Stream-of-consciousness post, not proof-read
I’ve been feeling so crushed by all my problems weighing down on me.
My effort to learn has continued to be an important remaining source of self-worth and therefore comfort.
Last year, I began questioning why I felt so abandoned by society, which led me to read Engels’s ‘Condition of the Working Class’ and then Mayhew’s ‘London Labour and London Poor’, and then books by Chomsky and many others that questioned the way our society is.
I have spent my life feeling grateful for having been born in the UK, I’m sure that, music being my sense of purpose, and Britain’s great popular music history has been a big part of that, but I have also felt grateful for what opportunities I’ve thought there have been available to me here.
Yet now I am also realising that what I achieved was incredibly rare for someone of my background, in a country that is one of the most unequal in the world.
I came from a working class family, a family where only one parent worked, where each child did not have their own room. One of my parents suffered the symptoms of severe mental health issues whilst I was a child, teenager, and young adult. Our home did not provide personal space nor much sense of peace. This difficult experience may account to some extent for the lack of closeness between my sisters and I, in that, there has long been a coldness from them, I think, a blaming of me for my depression, at least that is what it has felt like. Maybe the coldness of the home environment affected the way my sisters are towards me. Or maybe that it is just due to my character not being likeable to them. I did not receive private tuition, but due to my own efforts, and the good state schools I attended, I was able to get good enough grades to help me in my efforts to move out.
I felt the pressure to study something that meant nothing to me, if it would help me in my efforts to move out. I studied a degree I’ve always regretted studying, an empty degree, at a horrible, soulless university, but I was able to use the degree to get a job that allowed me, be it by getting onto a shared-ownership scheme, to get a home of my own. I remain haunted by having missed out on a fulfilling university experience and this is why it has long been a dream mine to still have that experience, despite the discouragement many people have given me when I mention this dream to them.
All that time, growing up, I did not realise the additional difficulties I had faced for having come from a working class background, for being an ethnic minority, for being a woman. I did not realise at the time that the vast majority of the people I worked with in the job I had in software would’ve come from middle class families, and would’ve had the superior educations by private schools. They were lovely people, and I do not think less of them for realising this about them now. In fact, they were the first people who made me feel as though my personality was being seen, even when the only thing I really knew about myself at that young age was my love of music, and the rest of my personality consisted of not a great deal more, than the values I held about being a good person. I was a kid, a sweet kid, and these people at least saw me for that. Being around them provided me with my first real social experiences, when during high school and college I was quite on my own, and during uni I was invisible to my fellow students and teachers. Even with family, it was only my mum who I ever really felt seen by, in terms of, appreciated, for who I am. Granted, had I gone to a uni where I had studied something I cared about, where I had been around students who appreciated me, I’m sure I would’ve received that important social enrichment, but because I had missed out on that, the few years I worked at the finance software place, were incredibly important for filling in that missing part of my life. I think I managed to get those social experiences during what had felt like the end of my ability to develop any kind of real social skills. Not that we lose our ability to develop skills, but I think I was lucky, to have those social experiences, when I was still relatively young, in my early twenties, as that helped me so much in helping me having the confidence to communicate. I did not even have the same level of social experiences most people get from their families, as I only grew up around my immediate family (parents and two sisters), not around extended family, and my parents were not a part of any kind of community.
I am incredibly proud of myself for having the courage to leave the software job to focus on my music. Music had always been my purpose. I’m sure music had come to mean so much to me because it had been my sanctuary, my healing, my hope, my freedom, my friend, during the difficult and lonely experience that had been my life growing up. Those years of working on music, after I’d left my job, prior to my accident, were the most fulfilling of my life. I am so proud of the music I made during that time. That time also enabled me to really become myself, to get to know what really mattered to me, and to develop confidence in who I was, and I think I was lucky to experience this when I did, when I was still relatively young.
