The Long Distance Playlist

by Tara Eglington

  And that whole ‘I have nothing to offer because I’ve made ballet everything’ belief of yours? You need to throw that out the window. Aidan doesn’t know crap-all about you.

  Is, since the day we both learned to talk, you and I have always had conversations about everything. His argument Does. Not. Hold. Up.

  You’re not boring or one-dimensional. You were just hanging out with the wrong person.

  Xxx Tay

  Taylor

  Wednesday 24 October

  I felt guilty that I’d given Issy this pep talk – ‘get out there and make friends, Goldie!’, making out it was the easiest thing to do in the world, and meanwhile, that Saturday night, all I had going on was Top Gear reruns.

  But every time Finn says, ‘Hey, so are you going to come along to Ben’s/Matthew’s [insert-name-of-person-hosting-usual-Saturday-night-party],’ all I feel is tired. Over it. Fed up.

  Parties are number eleven on my counsellor’s fifteen-step ‘gradual exposure’ plan (absolute basics like ‘leaving the house to buy milk’ being number one) – as in my next goal. Claire’s been ‘checking in’ with me every week at my session, to see where I’m at with the thing.

  No pressure or anything.

  Ha.

  I know that the plan is all about ‘taking the initiative’ when it comes to social situations. When Finn asks the question (as he does every Thursday night), I’m meant to say, ‘Yeah, bro, ’course I’ll be there.’ Instead, this feeling of UUGGGHHHH comes over me, and I say, ‘Nah, man, maybe next week.’

  And . . . that’s the point where I hear Claire’s voice in my head, telling me that NOT attending the party is ‘feeding the negative feedback loop’.

  I can recite this stuff on cue – that’s how many times she and I have covered the ‘fear-avoidance model’ in the last year. I know there are two choices when it comes to managing social anxiety – ‘avoidance’ and ‘confrontation’. Avoidance = bad choice. Not attending a social event might make me feel better in the short term, but will actually increase my anxiety about my ‘visible difference’, and more anxiety inevitably means more ‘nah, man, not up for that right now’ replies, which equals increased ISOLATION.

  Vicious-cycle stuff. Aka, according to the psych textbooks, Taylor Hellemann eventually becomes a hermit. Which Claire’s already concerned about, given I’m doing my final two years of school via distance ed.

  It’s not like I opted for it to avoid human contact – it was the only way to complete high school while I was on the snowboarding circuit. I continued distance ed after the accident because I was 1) in rehab, and 2) still physically recovering from the accident, meaning 3) seriously behind on study stuff. Distance ed allowed me to study at my own pace.

  Anyways, that’s why Claire thinks it’s even more important for me to go out on the weekends. You know, to make up for ‘not being with kids my own age’ during the week.

  Thus step number eleven. Parties. UGH.

  I get the premise of doing stuff you’re scared of in order to build confidence. It was the same way on the mountain. If you didn’t challenge yourself, you didn’t progress.

  I know Claire wants me to make the connection between boarding and the fifteen-step plan – that is, little by little, I take on something new and scary and come out feeling empowered – but honestly, in my mind, the two things just don’t align.

  Because when it comes to interacting with human beings – there are just too many variables. I’m on constant countdown, waiting to see what the other person will do once they discover the deal with my leg.

  Sometimes it’s the slight limp that’s the giveaway, even though I do my best to hide it. The other person politely asks, ‘Oh, how’d you hurt your leg?’, They’re expecting me to reply: ‘I twisted my ankle,’ or ‘I pulled a muscle in the gym,’ not ‘I’m an amputee.’ There’s always this tiny ‘oh no’ expression that crosses their face after that, even if they’re trying their best to look unfazed.

  Sometimes it’s not even a ‘discovery’ thing. As I said, living in a small town, half the time the other person already knows what happened to me. They’re just silently debating whether to acknowledge it. I’m silently debating the same thing, and while we make up our minds, we both make filler conversation.

