Properly positive this time in All Good Things

I’m glad I wrote that last entry because it’s the first time I’ve actually let myself recall those first few months after Jon died. I didn’t realise what a whirlwind my life was, how rarely I was home, the way I never stopped. Things have changed so much since then.

2016 was different. I said goodbye to Chris at the start of February and ran away to New Zealand for two months to stay with Niki. It was a very healing time for me. Her house was next to the water, and while I really struggled to go outside, I could sit in the living room or on the balcony for hours and watch the tide come in, the wind change direction, and the sun and moon rise over the mountains on the other side of the bay. Occasionally I made it outside down to the beach where I’d lie on the sand and soak up some sun or go for a hike along the cliffs in the breeze. At the end of my visit, I went up to visit my dad on his farm for a week and made a long-held dream of mine come true. Near where he lived in Northland is a stunning bay called Ocean Beach. We’d been there on and off during my many visits to New Zealand but I’d always longed to spend an entire day there. Usually we just parked, walked on the beach for a bit, maybe climbed the cliff on the far side if we had time, then left. And on that trip in 2016, my dad and I went out there and spent the whole day lying on the sand and swimming in the deep blue water, and it was one of those absolutely blissful perfect days you never forget.

I came home in time for Easter, and because I’d promised Chris, I went to the theatre where he was performing. The witch made it clear that I was supremely unwelcome. I won’t write about what she did, the way she behaved. I still have panic attacks when I remember how bad it was. But the following week I fled again, this time to Singapore.

Singapore this time was fine. No Indonesian forest fires. I don’t really remember much about the month I spent there other than it culminated in me seeing Sebastian Stan and Chris Evans right at the end of my stay. They (and the opening of Civil War the following week) sparked a new interest for me, that of films. I spent a lot of the rest of the year watching films and studying them. One of my closest friends works on big blockbusters and she taught me a lot, and I did a couple of courses. It wasn’t because I wanted to work in film, but it was something to distract myself with, a whole new world to explore and discover.

When I got home from Singapore, it was to disaster. Niki had come to the UK for us all to go to Cardiff for what had originally been the end of the UK tour of the new show. Everyone was going, and because we’d booked so far in advance I knew we’d end up sitting next to Annette and her sister for most of the shows. So I already didn’t want to go, then Niki had a severe medical emergency when she arrived in the UK and had to have an operation. She should have still been in hospital but she checked herself out and went by train to Cardiff, determined not to miss any more of what she’d come for, and I couldn’t cope with someone being so careless with their health and their literal life. It was too much stress. I gave my tickets to other people and stayed in London, although I ended up going for the final show.

That final show ended me and Chris. I won’t go into detail, but certain things happened and I knew it was over beyond any hope. I’d spent four months in denial, hoping against hope, but hope was gone.

I withdrew from the world. From everything. I kept not turning up at events I was meant to go to with no real way to explain why. People don’t like it when your excuse is, “I didn’t want to come.” They don’t find that acceptable. But I couldn’t state the true reason. Everyone thought it was because of Annette and her sister. I got dozens of well-meaning lectures about how I shouldn’t let them get to me and I should be stronger than this and I should rise above it. But what was the point? There was no more point. There was no reason to fight, because I had nothing to win. And that’s what I couldn’t explain.

I went to a couple of things. I did a bunch of jobs in London and other cities, went to the theatre in Leicester, saw someone else I knew in the West End. I went to see the show Jon was meant to have starred in next and realised I hadn’t yet accepted the loss of him as a dancer, only the loss of him as my friend. And then I saw Simon again. Something about seeing him sparked me back to life from the numb shell I’d been trapped in since Cardiff six weeks earlier.

The next day I began a very tough court case in London. Everyone else had refused to do it so they asked me to fill in for a day and since it was due to sit for several months, I asked to stay on it. That meant I didn’t have to go anywhere. No planes. No hotels. I could stay at home. The office was thrilled and so began the next two years of my life.

I went a few places. Went to Singapore for three days to see Chris at the end of the international tour. Hadn’t planned to go but went at the very last minute. Don’t ever fly fourteen hours twice in half a week. It’s bad. I went to Plymouth when I got back to see E on the anniversary of Jon’s death. I hated the show he was in, but I needed something that day, and he offered me comfort and solace and warm arms and gentle love. I did a brief job in Dubai during the court summer holidays, then went to Coventry to see Andy’s latest choreographed show. Jenna got tickets to see the new Harry Potter play, and on the hottest day of the year we packed into the theatre for two extremely long shows. Draco and his son were great, but I didn’t much like anything else. It was a hot sunny summer, and I spent a lot of it sunbathing in my garden in London, then went to Singapore for the remainder of the UK court holidays in September.

