Feeling heavy

(with some slight One Day spoilers)

Finished watching the new Netflix adaptation of One Day last night. It was sensational—a real televisual masterpiece. And though I knew what was coming (I hoped they might have changed the ending ok!) I was floored by it. I cried for about an hour after the credits rolled. Leo Woodal who plays Dex is outstanding. In the book and the 2011 film, Dexter is pretty unsympathetic, but in the television show… phew-ey! He took my breath away. Such humanity and depth.

I woke up in the middle of the night with period pains, got up to go to the loo, make a hot water bottle, take some more ibruprofen—and Dex and Em were still in my head. The line at the end about Em being a footnote in his life. The look on his face as he recalls this line and the first day they met. The fact that the precious, special people in our lives are are it. His face is a vision of brokenness and quiet, sad contentment. Because though he has lost what is most precious, he had something so special. The melancholy that comes with happiness is a cruelty that sometimes seems unbearable.

I generally feel a heaviness. Right before my period I always get gloomy but this feels more loaded. My health anxiety is high. Over the past week I’ve worried quite seriously that I have a heart defect that is going to result in cardiac arrest, that I have cancer of the liver, hip, neck, brain, bowel, ovaries. That I have a narrowing of the blood vessels near my ear (that is causing the whooshing sound I get sometimes), that will result in a stroke. I’ve been worrying that Tim is going to be in a car accident, that my parents are going to get ill again.

Today we learned that dad actually is a bit ill again. I won’t go into it for now because he’d probably find it annoying if I did—he seemed confused as to why I might be worried when I spoke to him on the phone earlier. It’ll probably be fine. Once I’ve had a few days or weeks of reorganising my brain, doing some of the things that I know help when I’m sad and anxious, I’ll probably feel okay about it all.

I’m not drinking enough water I don’t think. There are good and bad kinds of ‘wellness’ advice and water is quite clearly the former. More water, more sleep. Remembering to take my citalopram. Maybe that will help lift this malaise.

But there’s also the world. Right? The awful, terrifying, horror-filled world. And the fact that children and innocent people are dying in the middle east and somehow that’s okay. How? That organisations (just yesterday, for instance, the Arts Council) are advising against ‘political statements’. As if pronouncing genocide to be wrong could be anything other than a requirement for humanity.

Though I am feeling gloomy, and I know so many are, I also remind myself again and again what a privilege it is to live this life.

It is Valentine’s Day today, a holiday I all but ignore to be honest. Yesterday was pancake day—a day I’m much more interested in. I made my first ever savoury pancakes last night. Mushroom, mozzarella and basil with a green salad. And then followed it up with a couple of my favourite lemon and golden syrup ones. I won’t lie to you—I made another batch and ate four lemon and golden syrup pancakes for my lunch today. It’s day two of my period, I feel anxious and I’m going after those quick wins.

I said to Tim the other day—we haven’t had one of those lovely afternoons where the light gets really low and yellow for ages. And then that afternoon we had one. We walked up the hill, breathed deep, stuck our faces into the sun and felt glad to be there.

A few recommendations now, as my Valentines gift to you:

• The Holdovers. We went to see it last week and it was so funny, nostalgic, wry, well-written and gorgeously sentimental by the end.

• Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti. Her new book is a compilation of diary entries, ordered from A-Z. It is strangely, undeniably profound.

• The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty. I don’t know why it took me so long to get to this book but I thought the writing was phenomenal, and the story / structure so unique.

• Criminal Record on Apple TV. This is a really good police drama. Up there with Happy Valley and Line of Duty I’d venture.