Colour My World

Yesterday was a huge day for myself and my man, Jess. It started some weeks ago, in a failed attempt to get me an interview at the American Embassy in London. (Long story, but I will give a brief history.) That attempt cost us both dearly; Jess monetary wise, me physically and mentally. See, I live in a small town in Lincolnshire, which is hours from London. It requires my poor son-in-law to drive for hours to get me from Essex where Jess had booked me into a hotel for the night with my daughter for company. He won’t have me be alone. He knows how my mind gets overwhelmed with thoughts. I start to panic and drive myself into an exhaustive state. (If you know someone with a mental illness, you will quite readily understand this. Jess knows it all too well now, so he arranges everything to the smallest detail. Nothing is left to chance (I love him greatly for this.) From Essex, my son-in-law and I took trains and undergrounds into the centre of London. This takes much walking and many flights of stairs. I have been sheltered in my room for a year now as you know from my story. I don’t go far to get exercise since Detroit, plus, since all this occurred, it’s flared up my HMS (hyper mobility syndrome) greatly.

I’m been in a lot of pain of over the last few months (doesn’t help I have a bad penchant for bread at the moment and I’m not supposed to eat wheat) but, my goodness, is bread good!… and such a comfort. Oh goodness, here I go wandering again. LOL Anyway, pain not withstanding, I’m also Agoraphobic, find peopling a mixture of fascinating and a trial. So, myself and Gary go through it all: trains, panic, people, me having a minor meltdown every other minute… I also made the mistake of buying new trainers (gym shoes). My feet were ripped to ribbons. My beloved is on the end of the phone going through all this with me, right there as strong and loving as always. I can’t imagine how this feels to watch and stand helplessly by, but he knows me well and a warm calm voice whispers often ‘I love you’.

These words are my balm, so necessary. It’s like he’s willing me on, taking each aching breath with me. I forget at times how hard this must be for him. (Sorry honey!) But when myself and my lovely son-in-law got there we were told we had the wrong papers for the interview. This bought my world crashing down around me at the time. I tried keeping a positive attitude and sound in my voice for both Jess and my fellow traveler, Gary. Inside my world’s crumbling. My heart sends a sudden pain through my chest. (Not sure if this is my angina or misery but right then I didn’t give a damn.) I didn’t care what happened to me, I just knew I wanted Jess more then than ever, those arms pulling me into his embrace, his voice healing my aches, my pain. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve had to do; be positive outside while my heart is crying out its hurt. Again while I sit on that train going home, slowly falling apart, a voice in my ear says ‘I love you, honey’. That’s all I needed right then. It’s all I ever need, more than food, more than anything, more than this next breath. He’s all there is.

Anyway, after that futile attempt, Jess was, unbeknownst to me, plotting with my Chook (my daughter Becky) and her hubby our next attack. This time he honed his plan, leaving nothing to chance. He arranged with Gary to drive up here from Essex again after work, stay in a hotel till 4am and meet me here, where a taxi from a local cab firm was to meet us both outside and drive us all the way from here to London. This at great expense to himself. Now take into account I know none of this (well, I didn’t until one of the cab drivers dropped Jess in it on a trip he also booked for me to go to a doctor appointment. LOL) I knew some of the plan after this, but not all. Poor Jess did go through it after I learned this. See, I won’t take anything off Jess, (His heart being his most valuable gift and I claim that unashamedly) but anything else, as his favourite saying goes, I will rip him a new butt for. (He uses other words but I’m being polite.) Jess and my daughter plotted this for weeks. I get told ‘it’s none of your business’ when I ask. (OK LOL I do give my guy such a hard time folks.) Anyway, the big day arrives. Friday morning is D day. Thursday night I didn’t sleep at all. I’m antsy, just can’t settle, so much relies on this, on me and my answers. I’m terrified. Will I mess this up? Will my answers ruin this? Will my fear of authority figures make me answer wrongly? Poor Jess had a blithering wreck the hours before. (Throughout that evening he tried his hardest to support me, folks. This is near-on impossible. When I come apart, gorilla glue wouldn’t keep me together.)

I watch the hours speed round to the time… the minutes, seconds… I hate each passing hour. We try to watch something on Netflix together. (We love this normally… brings us back to times sat on the sofa cuddling, watching TV.) This night I couldn’t concentrate. My whole body’s jumping out of its skin. My heart’s missing beats. For two weeks I’ve had the most terrible chest pain now. I clock watch constantly, almost a crazy fascination, like a bunny caught in the headlights. Then it is the time to get ready. I’m shaking. I can’t breath. Jess is still doing his best to hold me together. I cling to my phone where my love watches me intently, listening to the fear in my voice, watching me slowly fall into a desperate state of anxiety. I manage to wash, change, do my makeup. Goodness knows how! It was arranged for the cab firm to call me letting me know they’re out there for pick up. I change video chat onto my tablet from my phone. There’s no way I’m turning off chat when I need Jess the most. (Although at one point that evening I had suggested this when I was going through a moment of sheer panic. Jess is used to this and says a flat ‘Noooooo!’ ) Every little noise is making me jump out of my skin by now.