My whole life I bought into some ideas that I didn’t know I’d been sold, of the religion I didn’t know I’d been born into, of capitalism, of neoliberalism. I blamed myself for everything that went wrong, and I did not see how much more difficult my life had been from its start. Following my accident, and the depression that resulted, I have spent most of the last ten years blaming myself for “not sorting my life out”. And yet, deeply held values of mine, which I am sure I owe to my journey of making music, seem to’ve protected me from acquiring most of the values that I didn’t realise that capitalism, that neoliberalism, had been trying their darndest to sell me all this time.
It’s funny. I now realise that the two paid jobs I’ve had – working at The Summer Opening of the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace, and the graduate finance software job, making software for banks – served institutions that have been some of the most impactful in creating the inequality experienced in this country and countries around the world today. I was a naive kid, and I suppose it wouldn’t have made any sense to take the history of these institutions personally when working for them in any case. It’s just odd, realising the coincidence between those two jobs now.
Lately, my efforts to educate myself more about the inequality in this country have become a source of self-worth and purpose. I joke to myself that I am procrastinating on fixing my life by trying to fix society first. I am of course, not currently truly trying to make any kind of meaningful action to improve society. I don’t expect to be able to change the world when I can’t even overcome the paralysing anxiety I have when it comes to the prospect of trying to tidy my flat of all the clutter that has been accumulating in it since my accident.
I’ve also been so down about my little Abu. Why is he skinny? Every morning and every evening I worry about not being able to get him to take his meds. As I wait for the possibility of getting another heart scan done for him, I am beating myself up for not insisting on this sooner, because local vets had not believed it was possible for me to hear his heart from a distance at night, and I wanted to believe that they were right and that I was hearing something else, when of course, it always was his heart, and I knew this. Yesterday I grumpily, and with some humour too, called my mum and asked her why the two loved ones upon whom I depend, make me worry so much, why is one too fat, and the other too skinny? I am wondering about putting formula puppy milk in Abu’s bowl to help him put some weight on. I don’t know, my poor monkey has been being so strong, he is still so playful at times. I am so scared. I need him. I tell myself if he could make it to 15, assuming I myself find a way to keep existing till then, that I could accept that. But how will he make 15 if his heart murmur has changed so quickly? Not to mention his tracheal collapse. And how will my mum be strong? I wish Abu and my mum could be strong for at least that many number of years, that I could keep existing during that time too somehow, maybe in that time, in those years, I could develop basic piano musicianship sufficient for me to apply to study at The Guildhall? And also, whilst at the unlikely task, find a way of funding such study? All whilst continuing to work on the post-accident depression and anxiety issues I still suffer from?
Could Abu and my mum and I find a way for that many years?
Every day is full of dread. I am so scared about the future.
Life should not be this difficult. It should not be this difficult to have a roof over my head, nor to receive an education.
Learning about political philosophy has felt like an important awakening to me. It is maddening to realise our society seems to close yet so far to the change needed. Most of my fellow working class people have bought into neoliberalism, hook-line-and-sinker. It is awful to see that. To see the hatred that has been successfully engineered between working class factions, to keep us too busy hating one another to question those encouraging this hate, because it spares them from our scrutiny. It feels like we are close to the end of this era because it is hard to imagine that the working class could endure this for much longer. And yet other systems of oppression have lasted for much longer than this one has. And further, it seems as though too much of the media, and of advertising, has convinced too many. It will be incredibly difficult to loosen the grip of our current political system’s religion on the working class. I have been shocked to see comments refer to the Tory manifesto as “too little, too late”, implying that many think there is actually some good promised in it, when it is nothing less than an unapologetic wish to punish those weakest in society.
The Labour party is also a right-wing party.
We don’t have any real left-wing prospects.
And, now that I know more about how we define right and left, I wish we would get rid of those definitions and the old notions so many attach to them. Too many will consider themselves right-wing without realising how many of the values they share with socialists.
