Debbie Harry and a Lamp.
The only light entering my bedroom shines on a dust-covered empty bottle of Lacoste aftershave, sitting on top cardboard packaging of my old Lenovo laptop. A June 24th, 2016 issue of The Mirror is tucked behind them, against the wall. Nothing special about that day, beyond the fact it was the last time I bought a newspaper.
The curtains are almost never open and don't stretch all the way to the left, otherwise the dim would triumph completely.
A Marks & Spencers suit jacket hangs from my wardrobe, diverting my focus from the aftershave. I wore the suit once to my dads funeral and lost the trousers, some time and some place since then. I didn't want to wear a suit that day because I didn't want to be there to begin with. I reluctantly went because I didn't want to embarrass mam by making a self-absorbed, dramatic absence.
I wanted to be with my dad but be wherever he was, not where his lifeless body was.
Neither the cardboard nor suit enter my consciousness much, both peripheral to the centerpiece of that corner of my small room, a canvas print of Debbie Harry on the roof of her apartment building, West 58th Street, NYC in 1977.
These days it's partly obscured by a mountain of clothes, which haven't been moved in months, I'm afraid what I'll find if I disturb it, dead or alive. Chaos is a symptom of depression for me, basic self-care feels like an ordeal.
It's a hell of a lot easier to stop caring about yourself, than it is to start.
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I never asked and wish I did, so still don't know why dad bought it for me but I can guess.
I'm a casual fan of Blondie, nowhere near enough to warrant getting a poster in my early 30's, but I think I once remarked that she conveyed so much with one simple eyeroll on the 'Love's gone behind' lyric in the video for Heart of Glass.
Dad had a good memory for the insignificant.
Debbie's eyes are rolled in the print.
The back of my curtains have coffees stains all over them.
My boxroom is cramped, coffee cups pile up on the skirting board. I'm not a big coffee drinker, don't particularly even like it but drink it out of habit. I'm a big coffee waster. I end up with 6 cups of almost full coffee on there, after taking a few sips out of each one and not carrying any out to wash.
They inevitably end up becoming part of the fabric of the curtain.
To the right of my bed, there's an old telly, on top of an old Sky Box. I lost the telly remote and the Sky remote doesn't work, turning it on is pointless regardless.
There's no terrestrial stations on the TV and none of the channels work anymore on the expired viewing card. I've tried giving it away, even charities didn't want it. I really should throw it off the balcony some night and go down and pick up the pieces.
For now, there's some comfort in a bright blue light at night.
Exputex and Gaviscon are on my right-side locker, beside a couple of empty antidepressants.
A lamp belonging to my nan takes pride of place on it, it still smells of her house up close, all these years after her death. The bulb in it is broken and there's no plug at the end of the lead even if it wasn't but it's there and I'm glad it is. Beside the lamp, replacement earphone coverings sit on top of a photo of a girl I love, who hates me.
I've photos scattered all over my room but a photo of the ultrasound of our lost baby is the only one I framed. I managed to knock it over and smash the frame, which felt symbolic.
The springs on my bed are irreparably broken and it sinks badly, which has really hurt my back over the years, though that was already a mess from living with Pectus Excavatum and Scoliosis.
I've tried sleeping on both ends and flipping the mattress but it's all the same. A third pillow arrived recently, mam was throwing one out, so I got hold of that. It's softer than my other two and has helped me sleep in recent days.
The headboard on my bed is a magnet for dust, of which there's plenty to attract.
There's half a dozen wood chips on my left locker, a lasting testament to mindless stupidity.
I stir the coffee and take the spoons out in my room; I know I need to put them bottom-up, to avoid them sticking to the wood, yet consistently forget and end up pulling chunks off the top of the veneer, after the coffee remnants have stuck to it. Oraldene and Clove Oil sit next to a candle oil burner, obscured by empty Lucozade's that I haven't moved in months.
I am a Clove Oil super-fan.
All my teeth are broken and I got badly addicted to painkillers during their descent into ruin, which in turn destroyed the lining of my stomach. I don't know if any of that is even tangentially related to my hiatal hernia but I can't see how it helped anything. I feel sick when I think about how many painkillers I took over the years.
It's an unpleasant experience, Clove Oil, many times a day but it's not a destructive one.
Cotton balls soaked in it, trying to numb any sensation in my mouth but numb trumps pain and I probably owe my life to the stuff because I often thought of killing myself to make it stop. It's like living with permanent paper cuts in my mouth. There's strange red blotches on my tongue recently but I avoid doctors, partly in case they give me any good news, such as I'm dying.
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On the ground beside my left locker, there's an empty bottle of Lynx, beside a box of photos.
There must be over a thousand photos in that box; people who are long since gone, most are dead, the others cut themselves out of my life, a wise decision. I rarely look inside it but when I do, I think of the Beatles 'In My Life', a song I loved for many years, though slipped into obscurity until I saw Bono singing it for Bob, on the U2 Twitter page.
It was a brave choice for John Lennon to write that near the height of Beatlemania, a clear departure into adult songwriting.
"Some are dead, some are living,
In my life, I've loved them all."
A far cry from 'I wanna hold your hand'.
On the radiator is a source of shame and stench.
I don't know exactly when it started, but I know why it started.
I was having an horrendous anxiety attack in the middle of the night. I usually count my pulse during these and only get worried if it gets above 210 beats per minute for more than 2 minutes, which it did, so I went with 999. I called them back a few minutes later when it subsided to 180 beats, to say I think I'll be ok and sorry for bothering them.
I was bursting for the toilet and tried to get up, my legs felt like jelly, so I grabbed the pint glass on my locker as an emergency. I emptied it and put it back on my radiator and ever since have used it as an emergency toilet in the night, if I feel I can't make it to the bathroom from anxiety attacks, which in truth I always can.
It's all in my mind that I can't make it yet I allow my mind to trick me into thinking I'll collapse on the way and be found dead in the morning. Panic attacks are very difficult to describe to non-sufferers but every one of them is a complete journey into irrationality, via debilitating physical sensations.
I find a comfort in the certainty I can make it back to my bed, when I reach that destination of unfounded fears.
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I'm writing this on an old laptop, held together underneath by green tape, which makes me smile. It's an old version of Windows though I upgraded to 8, it still works, mostly. The E and N keys jam a little bit and the space bar has seen better days but I get by with it. I really like typing, partly because I can't see the other side of my hands when I type.
My hands are a permanent reminder of the past.
Palmar erythema, usually known as Liver Palms, due to how common it is with liver damage. There's a strange beauty and perverse irony in how symmetrical the red blotches are, on both of my hands. It feels like the antithesis of the unhinged chaos of addiction, which is how they ultimately got that way.
For years, I've felt this room would be where I die, during the night, with Debbie Harry the last person I'll see, because I am alone in life.
I even thought that wouldn't be such a bad way to go overall, but the more I listen to John's words, 'In My Life', the more I feel a strengthening resolve in another perspective. I haven't quite resorted to talking to the canvas print just yet, but Debbie's presence in my room feels like a small piece of my dad is still with me, much like my nan's lamp does.
"I know I'll never lose affection,
For people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them."
Silence within isolation can disturb the mind but I can always fill that silence with the sound of their voices, in my mind.
In that sense, I am not alone.
Can't be alone.
I am surrounded by love, in my loneliness.
