaped for a day and had a fabulous time in the local branch of Anthropologie, so it wasn’t all bad.
Next, I found an angel-channeller, a lovely, lovely woman, who kept cocking her head and listening to messages of encouragement from my own personal angels, who had nothing but FABULOUS news. However, it was so silly that I used to have to suck my tongue really hard to stop myself from sniggering.
I had my astrological chart done by a truly creepy man who delighted in telling me that I was transitioning into a time of great disaster in my life and that I should consider moving to Peru.
Continuing my search, I stumbled across a crowd called the Art of Living and did a weekend course with them, which consisted – mostly – of doing funny breathing. The breathing bit was nice (and is something I continue to do, probably the only useful thing I’ve learnt in all my questing, apart from the fact that I love Anthropologie). But, well meaning as they were, they were vaguely cult-like and I was expected to meet up with other members and bring ‘pot-luck’ dishes and we’d all do our funny breathing together, and because the phrase ‘pot-luck’ makes big smacky-rage rise up in me, I made my excuses and left.
In the last nine months, something has changed: I’ve grasped that happiness is not the single ‘correct’ feeling and that all other feelings must be wrestled into submission. Happiness is simply one of countless emotions I’ll feel in my lifetime.
These days I’m consciously grateful for every good thing. More importantly, I’m accepting that I’m always going to have ‘a hole in my soul’ – that every human being has it, to a greater or lesser extent. Sometimes the volume is turned up high and other times it’s quiet, but like a stone in my shoe it’s always there, and it’s absolutely fine. I’m not doing anything wrong, I am simply a human being.
Today I do NOTHING to fix myself (except obsessively buying second-hand furniture and banjoing it). I’ve been reading a lot about ayahuasca and there was a time when I would have thought, ‘Quick, quick! Sign me up immediately!’ But not any longer.
These days I won’t even read my horoscope. I don’t want to know what’s coming – I want to live in today and focus on what I have rather than what I haven’t.
I finally accept that there’s no cure for the condition of being human – feeling incomplete is central to it. And if this isn’t peace, well, it’s something very similar.
First published in the Sunday Times Style, October 2014.
Sorry
Can I tell you about a time I behaved very badly? Well, one Saturday afternoon I booked a spa appointment in a lovely hotel which had whispery candlelit rooms, fragrant whirlpools and, best of all, ‘ample parking’.
On the drive there I was full of happy expectations. (But as a wise person once said, ‘Expectations are merely disappointments under construction.’) As I got closer, the streets started to teem with men and from their regalia I gathered an international rugby match was on nearby.
The men-crowds became ever denser, and when I reached the hotel it had about a million people standing outside. Then – disaster! – a heavy metal chain blocked me from entering the hotel car park. I was completely – as my friend Posh Kate would say – bouleversé (a French word meaning ‘knocked for six’, all-at-sea and entirely without coping mechanisms for this unprecedented situation). A big, bouncer-type man appeared and gratefully I rolled down my window.
‘Hotel is full,’ bouncer-man said. ‘Rugby fans. You park over there.’ He pointed to an underground multistorey across the road, which was a bizarre tight shape and descended countless layers, drilling straight into the earth. It was like driving down a spiral staircase, and if hell has a car park, that would be it.
But in the lovely hotel there were empty parking spots – lovely, wide, above-ground ones, shimmering invitingly, like the last parking spaces left in heaven. ‘Hotel is not full,’ I told bouncer-man.
‘Parking for residents only.’
‘I’m a resident.’ Sort of. ‘I’ve an appointment in the spa.’ (Even now I cringe a little reporting those words – the haughtiness.) ‘And I’m not parking over there.’
Strange shifts were going on in my emotions – later, with the benefit of hindsight, I’d identify them as disappointment and fear – but at the time I eyeballed bouncer-man (we’ll call him Hans) mutinously. ‘I’d better cancel my appointment.’
Certain that we were just playing a little game of brinkmanship, I rang the spa and said I couldn’t come because Hans wouldn’t let me in. I said the last bit very loudly so that Hans would hear. The spa receptionist said, ‘What about the car park across the road?’ And, in fairness, I did consider it, but by then the whole business had become a battle of wills.
So – in an open-and-shut case of cutting my nose off to spite my face – I cancelled my appointment. Even then I was hoping that Hans would lift the chain and say, ‘Ah go on.’ But he just stood there, as solid and silent as a Smeg fridge. So I stuck my head out of the car window and said in scathing tones, ‘Thanks for a lovely afternoon, Hans.’ Then I screeched away, scarlet with rage.