  According to the ‘gradual exposure plan’, I’m meant to have a ‘toolbox of coping strategies’ to help me ‘take control’ of the dialogue around my appearance. Aka have some ‘prepared answers’ – so when someone says, ‘How’d you lose your leg?’ I don’t feel flustered or pressured to give out more info than I’m comfortable with. I’m supposed to maintain firm eye contact and answer in an assertive tone so the other person feels comfortable and the encounter becomes a ‘positive’ one.

  These strategies are meant to help me feel like the ball is in my court. And the questions, comments and stares all become things that I can ‘confidently manage’.

  And that’s just it, I guess – I don’t want to ‘manage’ social situations. Walk into a party with a bunch of prepared answers tucked in the crevice of my cheek, like I’m a trained parrot, able to spit them out on cue.

  I’m sick of having to think about what I have to do to put someone else at ease. I’m exhausted just thinking about the fact that I’m going to be answering other people’s questions for the rest of my life. Knowing that I’m always going to stand out because the world’s definition of ‘normal’ is a finite box, and apparently, I’m now outside of that.

  And yes, I KNOW that people’s intentions are usually innocent. Let’s face it, it’s human nature – people are curious when they’re confronted with something new.

  But it annoys the crap out of me when people ask, ‘What happened to you?’ before they even know my name. And when they make me feel like my amputation or ‘tragic story’ is all they’re interested in – that this ONE story about ONE part of me is the only one that’s of value. I can’t stand the people who, sixty seconds or so after meeting me, make up their mind about my ‘identity’ – ‘amputee’, ‘person with a disability’ – when I’m TAYLOR, an entire complicated, messy human being.

  The worst? People who blurt out, ‘I’d want to die if I lost my leg.’ Like it’s better to be dead than to have a disability. It’s f&*%ed up.

  And that’s why sometimes I just want to avoid people. Stay at home on a Saturday if that’s what I feel like doing.

  Only I have Mum and Dad’s Halloween party coming up in a week. A ton of people always show up – friends, friends of friends, neighbours, random musos. Reality is, I’m going to get a lot of questions.

  I’m hoping that by the time Issy arrives in June, I’ll have figured out more of the social stuff.

  I want to have less anxiety.

  I want to be out there, going to parties and having a good time.

  I just . . . want to do it my way, I guess.

  Isolde

  Thursday 25 October

  Ballet changes your brain.

  When you’re a ballerina, and you wake up in the morning and you’re achy and stiff – so stiff you almost fall out of bed instead of roll – your mind says good because the sore muscles are a sign that you’ve put your body through the paces the day before.

  You stare down at your bleeding, blister-covered toes, and rather than wincing, you think, The harder the skin, the easier the fouetté.

  What I really mean by ballet changes your brain is that dancing alters the brain’s physical structure. When you dance, you rewire your brain to ignore certain signals – to block them out completely – because they aren’t important in relation to ballet.

  These days, I feel like that’s gone one step further – that my brain has shrunk even smaller because it thinks it only needs one thing: ballet.

  Life is moving around me, a blur of colour and sound and activity, and I’m blocking it all out, forever focusing inwards to keep my balance. That’s why when Taylor says to me you’re not one-dimensional, I don’t believe him.

&n
bsp; I feel like those parts of me that used to be bold and bright have become watercolour. A faint wash across a page stamped with BALLET in bold, black typeface. I’m faded.

  It’s the same with all the other dancers in my class. The laughing and joking, the messing around backstage, the little glances at each other at the barre, or mid-rehearsal, it’s all shrunk back.

  Ballet movies and books are always making out that dancers are cutthroat. That because we’re always competing against each other, we’re secretly hoping the girl next to us at the barre takes a tumble, or can’t take the pressure and drops out.

  It’s not like that. Sure, competition is part of the dance world. But to be honest, the person we’re always trying to one-up is ourselves. With ballet, it’s all about what you put in. Mastering that move that’s eluding you. Working towards those ‘break-through’ moments that only come from hours and hours of repeating the same move or sequence.

  So the other students are not unfriendly – they’re just distant because they’re so intently focused.

  And I’m exactly the same way.