I’m snapping at poor Jess, I’m in such a state of nervousness and exhaustion. Gary comes to the flat just after 4am. as arranged. I did feel sorry for him. He must have been equally as tired, and there he is, having hours of dealing with his, by now, blubbering basket case of a mother-in-law. I swear, not only was I shaking head to toe, I was speaking Gaelic, Arabic, German, French gibberish… anything but making sense. It’s dark outside and I have to walk down a pitch black alleyway to unlock a gate to let him in. the path’s uneven and I pick my way nervously across, praying I won’t go flat on my face. Gary’s face is most welcome. It’s re-enforcement for, by now, an exhausted Jess. I swear, keeping me together takes super glue, the Navy, Air force and an entire Rugby team, but my hero, Jess, does this single-handed most days, bless his heart. When we get back upstairs we attempt to pass the time like the supposed civilised Brits we ain’t. LOL We make murmurs about the dreadful weather, the localised flooding, road closures, drive up here, anything but the ordeal ahead. I’m trying my best to look composed. I’m at least semi sane while inside I’m not so sure I’m even human anymore. Jess is fretting about the cab turning up in time. I’m just this mix of wanting to get it done and hoping a pestilence of frogs, geese, hippos falls and we can’t go. The phone screaming out (well, really just ringing) pierces the silence that’s fallen on the nervously anticipating room. I jump on it and answer. Not sure now what I said but that’s when I hear the lovely warm voice of Dave our driver to be from Tealby taxis. I instantly feel a little better. He has that lovely friendly Yorkshire accent. He’s chatty and I know he’s not going to be offended by my nervous chatter. (This is something I can’t halt.) I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be .

We have a lovely big minibus just for us. We introduce ourselves as we board our carriage in the cold dark early November morning. We instantly fall into a companionable chatter. I love this and start to feel better. Dave has a litany of stories and anecdotes that help keep me away from my own thoughts. I find myself taking to him and calming. We talk once again about the floods and how bad the roads are, fish and chips, childhoods, take-aways, our childhoods. I hear Jess’s soft breath in my ear telling me he’s fallen into an exhaustive sleep. (I tell you, when I’m in this anxious mess I would wear out the energizer bunny!) This lulls my own breathing. I feel okay as we drive away the miles, just wanting to get this over with now. The drive’s long and the nearer we get the more traffic builds. I’m worried we aren’t going to make it on time as you have to be there dead on your appointment. But our driver is confident and Jess has, as always, allowed for all eventualities. He’s planned this with every detail in place. He’s made sure of my every comfort, no expense spared. I feel bad about this but when the upset passes I realize just how fortunate in my choice of a mate I’ve been and how loved I am. This hits me square in the chest, the heart. How I love my man.

After one near miss by some idiot lorry driver and the traffic hold up we arrive in London at 9:30am. My appointment is ten. We are greeted by the sight of the armed guards outside the Embassy. I’m tempted to joke about the size of their weapons but their straight-faced appearance told me ‘that was not a good idea, Treez.’ LOL We queue with our fellow interviewees, all chatter nervously, most look at my bare arms in disbelief. (When I’m nervous I go two ways: either freezing cold or the sweat drips off me.) My body chooses the latter. When we have all had our documents checked, we are let in to go through the process of bag checking and the x-ray machine, arms in the air, and the thing beeps out its approval. I’m not dejected or is that rejected? Whatever… I pass. I’m okay. This is done. (By the way, I have to do this alone as you can’t take anyone in with you.) This, of course, adds to my state of apprehension, but by now I’m putting on my brave face and trying to joke with those in the lines. None were ready for my jocularity that time of the morning. (But this is my way of coping. This is the class joker that I am, but inside I’m a mess… I’m slowly going to pieces. My little world is ready to implode in on me.) I’m not brave, I’m alone doing this thing that decides mine and Jesse’s dream, our future. Don’t mind telling you I’m so bloody scared. It goes beyond scared, beyond terrified. Even when I got the news alone I had cancer doesn’t begin to match this. I can’t describe this terror that strikes at my heart., Jesse is there. His voice breaks through the dark, cold place I’m at. It reaches me like nothing can. There’s those words “you know I love you”. And I do. I know he’s going through this with me. He’s on the sidelines willing me on.

