05/03/05 - Pedestal
The DJ bloke I've been sharing my bed with for a while had been building me up high. The things I thought might put him off in the beginning only turned him on to me more.
I worried what he'd think when he found out I'm losing my vision. He didn't care - he said it made me more interesting. I stressed about how he'd react to my weekly confessional offerings in this magazine. He wasn't bothered - instead, he told anyone who'd listen that he'd been seeing 'that girl' out of the paper. I thought he might retch over the somewhat wet collection of three small china polar bears that I look at when I'm bored, but he said they were endearing. The weeks passed, and I defied all sense of gravity to be elevated from base camp in week one to the summit of a shimmering glass pedestal by week three. I was balancing precariously on the top; I could do no wrong. I basked in it, and for a moment forgot that what goes up must come down. And, of course, it did.
Lying in my bed one night, I thumbed out a late-night message to my friend. A shameful piece of bragsome textual diarrhoea, less than flattering in tone, about how I'd been getting it on with some indie kid who thought I could walk on water. As I went to press send, a slip of the thumb brought my sugar-coated image smashing down and my psyche was laid bare as I sent the message intended for my friend straight to my lover by mistake.
12/03/05 - Trainers
You get a new lover and there's always stuff you want to change about them. You wish they'd get a new haircut, or stop wearing tracksuit bottoms and a baseball cap backwards. But if you've got any sense, you'll refrain from trying to squish your new companion into your mental mould of perfection. Doubtless they'll be malleable for the first few months, but thereafter you'll exist in a persistent state of conflict as they try to escape the iron grip of your dictation and return to their natural, untampered-with state.
There's truth in the old leopards and spots cliché - by and large, it's best to leave well alone. However, there are some things that just can't be ignored. A bloke I was seeing had trainers that smelled as if the undercarriage of his feet had detached to line his shoes with insoles of rotting flesh. Not good news for me - I can smell so well it almost hurt. But it had been only two weeks and as 'new lover' I didn't feel I had the right to command he change his footwear. I fretted he might think me controlling, before realising that this problem was an exception to the non-meddling rule.
I geared myself up to break the news. Favouring the direct approach, I decided I'd deliver the 'your trainers stink' line that I'd practised on the phone to a friend. I needn't have bothered with the role-play. The next time I saw him, he had new shoes. Never have I been so glad to date a man in box-fresh white Gola trainer boots.
19/03/05 - Glum
When you're glum, you want certain people to notice and others just to go away. Three years ago things changed. I didn't understand why I got dizzy when I went down stairs. I seemed to trip up all the time and hated crossing the road alone. I wondered if it was because I'd been sleeping too little or wearing shoes that were a bit too high. The doctor said my field of vision had undergone a rapid shrinkage - I was seeing my world through 10 degrees. Normal is 160.
My physiological mind grappled to rewire and compensate, while my conscious mind did everything in its power to resist the change. I ate carrots and opened my eyes as wide as I could in a bid to see more. I obliterated myself smoking weed, hoping that reports about its positive effects on visual acuity were true. They weren't. I just got more paranoid.
I hoped commuters would be too numb to notice my miserable face, but strangers still told me to 'smile, cos it might never 'appen'. My family would ring to ask why I hadn't been in touch. Friends discussed if I was 'OK'. Publicly I said they were stupid for worrying. Privately I'd go to bed hoping it'd all be gone in the morning.
The people who loved me were trying to wrench me out of denial. I just wished they'd all piss off. I didn't want anyone to notice, except the one person who didn't seem to. He just shut the study door and carried on fixing up his computers and smoking his fags as if nothing was any different.
26/03/05 - The End
Going blind is not something that makes you feel good about yourself. As your retinas slowly rot away, so, too, does part of your ego. You're forced to gulp back way more than your share of humble pie as you realise that saying sorry to strangers you've bumped into in the street or asking for an arm from someone you think is an idiot will be a daily occurrence for the rest of your life. However politically correct, compassionate, open-minded you might think yourself, no one in their right mind would choose to be in this situation. It's frightening at times, but the thing that makes life easier is meeting people who somehow instinctively understand the incomprehensible.
My postpunk DJ lover might have worn slippers, liked Then Jerico and eaten nothing but Pot Noodles, but this was a man who not only understood, but even made me feel good about losing my vision. What made me, at times, unspeakably sad was for him what made me unspeakably interesting. His unquestioning acceptance shrouded those moments of flailing panic with the notion that actually, maybe, it would all be OK in the end.
Plus, he was modestly gorgeous, got me into clubs for free and created the best medley tapes of devastating melancholia I've received since swapping compilations of soft rock with my gangly 14-year-old first love. I should have been grateful. I was, right? Wrong. Last week I blew it and called our brief encounter to an end.
02/04/05 - Judgement
Folk like to pass judgment on other people's relationships. Who hasn't done a bit of cerebral rubber-necking over what the better-looking half of a couple is doing with their less good-looking/shorter/badly dressed companion? 'How did s/he pull him/her?' you muse in private.
But some people speak their minds. I bump into an acquaintance. 'How's it going with that punk man?' she asks.
'It's not,' I say.
'Why?!' she says in a tone of shock fringed with disbelief.
'It just didn't feel right,' I reply.
'But he didn't care about your eyes.'
'And ... ?'
'Well, I'm not being funny, but it's going to be hard to find someone who can see past the certainty of your future. Life is about compromise. Quite frankly, I think you've been an idiot. You should've been grateful.'
I feel very pissed off. I know she's only articulating the awkward thoughts lots of people will have rotting away in their minds, and it doesn't feel nice. For a sorry moment I wonder if maybe she's right. Then I realise, actually, she's very wrong.
I know about compromise. It happens every day. If I go out with a mate, I won't be driving; they will. The itinerary is theirs. If they want to head off at 6.30am because they need to get back and mow the lawn, so do I. It's not so bad, but staying with someone you don't love out of nothing more than self-deprecating gratitude? Would you?