Saturday 4 September 10

Today is a day that I want to capture and know how to recreate.  Nothing especially spectacular has happened.  The children played out, my heart was broken as usual for the struggles that Adan has, I don't like the culture here, I want so much more, but I am in the elusive happy place of being sad about the dream that is no longer a reality, and missing the things that I desperately miss, and the people that I long to have in my life that are too far away, but I am filled with love and gratefulness for the things and people that I do have near to me.  My children are my world and I will always be in love with them.  Al is my man.  He is the man.  He is the only man that has allowed me to feel free and accepted enough to let all of this pour out and still know that I am passionately and unconditionally loved.  He is the only person other than Kirsty who knows that I feel differently about the the world and about life, and although he won't ever really understand the depth of what goes on in my head, he understands and accepts fully that it is me and he doesn't care, he just loves me.  Truly, truly, truly loves me.  And I thank the universe for all of the blessings that I have.  Please, please, please let me figure out to just be like this xxxx

Friday 3 September 10

Yesterday was a great day.  I wanted to write yesterday but I was so busy doing whatever I was doing at full speed that I never got round to it.  I would have written - and just like that, today is a great day.  I feel vibrant and full of life and can't wait to get out into the world and breathe in the day's experience.  It was the children's first day back at school after summer holidays so that might have been a large contributory factor.  I decided to screw the housework (which I never do) and went into Wigan for a wander.  I'm always so stressed out about money that I never go to shops, but today I wanted to be out in the world doing what normal people who don't stress about money do.  I didn't spend a lot, but it felt great to give myself the option.  This is possibly the hugest issues about my life now.  Not necessarily lack of money or location, lack of options, it sucks the life out of me, I need to feel free.  So Nikki and I went into every shop and tried on everything we felt like.  I came home with new biker boots which I absolutely love and no lining paper which is what I was meant to go out for.  Everything I miss so desperately from my old life didn't seem so desperate.

And just like that, today is not a good day.  I woke up tired, but I'm always tired so that can't be it, and once again the thought of going through the daily motions made my head heavy.  When we got downstairs Adan knocked over the ironing board and bumped into me.  It didn't hurt that much but I shouted at him and burst into tears.  I cried my way through making breakfast.  

If there was some pattern or trigger that I could figure out, at least I'd be prepared and I could talk myself through it until the time I knew the sun would come up again.  This is why I've started writing.  I'm hoping that at some point a pattern will emerge and I can start trying to understand myself and my life.  Or maybe I really am as crazy as I think and there won't be any pattern?  Or are the crazy people only the ones who don't know they're crazy which means I'm not?  Maybe I'm just completely narcissistic and need to shut up and get over myself?  I'd be happy to accept that conclusion if someone told me that was the truth and I could stop my head from being so bloody frantic all of the time.  Or are the "crazy" ones the ones who just plod along telling themselves that plodding is an acceptable existence and my diagnosis is not crazy, it's just pure realism?  I do wonder a lot about the scurrying along of the human race, full of their own self importance and making a million decisions a day that ultimately mean fuck all.  Does no-one else see it?  And if they do, could they please be my friend so I'd know it wasn't just me.  My long shot hope is that by some universal random act, one of the world's top psychiatrists will happen to come across my blog, read my ridiculous ramblings and contact me with their difinitive explanation, and then I'll know what to do and it'll all get better.

Wednesday 1 September

I arrived at Dubai International Airport on 7 February 1997 some time during the night.  The automatic doors opened and the heat washed over me and filled my lungs.  It was beautiful.  Just thinking about it makes me smile and I feel that sense of arrival all over again.  Not arrival to Dubai, the arrival of me.

The first 7 weeks were a whirlwind.  A week of orientation and meeting and greeting and then training school which was just so much bloody fun.  Some of it was desperately boring, but we laughed and yawned our way through it (some days dragged ourselves through a hangover and no sleep through it) and loved every second.  Hours on end discussing the importance of the correct lining and presentation of a croissant basket with some stupid bugger always asking another question at the end so the topic would be dragged out for another half an hour - and then an hour on a simulator being flung around a fake cabin filled with fake smoke or a fake whooshing of air from a fake hole in the fake plane and the donning of our fake oxygen masks.  God damn I loved it.  It was the absolute time of my life.  It's such a waste that I didn't know it then though and I almost lost it all for good for a man who wasn't even mine to have.  I don't regret many things in my life, from even the worst parts I can see how I've grown, but this is definitely at the top of my list.

