[Note: I have too many ideas and if I try to follow a structure, or maintain a consistent style, then I'll never get anything out. So from here on, it's gonna be more free-form and les ordered, and I'll re-work all this once a few big chunks are done. Edit after finishing this piece: It seems like this and the prior chapter could be merged into one, but for now they're fine, and a good reminder of the dates I created them on.]
Granny’s driving me back from the funeral. We talk non-stop, it’s mostly me talking as she’s less of a speaker. She has the things inside her, just as I do, just like everyone does, but they don’t manifest in quite the same way. She asks lots of interesting questions, and I try to intuit what her feelings are from them.
Generally she’s very diplomatic, which resonates with me, it’s something I’m always aiming for, a full balance. I’m not good at saying overly bad things, without feeling like I’ve shifted the emotional weight of things too far to the side of suffering. So I try to bounce it back. But at the same time, my favourite music is all bleak, my favourite words and shows are full of darkness… so perhaps there’s balance to be made in the balance itself; adjust the slider in the middle of the scales.
She asks about my brother, the golden one. I tell her something I only realise as I’m speaking it: When you’re put up on a pedestal so high, it’s hard to see back down to the ground.
We drive past a roundabout with an egg-like sculpture, as I’m telling her about the positive effects that my psychosis-borne delusions have on me now.
I went through my life, for many years, believing that people were after me, mentally torturing me, mocking me with signs in the world that proved their existence, which they knew I would notice. Imagine seeing a white van — every white van — and knowing there are people inside with blades, and handcuffs, and tubing, with fake smiles that nobody else sees through. My life for years, looking for signs to reaffirm and reinforce my delusions, constantly making them stronger.
Eventually I realised that it was too small to be regular people: either it was human, which meant that everything I ever knew was a lie, my friends all actors, my memories deliberately conditioned, my every moment of happiness calculated to make the torment of having it ripped away even richer, everything positive actually a mocking clue that, if I just thought hard enough, I’d be able to solve, like they wanted me to, and discover the horrifying plans beneath it all; or it was cosmic, my old ideas of the capabilities of humans being infinitely smaller than the forces actually at work, the size of this itself a cruel joke; either way, my entire perception of reality had ruptured.
edit: For about 2 or 3 years, I’d struggled a lot with it.
After a long time though, it went in a positive direction, triggered by a complete mental breakdown/spiritual awakening, and I started to see the god in the machine, a new giver of revelatory experiences. At this point in Granny’s car, I’m on my way to recovery, but I’m still perceptive and imaginative in ways I hadn’t been since I was tiny. So we pass the egg, and I tell her it’s a mental cue for thoughts of re-creation, phoenix rising, chance for a fresh start. Not just topics for casual brainstorming, but legitimate ideas that could set a course for the rest of my life, all inspired by a random sculpture. It was a mental mechanism that allowed for both rapid emotional growth, and majestic shifts in self-perception.
She tells me about her experience of being a woman: It’s always a mother, or a wife, or a grandmother, or something. Rarely are the chances to simply be. How limiting must that be on self discovery, I wonder? I have a friend who is always in relationships, so who they are at each stage in their life becomes defined by their attachments; never by themselves, only through another. Me, I’m single in that moment, and happy with it. The older I’d get, the more I’d appreciate time to reflect on who I’d been in my most recent relationships. Eventually I’d be able to see the larger patterns and influences, and experience the freedom and growth such observance can provide — and the new thankfulness for what my past partners taught me — but here in time, I’m not quite there yet.
Granny tells me how Greece is having a difficult time transitioning from its old habits, to a new way of doing things. She tells me, privately, of how her late husband, when they moved there, was quite content to enjoy the leisure time, with no major drive for further action. The quiet life, no more adventures to come. I’m reminded of the story of one of her early partners, who owned a pub. They always appeared to be active, but through a system of support, they’d managed to craft themselves a position of power and profit, with little action required beyond bluffing.
And she tells me, like a teenager discovering love for the first time, of the joy she’s felt with her partner now, play-shooting finger guns at each other while peeking around corners, both experiencing life by impulse, trusting the safety and nurturement that the other provides.
I won’t remember much else. A motorway megastop with a big lunch hall filled with signs showing promotions. Parking part-way through a long dark drive to stretch out legs, her going off to use a public loo, me taking a moment to take in the wonderful calm emptiness of the night. A brief chat about e-cigs and their sweet-flavoured nicotine that she’d wouldn’t like, me worrying about the cough she gets from cigarettes. Wondering much later if it’s tactical, a sort of hedged bet to lessen the duration of world weariness I knew she was beginning to feel; ultimately deciding that she knows what’s best for herself.
Those two car journeys were the first times we spoke properly, as adults. Getting to know each other, making up for years of lost time in just a few hours. It would stay with me forever as a major highlight in my life. We’d never talk to such an extent again, but I’ll never mind. We’ll have times where we can sit beside each other in silence — her, with a book with topics that let her indirectly reflect on a recent life experience; me, planning new words that she might one day read — and it will always be wonderfully comfortable, a real insight into home.