At home, I told Himself the story and embroidered it a teensy bit by saying that Hans had shrugged, ‘Your spa appointment is not my problem.’
Then I rang Posh Kate and we agreed that Hans was a power-crazed bully and I said, ‘I was actually afraid of him.’
A while later my sister dropped in and I beefed up the ‘Afraid of Hans’ theme even more, and by the sixth or seventh retelling I’d embellished things so much that I had Hans kicking my car door and shouting, ‘You snotty bitch!’ after me.
Every time people sympathized, I liked it. But my self-righteous ire had begun to drain away and a little voice was whispering that Hans had only been doing his job.
With each, ever more
elaborate, retelling of the story I was trying to conceal my shame. But it was like the time Mammy Keyes did up the bathroom on the cheap by painting over the fish wallpaper. No matter how many coats of paint she put on, the fish kept breaking through and reappearing.
By the following morning, I understood what had happened: my happy expectations had been thwarted and I’d been disappointed. On top of that, I was afraid of hell’s car park. But Hans wasn’t to know and I was awash with shame. And the thing is, I can’t afford shame. Well, I should say I can’t afford any extra shame – for whatever reason, I’m already full-to-bursting and in an attempt to quell it I try to balance the cosmic books by doing things I don’t want to do for people I don’t like.
I’ve done terrible things in my life – not terrible terrible, I’m not like Osama Bin Laden or similar – but I once cheated on a man I loved. And I was disloyal to a boss who’d been very good to me (and my punishment is that even though it was over twenty years ago, I still dream about it). But as well as the big-ticket events, there are countless smaller items.
Like, once I spent an afternoon at a barbecue addressing a friend of my brother’s by the wrong name (by the name of another man, who had in fact stolen the first man’s girlfriend). And the thing was, I knew something was off, so I tried to fix it by saying his (wrong) name more and more, because I’d read somewhere that to engender intimacy it’s good to address a person by name. I couldn’t tell you how many times I said, ‘Isn’t that right, X?’ When all along his name was Y.
I only realized my error when I was leaving and bumped into X, who had deliberately showed up late because he had his new girlfriend (i.e. Y’s ex-girlfriend) in tow and he was hoping to avoid meeting Y. I should have gone straight back in and apologized to Y, but I was too mortified, and the memory still makes me cringe, like lemon juice on an oyster.
I’ve made countless similar mistakes – okay, no one died, but they’re like paper cuts to my soul. I want to be a good person, but despite my best intentions I do bad things – because I’m a human being and therefore flawed to my core.
The only way I can help myself is to stop adding to my already-colossal reservoir of shame, and that means apologizing. Which I find very difficult. My ego doesn’t like admitting that I made a mistake. Also, I was brought up to be ‘a good girl’ and I’ve never shaken the fear of ‘getting into trouble’. By saying sorry, I’m admitting culpability, so for a long time my motto used to be ‘When in doubt, lie.’
But I’ve learnt that humbling as apologizing is, it’s better for me in the long run. So I drove back to the lovely hotel and parked (plenty of spaces that day). Hans was guarding the front door and when he saw me approaching he looked wary. But I maintained steady eye-contact and, even though I was quaking, I delivered my rehearsed speech. ‘Hans, I’m very sorry about my behaviour yesterday. It wasn’t your fault there were no parking spaces.’
He nodded stiffly. ‘Just trying to do my job.’
‘Just trying to do your job,’ I agreed eagerly. ‘And I’m sorry I made it difficult for you.’
We eyed each other, and for a split second I thought we might have a Hollywood moment and share a hug. But it passed. ‘Well, grand, thanks,’ I said. ‘Um, goodbye.’
‘Bye,’ he said.
Then I returned to my car and, feeling a little bit lighter, off I drove, back into my life.
First published in the Sunday Times Style, January 2015.
Saying Goodbye
My life would be so much easier if I never had to say goodbye. I’m not talking about the big goodbyes – like break-ups and moving jobs and people pegging it – because, horrible as they are, there is no way round them, and it’s best to just strive for acceptance. No, I’m talking about the small goodbyes, particularly those that happen at the end of a night’s socializing.
Like, say I was at a dinner party (although does anyone, these days – other than newly-weds keen to showcase their new plates and napkin rings – have something as irredeemably grim as a dinner party?) … anyway, let’s just say that I was, and I was having a nice time and all that, you know how it is – these things can happen. Then, without warning, I hit my saturation point and I’ve had enough and I want to go home. No. I’ll be more specific – I want to BE at home.
