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I’ve broken up with my boyfriend (for the second time) and I’ve written an impressive and heavy list (in the hope of changing my life around). I like how childish and melodramatic my list sounds. Here it is: Sleep well and concentrate on a fulfilling career and spend more time with friends and learn an instrument and eat well and find homeware bargains and open a savings account.
Sleep well
I have a recurring dream where I’m in a nightclub and I’m ordering a drink and no matter how loud I scream the barman can’t hear me when I repeat “A GIN AND TONIC PLEASE!” I eventually walk away from the bar with a tonic water and I see him with another woman and they are getting married on the dance floor. There is a song playing from a film I watched recently, which starred a beautiful and disturbed Canadian model. It was a slow and almost pornographic film and I enjoyed it but anyway, I forget the name of the song.
Concentrate on a fulfilling career
I move departments in work. I have fewer friends, fewer responsibilities, more resentment and more emails about cakes. I become brain dead, which inevitably results in going out with a bloke on my new team who can’t go a day without cannabis. On our first date I realise he is tedious and unfortunate-looking but I sleep with him anyway. It doesn’t last long, which I’m happy about. The next day I phone in sick and whilst I’m waiting for my ASDA home delivery I contemplate moving to my parents’ house and working at Tourist Information.
Spend more time with friends
I go to a gig where two guys sing hip-hop songs about flip-flops. I’m dragged to a yoga class and book club for one session each. I go to an Ann Summers party and I feel exceptionally uncomfortable, unattractive and drunk so I order a gift-wrapped white bridal thong. It has a large detachable bow at the back and a strange mesh white veil which hangs from the top of the arse to halfway down the thighs. When it arrives I pass it on to a friend who’s marrying a bloke she met in Camp America.
Learn an instrument
I decide to take up the piano. I played a bit as a child but this time I’m going to take it seriously. I look on Gumtree.com for teachers. I’m put off by adverts with bad spelling. I know a guy who agrees to teach me. On the day that we’re going to start lessons he tells me he’s broken up with his girlfriend of seven years as she’s met someone else and moving to Australia. He says that everything reminds him of her so he’s selling his piano on eBay. I tell him I never liked her anyway, he can do better and not to worry about the piano lessons. It’s completely fine, I tell him.
Eat well
A worried friend tries to cheer me up. He’s a friend I’ve developed a schoolgirl crush on. He takes me to a restaurant which is nice but crowded. Kids are screaming and I complain. Then I feel bad for moaning but it’s too late now. The menu is diverse. There are sophisticated starters followed by shawarma dishes, steaks, grills, kebabs, sea bass, seafood and all sorts. The pressure is too much so I order chicken nuggets and chips from the children’s section. He says he should have just taken me to McDonald’s. It would have been easier if he had.
Find homeware bargains
I find a fairly large electric fan in one of those overpriced tools shop. I carry it home with my skinny arms but it’s so heavy and the weather is so extraordinarily hot that I have to stop for a break on two occasions. The first time I stop a homeless man asks me for 20p and I pretend I don’t hear and he calls me a slapper. The second time I stop I notice a pigeon eating a dead rat and I gag a little. When I’m home I spend all afternoon trying to assemble my fan, by which time my flat has cooled right down.
Open a savings account
The lady in the bank would like to know why I want to open a savings account. Do I need to save for a house, holiday, wedding, baby, car or retirement. None of the above, I tell her. She then says she likes my lipstick and therefore I know she’s not taking me seriously. I can’t bear it when I’m not taken seriously so after leaving the bank I make a small dip into my overdraft and open a store card with Topshop and spend £150 on a coat which drowns me.
***
I’m in town and I’m wearing wellies and a loose, pale dress which makes me look like a patient who’s escaped from the psychiatric ward. A bin man sat in the front of his dustbin lorry catches my eye. He starts banging on the window and shouting something and trying to get my attention. He’s wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket but apart from that he looks just like my ex-boyfriend. I walk away as fast as I can. But it plays on my mind. I’m convinced it was him. The more I think about it the more I think how wonderful it would be if since our breakup his life had gone dramatically downhill. Perhaps he’s a bin man now. Perhaps, now just like me, he reads only tragedies and watches too many violent films. Maybe he’s an alcoholic or maybe he’s on drugs. I bet he’s spending too much time and money in lonely strip clubs. I begin a new list.
About Charlotte Hayden
Charlotte is a 27-year-old English tutor and writer, living in Cardiff. She has a degree in Journalism and a MA degree in English and Creative Writing. Charlotte has recently been published by Words with Jam (ezine), Zouch (online magazine) and Dark Lane Quarterly (online and print magazine). Aimed at young modern women, other stories and essays by this writer are to be published shortly.