We stand in our lines, people from all around the world, joined in one common thing (that Holy Grail)… a visa, a golden ticket to our dreams. And my dream is to wake as soon as possible in my love’s arms, to have one of those hugs only he can do, to feel completed. I need Jess. We wait half hour in our queue nervously, until, at last, we are herded through. We are given a number. Mine: V119… a number I can’t forget. I’m told by a lady as she checks my papers (AGAIN!!!!!!) ‘Go left and left again’. We flock in our herd (safety in numbers) into the small box of an elevator. (Another of my phobias… one I struggle sorely with.) We reach first floor, our numbers checked and we are told where to go, quite literally. LOL I’m famous for having no sense of direction, so, of course, I get lost straight away. My feet hurt, my back hurts, I need the bathroom as I hadn’t been in eight hours, my knees swollen and all I want to do is sit down. I’ve been stood by now for an hour. But I go back to the lady at the desk. Again she explains to go round the corner. okaaaaay… you sure you don’t mean ’round the bend where I’m fast heading? I get to where I’m directed, finally see only four chairs and fifteen or so people. By now everything’s hurting. I’m overly tired, emotional and wanting to ugly cry, but for the sake of my fellow waiting folks I resist this. I lean against a pole and listen to the nervous chatter, stories of past horrors coming to the Embassy. I listen on in that scared, horrified way that we can’t avoid. I finally get seen in a type of triage. I nervously answer the question, about three in all. He takes the photos I had hated having done back in October. We joke about it. He’s a nice, friendly guy. I feel lulled into a false sense of security. And it’s not till I’ve walked away I realize he kept my passport and papers. Others have theirs, why don’t I have mine? So back I go to reception and ask about this to a very overworked guy being bombarded with questions. He reassures me that that can happen and to sit down and wait for my number to come up on the TV screen of which there’s several. Every second this continual ‘bing’ rings in the air. (Drove me to distraction. Not sure how the staff cope.) But as I sat I became more and more filled with trepidation, my nerves by now tattered. I hurt. I was scared. I wanted Jess there to hold my hand… his my strength, my heartbeat. He was there in phone land but I needed his warmth, his presence to sooth my ache. An hour passed slowly. Jess did all he could to keep me calm, but nothing could, not even my love’s voice. I wanted to break down, but I couldn’t. I had to hold it together that while longer.

Eventually my number appeared. My wait over. I won’t bore you any more, but in four simple quick cold questions, someone coldly sealed our fate. I was ready to fall there in a girly faint, I was so tired. I hadn’t been able to eat in hours, my body exhausted, the blow delivered in an inhumane, cold way in a standing position… no chair to catch me, not even a sorry you’ve not been successful, just “No! Read this piece of paper. It explains all”. Frankly, it does not, but I looked into the cold steeliness of the face in front of me thinking ‘you’re a woman, a fellow sister in life. Surely you can see you’ve just stopped my heart with those four quick questions’. No interview. In those four sentences my life was left in ruins . This blow I stood and took alone, like all important things that have rocked my world, as you have to turn off phones. I didn’t even have Jess to cushion the blow, the pain, this evil blackness that engulfed me, robbing my body of breath. I walked away slowly. My whole life I’ve been rejected because of one thing or another and here I was, again, in the rubbish heap of life, again facing rejection and again alone in a world. I suddenly felt freezing cold, my fleecy jacket didn’t protect the icy cold from eating into my soul. I sat on a bench alone, at that moment more alone than I had ever felt in my life, in a city huge and full of faces I didn’t know, my world coloured in a darkness, a blackness I couldn’t understand. Hadn’t I been told how kind people were, basically? Hadn’t I been lead to believe there’s good in all? So why this overwhelming feeling that no one wanted me? I was that broken item to be disregarded. I was held in a lifetime of not being good enough. I was so so scared that I would now lose the man I had waited a lifetime to find, hearing that soft calm voice, not even seeing him on the phone anymore. I won’t go into what crossed my mind for that fleeting of moments, but the pain was far too great to bear, and I had to travel miles in a cab with two people just hours ago I shared a journey with. I wanted out of this pain. I was desperate for a fleeting moment I am not ashamed to say. But I knew Jess would be waiting to hear the decision. He would be as nervous as myself. He would be there sat in his familiar office, the office I know so well. I needed to hear that voice. I needed him to keep me here, to anchor me to this earth that had threatened to cut me loose, but I was also fearing the worst… fearing this was one step to far for the man of my dreams, my life, the reason I do the mammoth things I do. I have no words to describe how I feel for Jess, but he’s the one person that can bring me back from the brink. He’s my warmth in this cold world, his arms my home, his love my nourishment. So I called to deliver my news. He fell silent, but I felt his sadness, his anger, hurt. I felt like I always did anytime anything affected his mood… like it’s my own feelings. We talked it over stiltedly, then he let Gary know where I was via text. I didn’t see Gary’s friendly smile or actually hear a word he said, but somehow we got into the cab and made the very very long drive home. I wanted to cry. I wanted to be in my cold, dark room suddenly. I wanted to just curl up and not wake again. But most of all I wanted Jess, and now… when would I ever see him? I was torn between the impossible and walking away from the man who filled my world with beauty… with a reason to be.

Now I wanted to be alone with Jess even just in phone land. I needed to see that warm smile, to be reassured, loved like only he knows how. For a time I was ready to give up. For a moment I felt selfish for wanting him to remain an ‘us’, a couple, my mate in life, my heart, but that was just that a second… a reactionary thought. I could not be without this man, my man, no sooner than I could halt the world from spinning. I may be selfish in my need of him, my greed of wanting him, but do you know what? This has only reaffirmed my resolve. I will hold my man one day. I will kiss that mouth that rocks my world. I will hear his heart beat under my ear as I sleep. I will love him like he’s never known because the thought of not is just too much for this woman to think about. I love the way you love me, Jesse Cole, and I love how you try to shield me even miles away. True to you, my love. True to no other. xx