The final countdown

And when it ends, it ends like this.

***

I sit on a Croatian beach, buried deep in the islands in the north. It hit 38 degrees earlier today, and the air is still heavy and hot though it’s past midnight. The pebbles are sharp beneath me, and I shift my weight.

“I think you are very beautiful,” says Johan. Johan is sweet; he lives in Cologne, speaks very good English, plays a lot of football and wears a t-shirt with a deeper V than I would ever find attractive back in the UK. But this – right here, on this Croatian beach, with the hum of drum and bass thundering through the sand, and the rub of my dress on my sunburnt back – this feels different.

“Your eyes, your smile, your laugh… I think you are just like Jennifer Aniston.”

I laugh. “Isn’t she in her forties?”

“Oh, yes, well, I didn’t mean to say you were forty, just that I find you very beautiful. Your eyes sparkle.”

I laugh again. I met Johan what seems like hours ago, dancing outside a bar set back from the beach. I stumbled slightly on the sand; he caught me and told me that rhythm was over-rated.

“It’s fine, I’m joking. Anyway, someone told me that I looked like Nora Batty earlier, so you’re doing better than him.”

“Nora Batty…who is that?”

He looks confused, and I realise that this joke probably won’t translate. I silence him with a kiss, and we make our way back to the bar where I order a bucket of Long Island Ice Tea and he, sweetly, declares it too strong for him and buys a couple of Cokes to dilute it.

The night passes; we dance with his friends, we drink the local cider, we laugh. He asks what I do, and I nearly tell him but at the last minute, I change my mind and say I work in publishing. Things are different here, I think.

We wander a little way from the others and sit down. The sea shimmers in the moonlight and the lasers from the beach clubs flick over the water.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, as he takes my arm and kisses his way up it. A mixture of sun cream and insect repellant, I think to myself.

“That this will make a good story for my blog,” I reply, distractedly.

“You write a blog?” he asks. “Why? What’s it for?”

And for the first time,  I don’t know.

Things are different now,  I think; I’m not the same person I was two years ago. I don’t really want to share everything that happens to me. More than that, I can’t share everything; because colleagues read my blog, because a friend has stopped speaking to me because of something he found; because I can’t find the time to put metaphorical pen to paper.

Some time later, as my watch ticks over to 6am and the sky starts to lighten, heralding the start of tomorrow, Johan and I say goodbye.

“Meet me here tomorrow,” he asks. “I’ll be here – right here – at 11pm. I’ll wait.”

“Alright,” I laugh; I kiss him one last time, gather my sandals and head for the bus stop.

“Wait!” he calls, and jogs after me. “This is for you.” It’s a straw that he’s tied into the shape of a heart.

“You’re such a cliche, Johan,” I laugh, feeling like I have never laughed this much in someone else’s presence. “For future reference, crap origami does NOT work for girls.”

“You deserve cliches,” he replies, “you and your sparkling eyes.”

***

I don’t go back the next night. Instead, Laura and I wander into the Old Town and eat fresh seafood in a fairy-lit restaurant overlooking the harbour. We share a litre of cheap local wine and, later, a couple of cocktails. At 11pm, I look at my watch and wonder if Johan is waiting for me.

A day later, the festival is over. I spend the next few days in Croatia, the week after in Portugal and finally, on a grey Saturday in the middle of July, I fly home, tanned, happy and feeling inexplicably like things make more sense than they have in a long time.

“You look so well,” says my Mum as she waves goodbye to us at Lisbon airport. Four hours later, I’m watching the rain hit the Gatwick tarmac. I catch the train to London Bridge, then the 141 to Southgate Road. I put some washing on, shower, draft a blog post, and then I grab my cardigan, keys and phone and head out to meet some friends.

Two weeks later, I press ‘Publish’. When it ends, it ends like this.

Things can only get better

Yesterday I met Joe Galliano, the Editor and Founder of “Dear Me: A Letter to My 16-Year-Old Self“. It made me wonder what I would say to the 16-year-old version of myself.

Dear Ellen

You are currently best friends with the boy who will become your first love. You will want to spend all your time with him but don’t neglect your friends; you will still be swapping advice and gossip with them long after he gets married and moves to Hong Kong.

You will get top results in your A Levels without needing to work. IGNORE THIS. When you go to university, work hard. Meet your tutor, pay attention in lectures. If you don’t, you will get a 2.2, and you will be holed up in your bedroom crying while everyone else is out celebrating.

Don’t cheat on D. Or, at least, don’t tell him. When T cheats on you, walk away the first time, not the second. When J breaks up with you, be sad for a day and then get over it. Two years later, you will see a photo of him and you will thank God that you are no longer with him.

