Letter number 16: Reclamation

Dear Alexandra,

The project I and some friends are working on is going really well — there are seven ‘tasks’ per day, and I think I’ve achieved them all today, day one. That’s a good start. They are — in a nutshell — eat healthily, stay hydrated, get outside and exercise for at least 30 minutes, take at least 30 minutes to do something creative, play or expand knowledge, restrict social media use to an hour a day maximum (I’ve split that into two thirty minute chunks), rest — go to bed at a sensible time. Finally, and most trickily, write something nice about yourself, take a photo with it, and save the note.

I went to my go to ‘proud moment’ — I probably deployed it too early, haha. I hate self-praise, but that’s the point of the challenge I guess.

But anyway, reclamation. As I’ve caught up with my assorted Podcasts I decided to subscribe to ‘No Such Thing As A Fish’, one that the QI ‘Elves’ do. We used to listen to it in the car, and we decided it was one of ‘our things’ so we wouldn’t listen to them on our own, save them for when we were together. One of the things I’m most scared and wary of is those reminders that certain songs, programmes, films, Podcasts or — well — seeing an Alpaca might bring out in me.

So I’ve decided instead of avoiding things like that I’ve decided to face them head on. When I went walking with Mum at the weekend I consciously chose a route that took us through the Alpaca farm, and it was fine. Today I started our Podcast again from the beginning. It’s mine now, and it was okay. We used to love falling asleep with QI on in the background, Stephen Fry’s dulcet tones lulling us into slumber, even Sandi Toksvig latterly does a good job too.

The first time I remember us doing that was when we gatecrashed L. and P.’s holiday in Dorset. The first time we fully consummated our relationship. We’d been lamenting that Netflix only had three series on it, so we’d started to know them off by heart. I downloaded all of the episodes to put on my media server so we’d have a much bigger supply, I can’t remember exactly when that had finished but it’s never something we were able to take advantage of together, so it must have been recently.

So last night I drifted off to slumber with QI season 1 in the background, and it was fine. I’m not prepared to relinquish things that I enjoy and love because of associations. Most of those associations are from better times, before everything went weird in your brain, so if I do spark memories I’m going to try to direct it to those. A lot of how we react to things is actually a choice on some level. I guess if that were entirely true I could’ve kept the photos up and stuff — but well, there’s a line I guess!

As 9pm arrived today and Facebook let me see my newsfeed again rather than a picture of a cat I jumped straight in, 20+ notifications, and d’you know what? There wasn’t much of interest. B. had posted a lovely picture of the lilies I sent to her after having to have Digby put down, they’re thriving — but she loves tending plants so I’m not surprised. She was subtle enough not to tag you although I of course did send them and the card from both of us. Maybe you’ve seen the post — you’re friends with B. still I think on there, and of course I was tagged, or maybe you’ve got us all on restricted.

Whilst I’m still wondering what you’re thinking, how you’re doing, whether you’re thinking of me, it’s not as all consuming as it had been. I think I’ve resigned myself that we’re not going to be close friends in the future, I’m not closed off to the idea, I just don’t think it will happen. Given you’ve lost your principal ticket buyer and chauffeur it’s unlikely we’ll cross paths much in the future, your Dad has suffered poor health and seems to have lost motivation on that score. Of course it remains to be seen what post-lockdown brings.

I hope he’s doing okay. I was tempted to send him a message, not like with your Mum, just to say sorry things hadn’t worked out and I hope he’s okay. I don’t think it’s appropriate so I haven’t. You and he clash terribly sometimes but seem to find a way through, he has the same emotional blinkers that drop down and spark irrationality. Usually left to cool off and it’s like nothing happened. I struggle with that, I feel things deeply and they leave marks.

This evening I’ve done a little sorting out in the house too. I moved the mountains of bird food from the dining room table and actually set it up so I could eat at it. Since Frankie’s cage is gone there’s room now, which means I’ve been able to reunited the dining room chairs that were standing like sentinels at random places around the house. Oddly I’ve been shopping for a table cloth that will fit it, the one I bought for our Valentine’s Day dinner is too big and the wrong shape.

I’m planning on doing more decluttering, I want to cull through my clothes, get the office cupboard sorted out and cleared, and hopefully get rid of the random things I’ve hidden in the backs of cupboards that really need to go to the tip. I’m going to see if I can borrow Dad’s jet washer then I can get Frankie and Rook’s cages cleaned and dismantled. I’m not sure that I need quite so many bird cages, haha! I might see if there’s a parrot rescue that can make use of them. I might keep Rook’s as a spare for Sonic.

Keeping myself occupied seems to be the key — I’m still finding time to be lazy, I’m writing on here a lot still, but less agonising about what happened, and more thinking about the future. That’s a good thing I think. I do still worry about you, but whilst it was consuming my every waking (and sometimes sleeping) thought that is waning. I hope that you’re doing some productive thinking and not just acting out a Nintendo relationship every night.

I’ve been good and not looked. I could easily look to see if you’ve streamed again since Friday but I haven’t, I’ve resisted short-circuiting the measures I took to stop looking at your Twitter feeds. I haven’t even idly looked to see when you were online on Messenger. I can tell I’m not a big texter as until today you were still top of my message list, and we’ve not exchanged messages since Friday. Your Mum is below that, and I last exchanged messages with her on Thursday.

Maybe I need to just randomly text a few people to bump you both down the list a little. I keep finding random little things that I’ve been adjusting — the Memoji I made of you popped up when I mis-pressed a button, so I deleted it. I’ve removed you from my Favourite contacts and as an Emergency Contact, and you will no longer circumvent ‘do not disturb’ mode by default. I changed your ringtone to be the default one rather than one of ‘our’ songs, not that I imagine you’re likely to call any time soon. I felt sad doing it, but well, it’s necessary isn’t it?

I wouldn’t say that I am feeling okay, but I am feeling better. And that’s progress, and I have a positive plan to continue to improve. I am cautiously optimistic that I can get through this, and considering where I’ve been I’m actually very proud of that progress. As ever, I anticipate there will be bumps in the road, relapses and set-backs, but I think I’m equipped to deal with them. Given you have a head start on me with these things I hope you’re doing okay too, but I worry you’ve not faced into things in the same way.

But. That’s not my problem, is it? I’m afraid it kind of is. I’ll always care about you.

I love you, Bert