Stories Of...Notting Hill

I’m writing this from my balcony seat at the Royal Festival Hall. It’s intermission right now. Or as they say “interval”. I took myself on a date to see the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I’d like to say I enjoyed the music, but I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t hear any of it. 

I, my friends, spent the entirety of Act 1 with knees akimbo to my chest in the handicap bathroom shitting my mother fucking brains out. The only symphony I heard was the sound of my—well you get the point. 

Was it the turkey salami I ate or the dose of antibiotics that always fucks my stomach lining or perhaps it was the sadness of the last few days all stored up in my belly and twisted in knots. I lost my appetite because I was filled off of the tears in my stomach. 

I received some troubling news a few days ago. Someone thinks I did something bad to them. I swear to you I didn’t. 

I’ve never been on the receiving end of someone’s hatred.

She saw me whispering to someone with whom she doesn’t trust and assumed I was speaking behind her back. I wasn’t. I was talking about something entirely unrelated to her. But she took a snapshot in her mind and filled it with all her worst assumptions. Filled the frame with poison. Saw me as poison. Took all her mistrust and found a body to place it on. Mine. 

I’ve never been on the receiving end of someone’s hatred.

I’m so careful and considerate of people’s feelings. And when I fall short, I apologize. And mean it. 
It literally makes me sick to my stomach. 

When I was in the 10th grade a girl in my choir class lost her brother and dad to a car accident. My brother was the same age as hers. We sang at their funeral. I had bouts of nausea and cramps for weeks. Same thing when I went through a break up 8 months ago. 

When you have a visceral reaction to an experience, it’s your bodies way of telling you what your brain hasn’t yet caught up to. The body never lies. The body takes pain and turns it into whatever it likes. Diarrhea. Vomit. Headache. Numbness. Nausea. It’s telling you that you’re an affected human. 

She’s not a malicious person. 
I don’t think she sought out my suffering. 
She just cared more about protecting herself from suffering.
What I wish she knew though was that her suffering was self inflicted. 
I wish she knew that there was someone in her corner who hadn’t hurt her. 

It makes me so sad she assumes the worst in people. Assumed the worst in me. Painted me to be one of many villains in her book. How unkind the world must have been to her...

Oh, okay Act 2 is starting. Now time to listen to the only drama I prefer—a classical concerto that I only paid £14 for woot. 




                                                                                                                                            Stories of Notting Hill
                                                                                                                        Wednesday, November 10, 2021