Keep playing sport. You will always feel amazing after exercise, but you will not be able to step onto a netball court eight years later and remember the 3 foot rule. In fact, you will be out of breath and dizzy after five minutes, and pulled up for contact roughly every two seconds. You will be jealous of all the girls who make it look effortless – the ones who kept playing.

You will be ambitious; never forget that or apologise for it. Work will not always be straightforward, but keep battling. Do not be afraid to speak up, but listen to other people; sometimes they speak more sense than you do. Do not cry in the office. If a man is paid more than you for the same job, dispute it. You will win.

Remember that everything happens for a reason; it will help you see the good in situations that on the face of it are pretty bleak. You will be made redundant, but this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. You will work for a boss with whom you stay in touch once you both move to other jobs and to whom you will say, completely truthfully, “I would not be as good at my job now if I hadn’t spent 18 months learning from you.” Louise will move out of your flat and you will feel, briefly, betrayed. Don’t; one of the girls who comes to look round will be called Gemma and she will become one of your best friends in the entire world.

When your best friend’s dad is diagnosed with cancer and dies six months later, you won’t know what to say. Be honest; tell her that. But also remember that simply letting her know that you are there means a lot more than anything you could say.

Call your parents more often. When you are older you will realise how amazing they are and how much you love them, but you will never tell them enough. Call them right now in fact; they will be delighted to hear from you.

Do not worry too much about your weight or the way you look. You are not a supermodel; it is not how you make your money or your reputation. Listen instead to the people who tell you that you’re funny, charismatic, loyal and intelligent. You will still be all of those things when you’re 85.

Realise that you can only do so much. Spend the time that you have with the people who make you laugh; do not be afraid to abandon those who no longer make you happy. You do not need to stay with friends with someone just because you went to school with them.

You will have a tendency, as do all your siblings, to over-think things. Don’t. You have a limited amount of time alive; make the most of it. Stay out late; say ‘yes’ to invites; if someone wants to go to the pub, go with them. Try your hardest at everything you care about; never send a text that you wouldn’t want your best friend to read; don’t worry about your wrinkles. If you’re eating a Dominos a week, you need to change something.

For the most part, just enjoy it. Because it only happens once.

See you on the other side.

Ellen

Disappointed, once more

In October, I sign up for the London Marathon 2012, because last year’s race was the best day of my life. “Unprecedented,” I think. “Who’d have thought a year ago that I’d run two marathons?” But already I’m imagining the euphoria as I cross the finish line, the months of hard work culminating in the most glorious sense of achievement.

The training is easier this time around; I’m faster, fitter, find the long runs easier. “Anything under five hours,” I answer, if I’m asked what time I’m aiming for. With five weeks to go, I run a personal best of 3hr40 over 20 miles.  I am ecstatic, and I drop it into conversation at every opportunity for the next few days. “What’s that, Ellen?” asks Drew, as I recount the anecdote for the forty-sixth time. “You went for a…run, was it?”

Two weeks later, I do another 20 miler. I’m confident when I set out, but by mile 5 I have to walk because my knee’s hurting. I panic, but when I gingerly start running again a few minutes’ later, my knee feels ok. I keep going, walking when necessary, and I finish in just under 4 hours. I’m quiet when I get home; my knee aches slightly and I ignore it.

One week until race day. I’m excited but also anxious: I haven’t run for over a week but my knee’s still aching. “You’ll be fine,” I tell myself. “You can’t drop out now. Remember how good you’ll feel when you cross that finish line. How bad can it be?”

To everyone else, I’m brave but sensible. “I’m going to give it a go,” I say, “and  I can always drop out if I need to,” not for a second thinking that I’d ever do that. I’m finishing this marathon if it’s the last thing I do.

I don’t sleep well the night before the race, but when I get up, I’m excited rather than nervous. The sky’s blue and the sun’s peeping over the tops of the Dalston tower blocks; it’s going to be a good day. I make my way to Greenwich Park, the sun warm on my face. “Gorgeous morning for a jaunt,” I tweet. Katy Perry plays over the sound system; runners mill about, queuing for the loos, stretching, eating cereal bars. The t-shirt of the woman in front of me bears the inscription “Miss you Mum” and I think, again, what an incredible experience the London Marathon is, and how proud I am to be a part of it all.

I line up in my starting pen, and I’m buzzing with adrenaline and excitement – I can feel it’s going to be a good run. Slowly, we start shuffling forwards, cheering every time the camera swings over our sun-warmed heads. “If I knew this was how fast we’d be going,” jokes a woman next to me, “I’d have done this ages ago. Have a good race.” And just like that, I’m over the starting line and I’m running my second London Marathon.