What I find most sickening about Rishi Sunak, is that this is a person who is rich enough not to be bought, and yet, instead of using that opportunity, to make real change, he is not. Our parliament, our government, these systems are far from perfect, but this has not prevented others from working within these systems to make things better, two examples being David Lloyd George as Prime Minister and Aneurin Bevan as an MP.
I know each of us needs to try and make what difference we can, even when we are being failed by those who could more easily make things better for all. Maybe if I can get back to working on my music video project for Gaza, for my song ‘Territory’, this would be one small way of contributing to the world, by adding my small voice to those asking for changes, be it on a different matter. But my depression has been so bad, with all that has been weighing me down, all these fears about so many things. It has been paralysing. I wish I could get back to the music. Yesterday, a picture of The Beatles that has been up in my hallway for years fell down. I could believe that this was The Universe’s way of telling me that even The Beatles, be it just those particular ones who’ve been watching me for years from their spot on my hallway wall, have given up on me.
2020 and the start of 2021, that time had been the only time, since my accident, where there had been any real feeling of hope for the future. I was making great projects, in fact, I couldn’t stop making them, my dad was still here, and Abu was healthy, and Abu would run round the garden of my childhood home and I had some quality time with my parents when I’d see them, and my dad was, for the first time in his life, not acting disappointed in me, as I was trying to make a documentary for him, about things that mattered to him, in his family history, a wish he had after being diagnosed with cancer. I don’t think I can now ever bring myself to finish that documentary. To edit all the work I put into it together. Why finish the documentary now that my dad is too dead to see it? Why watch that footage when it will remind me of the hope I had then, and of the childhood home that the family is getting rid of. For all the difficult times I had there, it was still my shelter for most of my life, it was my home. Why could we not save it? I had thought that small garden, that soil, it would be our ‘land’, forever. That grass, those flowers. What about the fact that that was the place where I first made music? Isn’t that enough of a reason to save it? If the accident hadn’t happened, after I’d had financial independence in music, I would have bought the place from my parents in order save it, those memories.
I had hung That Beatles pic up around between two and three years after my accident. I had put it up trying to be positive, and imagine there may still be a future for me. Then the drama with the music video production I tried working with to make a video for ‘Toes’ happened (a project I never ended up sharing due to the abuse and exploitation I suffered by trying to work with this company despite my being in a vulnerable state, my putting all my hopes into this project after my dad was diagnosed with cancer). That project continues to financially scar me today, I am still paying back on it. Those people were truly evil, they essentially found someone vulnerable and stole from her. It has been so traumatic. That experience would be enough for many people to want to give up on its own let alone my accident. But trying to make the documentary for my dad, that gave me hope. I felt my dad was proud of me, and for once this was because of my creativity, rather than in spite of it.
I wonder, if I had never met the drummer, in 2021, would I have remained focused on the documentary and my music projects? Did I just give up because my parents were now too busy to see me, my younger sister having come over to stay with them, and given that my dad had cancer? I thought it was okay to allow myself that experience, of feeling attention from someone. But it was such a shame, to lose that time of potential, giving it instead to someone who just wanted to use me, for sex and for a place to stay, neither of which I gave to him I’m relieved to say. But it’s so obvious now, that he did not like me, and only wanted to use me, and that I willingly translated the attention he gave me, into believing he cared about me, when nothing could’ve been further from the truth. He didn’t care at all about me. Sometimes I still think the time spent with him was not completely wasted, as it’s shown me that, however useless and worthless I feel, I should not give my time and energy to someone who does not care about me, even if I find some feelings of fulfilment in caring for the person, and even if I let myself believe that that is reason enough to go on giving them my time and energy. I suppose it felt like a project, doing what I could for him. It was also a way of running away from other problems in my life.
