Yes It's That Time of Year Again

I feel unaccountably anxious. This is an improvement on this morning
when I woke up screamingly anxious. Phoning the boyfriend and waking
him up with a 20 minute non stop tirade did help a little. The feeling
has ebbed slightly as the day has gone on but left me with a definate
edginess. A sense of something gathering, some impending doom.

Well truly it hasn't been a good week. Monday wasn't good with me
having to use The Public Transport and all. Two and a half hours to get
home from a place that is 40 minutes by car. Having to sit in
Northampton Bus Station for 40 minutes was not a good experience. It is
a subterranean wind tunnel full of grime.

Tuesday wasn't much better. I was woken in the middle of the night by
my mobile phone, the name of one of my good friends flashing away. I
don't know about you but as soon as a phone rings in the middle of the
night I start to panic. It can't be good news in the middle of the
night.

But it wasn't Mike's voice on the phone. A male voice told me there had
been an accident and did I have a contact for any close friend or
relative of Mike. I don't. I felt myself filling with dread. The male
voice asked me if I knew what Mike had been wearing. I haven't seen
Mike for a week or two. I tried to imagine what he might have been
wearing and could see him lying in a wrecked car somewhere, bleeding.
The voice told me it was the Police Station in Bournemouth but when I
asked for a number the phone went dead.

I felt sick and shaky. Confused at being woken I hadn't really been
with it or I would have realised police probably would give you their
name first of all. I lay in bed panicking and dialled Mike's home
number. He didn't reply.

So I got out of bed, feeling unsafe in my own house. Paranoid somebody
would be downstairs I got dressed and screwed up my courage. Nobody was
there. I never feel unsafe in my house at night. I sleep like the dead
or as my mother says like someone with a clear conscience.

I phoned Bournemouth Police Station and in a quavery voice explained
what had happened. I was pretty sure it was a crank call but even so if
there was the slightest doubt that Mike might be lying unidentified in
a hospital somewhere I couldn't leave it. Or I just wanted to speak to
someone. The man at the other end was kind and reassuring. He said it
would be a crank call but would check it out for me. Anxiously I made
tea and waited for him to phone back.

He phoned and of course there was nothing he could tell me. He had
phoned all the hospitals and asked all around and there was nobody who
knew anything.

After calming down I did eventually go back to bed but the phone rang
again at 7 am. Mike's home number this time. He sounded shaken. His
phone had been stolen the night before and whoever had taken it had
gone through his phone book and called everyone with the same story.
Mike's friends all over the country were panicking. Weirdest of all
though was the reason for Mike sounding shaky. On his way to work that
very morning he had driven his car off the road. He had had an
accident. Not the night before as the crank caller said, but later. It
was freaky.

I haven't quite recovered from the weird feelings of Wednesday. I
talked to Mike a couple of times. He settled down, was only bruised,
but I couldn't understand how someone could gain pleasure from making
such calls in the middle of the night. And I couldn't get rid of the
thought that one of my good friends could have been dead.

And now it is Halloween. I always think October is a weird time of
year. I have been working today and my mentor came round this
afternoon. My writing mentor although she is more than that. It wasn't
until we talked about what day it was when my daughter came home full
of trick of treat plans that I realised.

Seven years ago on Halloween my father died. He died after an operation
to remove most of his liver. Cancer. When they got inside him they
found he was shot through with it. There wasn't a place it hadn't
invaded so they said after. They just stitched him back up. There was
nothing they could do. He never regained consciousness and I never saw
him. I had seen him the week before in hospital. Halloween was the day
my parents got married. He died on what would have been their 30th
wedding anniversary.

Well maybe that's the reason I feel weird, edgy, anxious.

Each year there is a build up to this anniversary and each year I
forget why I feel tense, upset, vulnerable. Somehow it focusses me on
things I don't want to think about without me realising. It's the time
of year I feel most acutely that I am alone.

Well I am sitting here drinking dry martinis. It seems the only way to
take the edge off edginess. I can cope, I always do.