Nadiya Sparkles Green : 'Return to Eden'?, 'A Farewell to Arms' ... maybe it was more 'Tender is the night'

As surreal experiences go, this one cerainly warrants a mention. We drove Saturday night to a party I very much wanted to attend. But we were running a bit behind schedule, of course, to drop off the little one so I was not that relaxed setting out - I looked nice though :). Added stress came from it being Ramadhan, it makes me fret about how difficult it will be for the olds' to mind the kid, strikes me as a bit mean of me to palm him off in the holy month. Reduced energy and all. Anyway, slightly jittery, off we went, and I couldn't sleep in the car, Iain was a little beastly in his own fatigued jitteryness. The pile up, you can already see, was immense in the mind of yours truly - the Borderline Personality Disordered One.

ludicrous sight after sight assailed my senses, no, really ...

Then London.

Who knows why the Gods and GPS navigation on Iain's @*&^$% Symbian led us through a picture-postcard scenic route through the sights of London ....

Gaaaah .....

the river, Westminster, the City, like, visiting the palace at Westminster with my Dad, my old life working in all those places, nights out with friends, Shana, Sashi .. .. how did I not cherish you both and keep you close to my heart?, hanging out with Anne-Marie, older memories - day trips as a tourist or with family, the birthday trip to the Eye - my sister, brother and I were so young, so worn out from the party the night before. Oh God, hurts so much, I was a Borderline Personality Disordered mess.

sniff ... very sorry for myself, move over Zelda, horrors, I'm so much like Daisy after all, and I hate her ..... (as in Gatsby)

Poor unhappy Edmund on the bridge, Malcolm and the farcical 'night out' listening to Tebbit, endless lonely sunsets, torturous walks home alone, working for that Website start-up .. .. I hate that I have lived a whole other life, and that I want none of it to have ever happened, it is not better to have lived, to have loved and strived and then to have lost.

wonder if the past would have been different ....

.... if Rock Hudson had been in it ....

The memories were overwhelming and traumatic. Foolishly, foolishly walking to the station with Tom all those years ago, we saw Chris at the ticket gates, oh foolish, foolish girl. Hurt Vickie too, and No ... what we did to Ed, what was I like? Never held on to anything that meant anything, always too foolish to know what was going on. Never true to anything good, idiotic, naive, blind, foolish one. I appear to have been a rather clueless individual in that life.

The most notable thing of the intense experience was not the pain or overwhelming power of the flashbacks though, it was that I panicked and was in turmoil, but did not want to let it sink me, I remembered to breathe, calm as much as that allowed, then used my mindfulness exercise to walk through the flashbacks, letting them stay in their imaginary cubicles, and Iain surprised me by suggesting I get my phone out and read some book to hide, which I did and it worked.

This new life has much to recommend it. R.I.P please the past.