  It’s because we’re all thinking the same thing:

  Only ONE or TWO OF US, from our academy of hundreds – the most talented, the most committed, or maybe even just the luckiest – MIGHT ‘make it’. That is, be accepted into a professional ballet institution like the National Ballet School.

  Survival of the fittest – that’s ballet in a nutshell.

  And that’s just ballet school. It’s not even the bigger dream that all of us are obsessively focusing on: dancing with a professional ballet company. The odds of that are even slimmer. It’s a scarce few from the whole of Australia.

  So as we all hit fifteen and sixteen, we’re all turning inwards.

  Focused.

  I’m not going to find another Ana there amongst the group, or even a light-hearted friendship to dabble with in my spare time. No-one here is light-hearted. And ‘free time’ is a foreign concept.

  I feel like a hypocrite pretending that I’ve taken Taylor’s advice on board. I’m lying because I know he’s trying to help. He’s always seen the best in me, and I hate not living up to that.

  I know he’ll figure out I’m a one-trick pony when he sees me next year. And once that happens – who’s to say he’s going to want to spend a lot of time with me any more?

  The thought of losing Taylor as a friend again makes me feel queasy.

  Friendship with Taylor isn’t an unnecessary distraction – it’s oxygen. The stuff he writes about to me is so unique – so Taylor – and so different to the little room that I’ve built around myself, that every time I open one of his emails, it’s like someone’s thrown open the front door, and fresh air and light come flooding in.

  He reminds me of all the things that exist outside ballet. Who I can be outside ballet.

  And yet the idea of actually hanging out – being in the same room with him – keeps setting off my alarm bells. It’s stupid because I miss him like crazy and I’m dying to see him – but I don’t want him to see me. Who I am now.

  I’ll be on that plane to Queenstown before I know it. In the meantime, I guess I just want to keep pretending that I’m the girl he always knew.

  It feels easier than admitting what’s happened to me.

  Admitting that adaptation has gone too far, and I’ve become a creature that I don’t even recognise any more.

  Taylor

  Saturday 27 October

  It’s an hour before Mum and Dad’s Halloween party, and my anxiety is steadily climbing.

  I’m meant to track my anxiety daily. Give it a number, and then jot it down in the journal I show my counsellor every Wednesday. Right now, it’s a level six. I can hear Claire in my head: What does a six feel like to you, Taylor?

  A six feels like I’ve downed way too many shots of caffeine, way too fast.

  I’m standing in the backyard under our pine tree, hoisting plush fake spiders up to Dad, who’s on a stepladder, trying to hang them from the top of a flying fox-like contraption. His plan is to set the things off later in the evening so the furry arachnids ‘fly’ down on our guests with a dramatic swoop.

  The Hellemann household goes ALL IN this time of year. Halloween’s not a big holiday in NZ – ‘Too American’ is the general take on it – but Mum and Dad are the exception to the rule. Halloween is a significant holiday for them – it’s the date they sort of started dating back in the day – and so they’ve been hosting these elaborate shindigs every Halloween since before I was born.

  The late-afternoon sun is striking the alien ship Dad and I built. Dad could have bought a blow-up version from Amazon, but in Dad’s opinion, opting for online decorations is ‘not putting the effort in’.

  I’m so busy admiring our work that I don’t notice Dad losing grip on the spider. The first I know about it is that something is falling from the sky, and boom – furry legs have engulfed my head.

  I let out a high-pitched scream before I can stop myself.

  Dad’s laughing. ‘You’ve got no hope tonight at this rate.’

  ‘Probably not,’ I admit, pulling the spider off my head.

  As I pass the thing back up, Dad gives me a closer look.

  ‘You sure you’re right, mate? You seem a little edgy.’

  ‘Just excited.’

  I don’t want to tell Dad about my party phobia. He’s in a great mood, plus I want him to enjoy tonight – after all, it’s been three years since our last Halloween party. Two years ago, Dad was wiped out from treatment, and a house full of guests was a liability for someone whose immune system was super fragile mid-chemo round. And last year was post-accident.