The first ten miles are fine. I have plenty of energy, but I can feel that my knee’s not moving as freely as it should, and my time splits over each mile are at least a minute slower than they should be. I speed up at mile 12 as we start the approach to Tower Bridge, where my family are waiting. But the crowds are too busy, and I don’t see them; I turn right towards the Docklands feeling slightly deflated. And then, with no warning, at mile 13.5 my knee completely gives way. I slow to a walk, but I can only hobble. After a few more minutes, I try to speed back up to a run, but my knee creaks in agony and I cry out. I limp to the St John’s Ambulance stall at mile 14, where I explain what’s happened to a sympathetic medic, who plys me with paracetemol and suggests I sit down for a few minutes. When he comes back from dealing with another runner who’s dehydrated, dizzy and vomiting, he tests my knee. “Don’t worry,” he says, “we’ll have you back out there in no time.” But as he prods and presses my knee, and I yelp with pain when he tries to bend it, his expression changes to one of concern. “I don’t think you should continue,” he says finally. “You need to go and see a doctor to get a proper diagnosis, but if you run another 12 miles in that state, you could end up doing some serious long term damage.”

And just like that, I’m out of the London Marathon.

I limp up the road to Shadwell DLR; wait for a train to Tower Gateway. The wind no longer seems so inviting now I’m dressed only in a running vest and shorts. From Tower Hill, I take the tube to Embankment, where I see runners clad in their medals and finishers’ t-shirts. A steward cuts the tag off my shoe and crosses out my running number. I walk against the tide back to the Mall to pick up my belongings; I wait for twenty minutes in the cold while they try and identify my bag. Around me, people hug and congratulate each other; all I can see are medals and t-shirts and people who crossed the finish line.

I limp to the post-race reception, and I bump into Drew en route. “Ellen!” he screams. I shake my head, and before I can say anything, the tears that I’ve been holding in start to fall. “I didn’t do it,” I sniff. “I didn’t finish.”

In the reception, there are more hugs and tears; I watch other runners have their victory photos taken and I drink a glass of white wine too quickly. The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur and after a couple of hours, I leave. On the bus home, my knee stiffens and locks and when I eventually stand up, it screams with pain. Sharp tears prick my eyes, and when I finally get in, I go straight to my bedroom. “Right,” I tell myself, “you can have ten minutes of feeling sorry for yourself, and then you move on. It’s not the end of the world. Stop being pathetic.”

And so for ten minutes I cry. I cry as if it is the end of the world, as if completing it was so important to me for reasons I couldn’t articulate, as if I know that I’ll never run another marathon again. And then I wipe my eyes, get into the shower and ten minutes later, it’s as if today never happened, were it not for my sunburnt cheeks, the pile of dirty running clothes on the bathroom floor and the fact I can’t bend my left knee.

How come you’re always such a fussy young man?

A couple of weeks ago, I go to a work event where for three hours I talk and laugh with colleagues and supporters. The event’s a success; afterwards we head to a pub across the road to debrief and congratulate each other. Laura and I are tired, so we finish our wine and start collecting our coats and bags, ready to head home. “I’ll come too,” says Gareth, and after some hugs and “See you tomorrow”s, we leave and head to the bus stop. As we walk past McDonalds, the three of us look at each other. We haven’t eaten all night; we need something to soak up the alcohol. “Ooh, I didn’t know they were doing McDonalds Monopoly again,” I say, as I peel the sticker off my fries five minutes later. “Oh look! I’ve got Park Lane! If I get Mayfair, I win fifty grand.”

A few days later, I’m killing time in Angel, waiting for dinner with a friend. I’ve rolled around H&M, Gap and French Connection, but when I check my watch I’ve still got half an hour to go. I’m about to head over to M&S and waste some more of my pay packet on new underwear, when I see McDonalds halfway up Chapel Market. “It couldn’t hurt,” I think, as a plan begins to form, “to have a Diet Coke while I wait for Nic.” And before I know it, I’m at the counter and I’m ordering and suddenly I’ve got another two game stickers in my hand.

The next day at work, I tell some of my colleagues about my new project, and James overhears. “I’ve got some stickers too,” he interrupts. “We all had McDonalds on Saturday night.”

“YES!” I say, as I stick his contributions into my game sheet. “A partner-in-crime!”

That evening, I have no plans and no food in the fridge, and almost inevitably I wind up in McDonalds on City Road. I read my book, collect my tokens, eventually take my leave. “We can totally do this,” I text James on my way home. “I’ve got another nine tokens.”

“McDonalds on a Wednesday night?” he replies. “You’ve hit a low point.”

On Thursday night, full of Bank Holiday cheer, we go to the pub and there’s wine and cider and, later, shots. At about 10pm I start collecting my things. “I’m hungry,” I say to the others. “I need to get some food.”