My last flight with Airtours before I left for Dubai was a day trip to somewhere I can't remember the name of, maybe Florence, or was it somewhere beginning with an S?  Anyway, it was just a train distance away from Monte Carlo, so all of the crew went there for the day.  When I got to the briefing that morning I was speechless when I saw who the Captain was.  In my 18 months with Airtours I had always been intensely drawn to this one Captain whenever I had flown with him or even when we just passed in the corridor.  Not just sexually, but something deeper, something I couldn't explain, I had never felt it before.  It was completely overwhelming and I loved it, but everyone fancied him so I had always kept it to myself, I do so hate to follow the pack.  Plus I knew he was married and straight as a dye.  A lot of the flight deck shag around, goes with the territory, but this one was well known for his impeccable reputation, he had been there years and was quite senior.  I had bumped into him the day I was handing in my notice so we chatted about my move to Emirates.  I only found this out later, but he had pulled a few strings and a couple of favours to be put onto my last flight.  Me, him, Monte Carlo, a beautiful hotel room and a whole lot of chemistry.  Apparently he had always been drawn to me too.  Sounds like such a cheesy cliche now when I read it back.  We didn't have sex that evening, we talked and talked, and we kissed on the balcony, and we melded together so intensely and deeply in ways I don't even have the words for that I was hooked, and I could see nothing else but him.  I still cannot believe I actually did this, could be so fucking stupid and thoughtless it physically hurts me even to type it, but after 4 months in Dubai and a couple of visits from him to see me, desperately, insanely and some friends say fanatically, unhealthily in love, I packed up all of my things and got on the next flight to Gatwick because he couldn't bear to be without me for another day.  I stayed with him in the hotel where he was training for a short while and then he found me somewhere to live and paid for it until I was able to find a job.  The important thing I learned in next 2 months.....

A married man who is not yet divorced and is still living in the same house as his wife is still a married man!!  And regardless of the I Married The Wrong Woman And I've Never Loved Her The Way That I Love You Or Could Ever Love Anyone Else I Love You So Desperately You Are My Soulmate And I Want Nothing More Than To Marry You As Soon As I'm Divorced And Have Babies Together shite, HE WAS NOT MINE TO EVEN TRY TO HAVE!  And is it not so out of the realms of possibility that maybe, just maybe he felt about his wife this way once, AND THAT'S WHY THEY GOT MARRIED?!

But at the time, how could love so intense and so rare be the wrong path to follow?  Surely when this once in a lifetime bonding occurs the only right thing to do for everyone, including his wife (which she would see in time when she was out of an unhappy marriage and found her true soulmate too) was to follow it head and heart first?  It was nobody's fault, no-one could see it coming, we didn't plan it.  And so, (again it fucking kills me to say it) that's exactly what I ridiculously, unbelievably, naively, stupidly did.  I think you can safely assume from my choice of vocabulary that me and Mr Soulmate are not married and living in paradise with a brood of beautiful babies.  The reality was, I was a fabulous escape from the pressures of his very structured, pressured, stable, high expectation life, and I was kind of the mid life crisis to help him get over it.  When I became a part of the pressure, I no longer served my purpose, and so I was cut loose.  Lucky for him his wife forgave him and off he went back to where he came from leaving me abandoned in a place of England I didn't know, no job, no home and no-one to turn to.  And so I sobbed.  I sobbed for months and months without stopping.  A well deserved fate due to the circumstances a lot might say, but trust me when I say I have paid for it ever since with every other decision I have made.  It changed me so completely that I didn't know what was real and what wasn't any more.  I lost myself, I lost my faith in what was right and who I was, and I thought I would never ever recover.  I regret that time so much more deeply than I could ever express in words, not just for me, and certainly not for him, but for what I must have done to his wife.  Surely everything she believed and thought was true was shattered also and I wish every day that I could take that back from her.  She has the right to despise me until the day she dies, but I truly hope that she has the happiest, most fulfilled life than she ever thought was possible.  I heard years later that they have 2 sons.  I hope he is the best father and husband he can be and never lets them down.

Tuesday 31 August

Today is not a good day.  I can never tell why or when it kicks in, but this afternoon it has.  How to describe it.... utter unbearable sadness and hopelessness.  What's the point?  Why bother running the same mind numbingly dull treadmill every single day when you desperately don't like it?  There's only one answer.  I will never ever ever leave my children, I am absolutely and completely in love with them, so the rest of it will always come second, desparation or not.  But that doesn't make it any easier to cope with.  What should I do?  Do I go back on tablets so my days hum along at the same "fine" pace or do I manage the waves as best I can and keep hoping that one day things will get a bit easier?  One of the shining beacons in my life once said to me, only the mediocre run to form.  I detest running to form, but should I accept it in the form of medication to make the sadness go away?  I still miss Dubai right to the pit of my stomach.  Not the actual place, but what that place gave me.  Even with no money it was still a different way of life, a more fulfilling way of life.  Different ideas, different events, different views.  Always something new to learn or understand.  My children would grow up with such open minds and diversity.  They'd be multilingual and "different" would be normal to them.  Every colour, every faith, every chance to help them naturally grow into what they will become without judgement, prejudice or social boundaries.   But here we are.  In Skelmersdale.  There's no money, there's no opportunity to make more money, there's no culture, no diversity, no inspiration, no controversial opinions on anything of any significance to challenge my own forcing me to change and grow.  Sometimes I am drowning so much in the nothingness of here that I think I may actually suffocate.  And then I cry.  I cry for my own selfish sadness, for all the things I dream of that I just don't have the means to fulfil, and because of guilt.  Guilt that my children and the love from the most wonderful man in the world are not enough.