It was the only ‘romantic’ experience I’ve ever had, and we were not in a relationship, and didn’t do anything, so didn’t even kiss. The only thing romantic about it was that I had been open about liking him early on and that gave him the confidence to pretend he liked me too, in his efforts to use me. I wonder, why, even when I had been beautiful, before the accident, I had never got asked out by anyone. I didn’t actually used to care though, I was so focused on my music. It is only now, when I look back, and realise my young years are over, that not once, has a man asked me out, or said that he liked me in a romantic way. All I’ve got are, every now and then, the insulting sleazy comments some say, the comments that basically mean that they think you are not worthy of any effort and that you’d be desperate enough to just go to bed with them for that zero amount of effort they have made by being so open about what they want. I have never met anyone who has fallen in love with my character, or even, wanted to get to know me more, so that they could possibly fall in love with it.
I’m realising how much stronger I’ve had to be in life for never having that source of nurture and encouragement that a good romantic relationship could’ve provided me with. I could’ve had someone on my team during so many difficult times.
A few weeks ago, when the lovely local girl Anista, got me thinking about relationships, by saying she wishes I would find someone, I wrote here about how that stirred up feelings of loneliness in me. Whilst I have got over that for the most part now, in that, I know there is so much more I need to focus on, and I’ve accepted being alone for now, as I feel too strongly that it would be better to be with the right person rather than just anyone, this new question now comes to mind from time to time. Why has no man made any effort with me? I made effort: I was the one who told the drummer I liked him. Even when I was at the office I had asked someone whether they liked me, as I thought they did, and I liked him, though I admit, I was relieved when he said he wasn’t interested, as I was so worried about focusing on music at the time. The oddness of this has been all the more obvious to me when I realise that since having my dog Abu, and the help Abu has given me, with getting out and about, there would’ve been ample opportunities for anyone to approach me. People make small-talk all the time over Abu. I mean, I suppose I don’t just randomly approach men, and yes, some people, like myself, need to have an emotional bond, to feel attracted. But again, there has been ample opportunity for people to get to know my character, and yet, I guess it has not been that particularly amazing enough for anyone to care much. Never mind. I realised the other day, and wrote a post about it here, that it is far better to be alone than to be with someone who is not in love with me (who I am in love with too of course). Apparently I am not particularly easy to love, but I suppose looking back on my life, as I have whilst writing this post, I have not had an easy life, and that will’ve played a part, in my character being the way it is.
It’s not helped my confidence that I’ve put on some weight in recent months. All the stress, all the fear, has led to overconsumption in efforts to comfort myself. It is no wonder why, for a brief while, I even considered whether a local, younger than myself, who is sweet in character, could’ve had romantic potential, when clearly, we would never have made sense as a match. I wanted him to like me, so I could feel better about myself, so I could feel attractive. So I thought that, since he has a lovely character, that that might be enough. But I know he’s not the one. He does not care about me in that way, if he had, he would have shown me in some way by now. And he wouldn’t know the first thing about how to make me laugh or charm me. He’s perfect for someone else, but he’s not the one for me. We both deserve better.
The last two days I’ve not practiced the keyboard in the cafe in the mornings. I take Abu’s pills with me in the mornings too, and I think it all just seems too much to take and try to do. And sometimes it’s so busy and noisy at the cafe, and I feel guilty for taking up space with the keyboard. I don’t know. I’d been finding hope from the new idea of practicing keyboard in the cafe in the mornings. I hope I find another way of making it part of my routine. I could not practice at home, there are too many painful childhood memories of being denied piano lessons that would haunt me. I need to be out and distracted enough from those thoughts.
Anyway, I have been so low, I thought I should write a bit to help, even though this has been an especially messy stream-of-consciousness post.
I hope Abu, my mum, and I can be strong for a few more years together, and that I can find a way to keep going, with bills, during that time too. I feel so scared about so much.
Sometimes it helps to feel I have put some of the problems down in words, as though I could temporarily trap the problems in these words for a while before they make my life worse. And sharing these thoughts helps too, by helping me to believe that there are people out there who understand, who are rooting for me, who are on my team.
LYNA GALLIARA 