James looks at me. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asks, and half an hour later we’re in McDonalds Camden, three Large meals and two McFlurrys between us. We sift through the tokens, getting rid of the duplicates and exclaiming over the new ones. We’ve won cinema tickets, an apple pie, breakfast, and we’re one sticker away from £50,000, an iPad, a Mini Cooper, a camcorder, a weekend break. “We can TOTALLY do this,” I say. “We just need to keep going.”

But the next day, I meet my brothers at Liverpool Street for the train journey back to my parents’. I’m hungover and tired; I need food. I look at McDonalds, breathe in the familiar aroma of chicken nuggets and fries, think of my game sheet and the empty spaces – and then I turn on my heels and head for Upper Crust.

I don’t want to miss a thing

Tonight we go to Lou’s for spag bol and wine. We gossip and laugh and eat too much, and finally we push our chairs away from the table, loosen our belts and fall silent.

“Did you know,” Gemma says, in the lull of conversation, “that one of the boys who lives below me used to be in Blazin Squad?”

And of course the laptop comes out, Youtube goes on, and we watch video after video of Blazin Squad, trying to identify Gemma’s neighbour. “Apparently he was the fat one,” she says, helpfully.

“There were just so many of them,” I say, as we watch all 18,000 of them prance around in two-tone shirts, telling us they’ll see us at the crossroads.

Suddenly, Gemma interrupts. “Oh my god! Have you seen Christian the Lion? It’s amazing, it makes me cry every time.”

“Never heard of it,” I reply. “Let’s watch it. How emotional can it be?”

So we watch it, and Gem tears up, and I ask if we can replay it, and we decide we all want pet lions for Christmas.

And then:

“You know they went back there the year after, and he didn’t know who they were?” says Lou.

Oh.

Dreams can come true

Take it from me: there is no better time to write a blog post than when you’re trying to waste time because you’re standing in a non-moving queue about to board an Easyjet flight to Amsterdam, where your destination airport has, according to the #Schipol hashtag, been in ‘TOTALE CHAOS’ only hours before and your pilot, according to the overhead loudspeaker, ‘cannot be found at this time’. Brilliant.

So excited was I about today’s brief European jaunt, that I couldn’t sleep last night, and when I did eventually drop off the wrong side of 3am, promptly woke up twenty minutes later thanks to a terrible yet in retrospect ridiculous nightmare. (Yes, it’s a dream story – stick with me.)

I dreamt that Laura and I were shopping in Sainsburys late one evening, when I noticed a man hovering near us, watching us.

“He’s creeping me out,” I said to Laura. “Let’s pay and go.”

We hurried out of the supermarket and back to the flat, whereby I took up position by the spyhole in the door. “I don’t think he followed us,” I told Laura, “but just in case…”

“What are you talking about?” said Laura, sounding panicked. “I just saw him through the window. He’s outside the door!”

And sure enough, there was a loud banging on the door.

“Who’s there?” I shouted, terrified.

No answer; instead, the man continued to bang. The lock creaked ominously.

“Who is it?” I screamed again.

“Placenta,” he replied.

Placenta?! GOOD ONE SUBCONSCIOUS.

When you’re in need of love they give you care and attention

“Did you know it’s -20 degrees in Amsterdam at the moment?” asked Gemma, as we planned our forthcoming European jaunt over a Monday night milkshake. (Where ‘planned’ means ‘realised we have no idea where we’re staying or when our flights are’.)

“Really?” I replied. “Probably time to invest in some gloves then.”

“Haha,” laughed Gemma, before realising I wasn’t joking. “Well, yes… and some thermals. Anyway, what’s news with you? How’s your housemate?”

“Laura’s bloody great. Probably the best housemate ever. When I was ill, she left me tissues and Lemsip outside my bedroom door. At Christmas I found a Santa’s hat on my bed, and when XXX was being an idiot, she came home with Caroline, Lou and three bottles of wine, and we went dancing all night. I get in after a long day at work, and she tells me there’s a bar of Galaxy in the fridge. Honestly – she’s amazing.”

***

I head home this evening after a tough 40 minute interval session at the gym. “God it’s cold,” I think, as I wait for the bus on Holloway Road and ponder what on earth I can take to Amsterdam that will both a) fit into hand luggage and b) prevent me from developing frostbite. Not even the heat from my workout can take away the chill in the air, and I blow on my hands to keep warm. “Those gloves are probably a priority,” I think, wondering when I’m going to find time to buy some.

Fifteen minutes later, I let myself into my warm flat, practically salivating at the prospect of a hot shower. I throw my keys onto my bed, drop my gym bag by my wash basket, kick my trainers into the corner and – stop. Because something’s caught my eye – a new pair of purple gloves sitting on my bedside table.