Thursday 26 August 2010 - England

I had a dream once.  It started from as early as I can remember.  From as early as I knew there was another possibility, another reality, than the one I was in.  I don't remember a sudden jolt of realisiation, it was just something that was always there.  I didn't understand it at the time, this urge, this need for something else.  I always thought it was something that not another living soul would understand, and so I always hid it, scared and embarrassed of being so emotional about something that I couldn't even explain.  Deep in the night when I would sob from fear or longing of this thing that I couldn't explain, I wanted to wake my big sister and ask her was she different too, did she cry, did she know what it was?  But I never did.  I hoped so much that she would hear me, come to ask why I was so upset and then tell me that she understood completely.  But she never did.  Was it exaserbated by the the child molesting step-father, maybe, I can't know for sure, but I do know that it absolutely would have been there anyway, was there even before I understood that what was happening wasn't right.  And what was this thing that gripped me, that made me feel so different from everyone I knew, from my own family?  An innate, overwhelming, all consuming need for something "different".  Something more.  Something better.  Something soulfully fulfilling.  Something to get me out of this fucking hole that just did not feel right.

So then I got a bit bigger.  School and college were done, relatively successfully, what should I do now?  I went to work, followed the protocol, partied with my friends, learnt the joy of shagging and the shitness of boys in their youth, and I learnt that it wasn't only me who felt I was different.  People disliked me.  I didn't understand why, I was a nobody.  Not in the cliques, not one of the pretty ones, not one of the ones to be jealous of.  But I just didn't fit.  And then after school I heard through the whispers that people thought I was "up my own arse", because I didn't talk like them, because I didn't aspire to the same things as them.  Their boyfriends would chat me up and when I would turn them down they would run back to their girls making up stories to get me into trouble.  Who did I think I was?  But I was always too afraid to stand up to any of them.  To stand up for who I was.  I didn't know who I was.  I did what I had to do to stay under the radar and keep my head down on the treadmill.  And then one day I saw an advert in the local paper.  It was for something called a flight attendant with an English charter airline called Airtours.  I had seen these women on the tv as a child.  Strolling through the airport in slow motion, not a hair out of place and looking like they knew exactly who there were.  It takes more than a uniform and some red lipstick for inner peace, I know that now and God damn I wish it was that easy, but at the time, it was a bloody good place to start.

I applied.  I had to go to London for the interview, on a BA shuttle and everything.  And guess what, you'll never guess, I only went and got the fucking job!  And from my first day of training, everything changed.  The realms of another possibility were now tanigible.  I could see further than Connie dossing, further than the limits I had had to learn to keep myself inside.  I know it's only a silly waitressing job on a silly aeroplane, but I saw things, things that fill your belly and fill your soul.  My first warm sunset over the ocean.  My first drive along a road lined with palm trees like you see on American tv shows.  My first accent other than British.  My first Christmas in 35 degrees eating a baked potato next to the pool.  My first time realising that my longings were not so unfathomable.  And no, it's not about money, although I would be naive to think that these things would be possible without money or backing from some source.  But no, absolutely not, not about money per se.  I could see that what I wanted for my future was not so pie in the sky, not so cinderella fairy tale.  It was there.  IT was real.  All I had to do was choose to make it my life.  And so I did.

Eighteen months later I saw another advert.  The one that would change my life forever, and now haunt my every waking moment.  Emirates Airline.  Dubai.  I'd never heard of it.  I asked everyone at work about it.  Many had applied, my peers included, but it was too tough to get into.  I sent off my application.  It's been 13 years since that phone call and I can't remember what I did this morning, but as cliched as it sounds, I remember that phone call like it was yesterday.  It was a 6am standby with Airtours and so I was ready for the phone to ring and me to answer in a half asleep hazy state.  I had been told that you normally heard within 2 to 3 weeks if you had been successful.  It was 3 weeks to the day so I had already started to process my disappointment.  It was 4am, 8am in Dubai when office hours begin, and when I heard the ring I assumed it was my expected 6 o'clock wake up call.  Hello Clare, this is blah blah from Emirates Airline.  I'm very pleased to tell you that you've been accepted and we'd like you to fly out to Dubai as soon as you're able.  Congratulations.  Would you like to accept the position?

And that's when my life really began.  The day I flew to Dubai is the day that I finally, absolutely felt like me.  This was my life, my dream, now my reality, and it was starting right then and there on a flight from Manchester to Dubai with a skinny, blonde gorgeous girl called Kirsty Nimmo.