Planes are such a weird place to be.
They’re kind of like sensory deprivation chambers. The lights dim and brighten according to a schedule you don’t have access to. Someone brings you food with no warning other than the smell of dehydrated meals heating up at the end of the aisle. Everyone is either asleep, or plugged into headphones, watching the same movie at staggered intervals. A random group of people crammed into a metal tube, all with the same start and end point but completely different reasons for taking the journey. A supposedly communal experience which is at the same time inherently individual.
I had a glass of wine with my meal and it immediately went straight to my head, so I spent the following two hours crying uncontrollably at Crazy, Stupid, Love, a movie with no discernible emotional crux. I was trying to stifle the crying because I knew it made me look crazy but that only resulted in my whole body convulsing and making the seat shake, which led to the people sitting next to me looking at me more than they might have otherwise. Once I’d calmed down (and Steve Carell and Julianne Moore had reunited) I tried to go to sleep, but as soon as I closed my eyes I was seized by an incredibly specific fantasy of punching my stepmother in the face. I haven’t given her much thought in the past few months, haven’t seen her in years since the last disastrous Christmas I spent under her roof, but for whatever reason on this plane journey all of my hatred and resentment towards her (and by proxy, towards my dad) came screaming back into my mind, demanding to be dealt with. The fantasy, as I said, was very specific. There were clearly defined roles; all the characters had their lines. I had an image of my sister watching me punch her and starting to slow clap, impressed at how ballsy I was.
I don’t know why my mind chose to go there, instead of one of the myriad other places it could have gone. There was plenty to be stressed and worried about. Maybe it was a kind of self-preservation. I was suspended in the air between two lives, my New York era indisputably over, my time in London about to start, the same as before but also totally different. I didn’t really know what was waiting for me on the other side, what my life might look like in a month or two or six. I could have spent the seven hour flight ruminating on that, but flying over the ocean at some indeterminate time of night made the future suddenly not exist. It was actually a welcome reprieve, although it made it difficult to greet my dad with a straight face at the airport, having spent the better part of the flight envisioning maiming his wife.
I’m writing this from Bristol, at my friend’s house with a sparkling Christmas tree in the corner and Lord of the Rings playing in the background. It’s where I always seem to end up during these times of uncertainty. I was at her house the weekend before fleeing back to New York right before the pandemic started, and although threat and fear was hanging over all of us, it was still remarkably easy to forget all that in their house. As long as we stayed away from our phones, it wasn’t hard to pretend that nothing was happening outside, that we could spend all evening making risotto and drinking wine and playing board games – that that was the most important thing we could be doing at that moment. Their house is all slippers and soft lighting and the smooth curves of furniture, a full fridge and endless cups of tea and comforting conversation. Being here again, almost two years later and in what feels like the exact same situation, it’s almost as though no time has passed, or as though time never passes here. Or maybe that this house isn’t affected by the outside world. It’s a simplistic and obviously untrue thought. But everything feels less urgent here.
It doesn’t feel like I’m really here at all. I don’t know if it will hit me one day, that I left my life in New York and moved back to London and lost and gained a lot of things in that time. Maybe I’ll gradually just get used to it, and there will be no clanging moment of realization or clarity, but rather a slow acceptance. Maybe there’s nothing particularly profound to stop and think about. Maybe it’s not as much of a big deal as I think it is, or think it should be. But I feel suspended in limbo, directionless, like I don’t know what’s going to happen from one moment to the next. And instead of being excited by that notion I feel almost numb to it, like I’ve spent the last three months doing nothing but running around and putting things into action and now I’m just supposed to stop and let life happen to me for a while, until it calcifies into something I recognize, or something I want to participate in again.
One good thing:
I had the most delicious pigs in blankets-flavoured Marks & Spencer’s sandwich on the bus to Bristol. A few people have asked me since I got back what I’ve missed most about England, and I can’t believe I forgot about the holy grail that is the meal deal.
One bad thing:
This house has All 4 so I thought I’d be able to spend the afternoon catching up on Made in Chelsea, which I’ve only been able to keep up with via the medium of YouTube clickbait clips which don’t actually tell you anything at all. Not that anything ever happens in Made in Chelsea. But when I clicked on it, it said it wasn’t available in my country. Which is a message I thought I had seen the last of.