But first I must say goodbye to everyone present, and frankly I’d rather swim across a crocodile-infested river. It’s the lengthy small talk that accompanies all valedictions that I find so daunting and exhausting: ‘We must do this again soon’ and ‘Stay well’ and ‘Text me the name of that place’ and ‘No, please, don’t give me any buns because I’ll only eat them and then I’ll hate myself.’
It’s unfortunate that goodbyes happen at the end of an encounter, when most of my chat and liveliness have been used up, because last impressions count. Giving good goodbye is a real art, and when I leave a group of people, I’d like a rosy glow to remain in my place.
I can’t tell you the number of hours I’ve wasted, sitting at a table, afraid to get up, my face aching from the lactic acid generated by holding a fake smile, because I simply can’t summon the vast amounts of emotional energy that a decent departure requires. I eye the door and yearn to be on the far side of it, having wrestled with all the obstacles in my path and made good my escape.
What makes things worse is that I’m always the first to leave anything, which is a source of great shame. (According to a personality quiz, I’m an extreme introvert, which means I can only handle other people in small bursts of time. Also, I have a very short attention span. And I don’t drink. I’d make a top-notch recluse.)
So I can’t tell you how overjoyed I am on those rare, rare occasions when someone ‘goes’ before me. Suddenly I feel as debauched as Keith Richards – a stay-out-late, round-the-clock party animal. Better still, if a person is leaving, they’ve also given me permission to leave and often I try to ‘bundle’ my parting in with theirs, so that in the flurry of farewells, I make my exit almost unscathed.
But mostly I’m first to go, probably by several hours, so round the table I go, kissing people goodbye, and because of my mortification about my premature departure I overcompensate by complimenting everyone. However, due to giddiness about my forthcoming escape, my bon mots always end up being a little strange: ‘You have a lovely nose’ or ‘Stay away from sudokus, you’re obviously a left-brain thinker.’
But then I’m free to go and I skip out into the street, happy as can be.
However, things aren’t always that simple because sometimes a departure involves waiting for a taxi. And now I’m going to use a metaphor: there’s a thing in hill-walking called the false summit, where you’re staggering up the side of a mountain, gasping for breath, your legs trembling with exhaustion, and you manage to keep on climbing because the end is in sight. In a few more minutes, you’ll be on the top of the mountain and you’ll feel fantastic. You’re nearly there, nearly there, your lungs are bursting, your legs are like jelly … but you’re nearly there. Then, due to the curvature of the earth and the funny angles of mountains you make a shocking discovery: hiding behind the summit you’re looking at is the REAL summit.
So when my hostess ends the call to the taxi company and says to me, ‘Twenty minutes, maybe half an hour,’ that’s my false summit. To all intents and purposes, my night is over and I just want is to sit on the stairs and sob quietly. Instead, I have to resume my place at the dinner table and dredge up anecdotes from an empty well, while my every sinew strains to hear the beautiful sound of the taxi.
When the half-hour mark passes, panic rises and grabs me by the
throat and next thing I’m on my feet. My hostess tries ringing the taxi company again but can’t get through, and I grab my bag and say, in a shrill, tight voice, ‘It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll just …’ Stand out here in the snow. ‘If I start walking, I’ll probably hail one on the street. Blizzard? Hardly a blizzard, just a few snowflakes.’
So what I’m asking is, is there any way round having to say goodbye? Manners morph over time, don’t they? Look at how the rigid protocol of Victorian times has been largely dismantled. Surely we can move into a new way of taking our leave?
What I propose is a coin system – colour-coded to mean different things. So a person could tiptoe from the room, making vague ‘I’m going to the loo’ gestures, but in fact leave the building. The only sign that they had actually gone would be the little pink coin they’d left in their place, of which the general gist would be: ‘Thank you, I had a lovely time but I’m all used up now and have to go home.’
And it could work the other way also. When you want to get rid of rowdy guests who show no indication of leaving, you could slap a large black coin before them which implies: ‘Thank you for coming, you’ve been a delight, I particularly enjoyed your story about the chipolatas but you’ve overstayed your welcome by five hours and I’ve called you a cab.’
What do you think? Is anyone with me on this? Anyone …?
Previously unpublished.
Tipping
Hotels. Oh God, I love hotels. You can throw your pillows on the floor and someone else will pick them up. Fresh towels are yours every day (if you can overcome the guilt of the card that pretends to care about the environment but is really just a cost-saving measure). Sometimes you even get free foam slippers.