Best Foot Forward : Day 65 #100daysofwriting

I'm lying lazily in my lounge window, lapping up the winter sun. Fully aware that I didn't write last night.

Loving the feeling of bare toes. I had a pedicure last week so my feet are looking Summer ready and adorable.

I've had a strange love affair with feet - mine and others. Not in the fetish for toes sucking kind of way - more like a hectic aversion.

I grew up thinking that feet were filthy and vile. I wouldn't touch someone else's feet or even have them near me. I definitely wouldn't let anyone touch my feet. I barely touched my feet! I'd apply lotion to the top of my feet and then rub them together. I was fine with toe nail care, usually after a good soak.

The idea of reflexology was repulsive and I refused to even think about a professional pedicure.

I'm not sure what changed but I went for a pedicure last year. A proper one, where a stranger files away at your hooves until your feet turn model worthy. It was the most caring and loving act ever. I'm so relieved that I did it. I now give my little feet more love and treat myself to a professional pedicure every few months. 

Should I?

“You said you would, so really you should,”
 “I should? I should? Why should I do anything?”
 

There’s an exhaustion in my bones. Sometimes I just lie on my bed feeling like I can’t move, but then I get up, and do something big. Big like cooking a ton of food to freeze. Is it a bizarre type of laziness? Being prepared?
 

I feel inspired to write at the most inappropriate times and sometimes consider carrying a little tape recorder around with me so I can dictate my thoughts as I drive. I suppose my phone would suffice. But I don’t and my thoughts often just float away. My creative being is sort of squatting inside me as I get on with the shoulds, until creativity becomes a should, a something to be scheduled and controlled.
 

As I sit on my bed, with a newly discovered cover of “Black Hole Sun” on repeat, I’m tempted to grab a canvas and just drag paint covered hands across it. I want to attack a canvas. I want to lean off the balcony and give out a primal scream. I want the parts of me to realign. I’m even sure that I knew that I was out of line until I typed it right now. I’ve been describing my mood as lonely-antisocial all day – weird, I know that I’m actually just on a depressed wave. A weird limbo of needing rescue without being able to shout loud enough for it. But no means do I need people to phone me or rush over to my flat. I’d love it if someone abandoned a tub of ice-cream on my welcome mat. If someone drove me through the drive thru for a MacFlurry and then dropped me at home. I think I’m also feeling financial strain – I get down when I feel like all my money is for petrol. Food is a drug, spending money is a drug; spending money on junk food is the ultimate relapse… or the closest to a relapse that I could allow. If I had wine, and technically I do, would I drink it? No. Smoking has never been my thing so sinking back into a smoky cloud of herbs doesn’t appeal. I don’t feel like acting whole with a lipstick smile while I pull my tummy in… so I can’t be bothered to indulge my sycophantic needs in the company of men. I feel too selfish to listen to stories about anyone else’s life so that rules out the rest of humankind. So this leaves food and money, and we’ve established those are a no go. So I’m a junkie without a fix.
 

So I’m a junkie without a fix. And in this moment I feel relief. I’m a junkie without a fix.
 

With a wry smile, I remember why I love to write, it's like an emotional purge, and now I can get on with my life.

Sometimes you just make friends with fear

What is normal? What is ok?

I totally beat myself up over my apparent failures in life. It’s like a bizarre internal battle ala Sia’s new Elastic Heart video (which I’m obsessed with, both song and video).

I’ve learnt in recovery that pretty much everyone battles not to be totally driven by the fear of not being good enough. A perfect body doesn’t mean that you are capable of a healthy relationship with another person, that you won’t be lonely. You can study and study, yet still not understand a billion things. You can be the most incredible artist or dancer, and someone will criticize your art.

Gosh look at the word criticize… say it, let it roll around your mouth for a moment. Critter-size? Criticize me and reduce me to the size of a bug you can squish under your cracked heels. Oops did I just judge you back?

How did we get to the point where we find it ok to hurt each other? I’ve said it before, how every so often I look at my own hands, my arms, I feel my own pulse – blue and fragile beneath the skin of my wrist. You are exactly the same as me. You hurt inside too. You live on the same hairline tight rope. So why do we thrash at each other? Would I be happier alone here?

I’m not even thinking of a specific human. It flickers between boys who have broken my heart to car guards who make my blood boil to friends who have thrown their hands over their eyes and fled from me. Look at me, I’m all bruised too. Maybe if I acknowledge your bruises you will acknowledge mine? I’m sorry if I inflicted any of those horrible purple blemishes. I’m really sorry.