  I pretend to peer at our kitchen screen doors. ‘I better go help Mum with the platters.’

  It’s already 6pm. Half an hour to go. Suddenly, I feel hot all over at the thought of dozens of people in our yard.

  Anxiety level is now a seven.

  Mum comes into the kitchen. ‘Far out! Tobi!’ she shouts out to Dad. ‘We need to get dressed NOW!’

  Right then, Finn rocks up in his Tamatoa costume, a jumble of crab legs trying to get through the front door. Slash starts barking at the oddly dressed ‘intruder’ and leaps up on Finn, paws scrabbling at each bendy crab limb. This makes me laugh and calms my anxiety.

  Mum and Dad dash off to get changed. It doesn’t take me long to get into my costume. I’m going as the Woodsman from Red Riding Hood, so I’m wearing a green shirt, one of Dad’s leather vests, a big wide belt from Mum’s closet and long brown pants. I have a plastic axe in hand too.

  Dressing Slash is far less simple. He’s the wolf, but AFTER he’s eaten Red Riding Hood’s grandma. So Slash has an old-fashioned sleeping cap on his head and plastic black-rimmed glasses perched on his furry nose. I get Finn to take some pics for Issy.

  ‘Pity she’s not here,’ Finn says as I send the pics to Is via Instagram DM and post the best of the lot on my grid. ‘She’d look gorgeous as Red Riding Hood.’ He gives me a cheeky grin.

  ‘She would,’ I say, keeping my voice blasé because I know he’s looking for a reaction. Finn’s always trying to make out that behind the best-friend ‘facade’, as he puts it, I’m secretly in love with Goldie.

  I’m not.

  Finn’s got a thing about it, I guess, because he’s always seen every girl he’s ever crossed paths with as a love interest.

  The doorbell rings. While Finn runs for it, I do the whole countdown from ten, inhale-exhale breathing technique, trying to find some chill. And then Saskia and Julian, who are the bass guitarist and lead singer from Dad’s current band, the Post-Vinyl Project, enter the room and the party begins.

  For the first hour, my anxiety stays at a seven because every few minutes, there are more people arriving, more hellos, hugs and ‘I haven’t seen you in ages!’ statements. Every time someone greets me, I steel myself for an uncomfortable discussion, but most of Mum’s friends, whom I haven’t seen in yonks, are more fixated on, ‘Tayl
or, you’ve grown up so much!’ and ‘Look how tall and handsome you are!’ which suits me just fine.

  After a series of these, my anxiety drops to a four.

  Dad looks way cooler than I do in his pirate costume. He was obviously born to wear leather and eyeliner. Mum’s worked his hair into dreads. Now that it’s grown back to the length it was before the chemo started, it’s curlier and darker than before he got sick. It suits him even better.

  I get a lump in my throat suddenly, staring at Dad, because he looks so happy.

  It’ll be two years this coming February since Dad finished the last round of treatment – the one that finally seemed to work after he had his stem-cell transfer. This is the longest he’s stayed in remission. I’m trying not to make a big thing of it – maybe because I’m worried that might jinx things.

  It’s 9pm when Dad releases the spiders. By that point, I’m fully relaxed, and the flying arachnids don’t spook me, but I’m thrown for a second when I see a massive spider sprinting across the lawn towards me. It’s a grey-and-white blur of legs, and it’s only the barks that give it away – Dad’s switched Slash’s costume.

  I can’t stop laughing.

  I quickly film it for Issy and two minutes after I send it via DM, my phone starts pulsing.

  She’s video-calling me.

  My heart starts pounding like I’m at panic level nine, and I don’t know why. We used to video-chat all the time – how is this any different?

  I’m not ready for her to see me yet.

  Within a split second of thinking that, I realise how stupid it sounds because, hello, only my face and the top half of me will be visible on screen.

  I walk away from the crowd to the edge of our backyard where it’s less noisy. My fingers are so sweaty it takes a good ten seconds for the touch screen to respond when I swipe the ‘answer’ button.