While I was there, I realised travel no longer interested me. Travel was all I cared about growing up. I didn’t understand the concept of goals unless they related to going places. It was all I wanted to do. Who was I without wanting to travel?

The day I got back, I went to Sadler’s Wells to see a totally different ballet thing. I got there late, about two minutes before it began, and as I was hurrying in, I saw that my empty seat was right beside Annette and her sister. So I left, and accepted that the world of dance was over for me. Who was I without dance?

Four days later, Jenna’s new play opened in the West End. I went along to the opening night and at the afterparty I felt wrong and out of place and abruptly left. The theatre world wasn’t for me anymore either. Who was I without theatre?

I had no idea. But I stayed in London working on my long court case instead of going to Plymouth when the company’s new show opened in November. I gave all the tickets I’d bought for it to other people, hundreds of pounds worth of tickets. I think I went three times, just so I could see Chris. On my last visit, we had a very long talk afterwards. Thrashed out a number of things. He told me he didn’t feel like he could face doing Swan Lake again when it returned the following year, that it hurt too much without Jon. I completely understood. And I wasn’t that surprised when a few months later he announced his retirement from dancing altogether.

I was relieved. No longer would I be missing him dance.

I went to his final show. I bumped into his wife in the bathroom just before it began and she told me she couldn’t understand why he’d kept crying all morning. She was quite irritated and impatient with him. I understood, but I couldn’t explain. Afterwards I cried in his arms and he cried in mine, and it felt a little like the day Jon died. It was a direct consequence of the day that Jon died. Neither I nor he would have left if Jon hadn’t left us first.

I saw him once more after that. Fifteen months later. I’m pretty sure I’ll never see him again.

My long court case ended up lasting for almost two years. Actually it lasted for three, but I’d had enough after two years. Two years of largely staying in one place. Of no longer going anywhere. Of only leaving my front door to go to work. Never leaving for pleasure. Struggling to leave even to go shopping for groceries around the corner. I hardly saw any of my friends. Jenna persisted in keeping our friendship going. She’d text me every day, and for the first couple of years it was hard to talk to her because she was so much a part of it all, but now I treasure her friendship immensely. I don’t know what I’d have done without her, and I’m so grateful that she wouldn’t let me go.

In early 2018, I quit the court case and went to New Zealand for several weeks to visit my dad, who now lived on the beach on the Kapiti Coast near Wellington. I spent my days kayaking on the ocean and hiking in the national park, and it was okay being outside there. When I got home, I was offered a five-month case in Liverpool, so I moved up there into a rented apartment and spent a blazingly hot summer enjoying a city I’d never visited before. It was extremely lonely, since I was working on my own and didn’t know anyone there. Coincidentally, E visited during the first week I was there. He was back with the company, starring in their latest show, and they were there on tour. I couldn’t face going to watch, but I met up with him and it was nice to be with him when I didn’t need comfort, when we could just laugh and joke and have fun together.

My travelling-for-work life resumed again after that. A lot of work in Dubai, frequent trips around the UK, random depositions in European capitals. There were two months in Manchester in mid-winter, during which I made the decision to move out of London and found my dream home on the south coast of England. I learned how to balance time at work with time off, enjoying the beaches and cliffs where I live. I focused on getting over my fear of flying, and succeeded. I found a way to actively enjoy my career, now that I had ways to cope with the damage it causes, and for all of last year I really enjoyed every job. I was always happy, upbeat, full of laughter and confidence and taking joy in everything at work, no matter how stressful or difficult. I even managed to visit a new country, Bahrain, and I faced down Italy again for the first time since Swan Lake ended there amidst such trauma four years earlier.

I took most of last summer off to enjoy living by the beach, culminating in my fantastic trip to Canada, which reignited for me my love of travel and exploring new places. I also spent most of last year writing my second published novel, which was based on something that happened to me a number of years ago and writing it helped me work through the leftover emotions from that (which was really what started my agoraphobia). My agoraphobia was basically non-existent by the end of the year. I worked in Singapore again, in Hong Kong, in Shanghai, in Bangkok, in Seoul. Trips to Dubai were my bread and butter. Edinburgh became a repeating theme. My mother and I finally took that trip around the Highlands we’d been talking about for years, tacked onto the end of one of my Edinburgh trips, and it was such a joy to travel for pleasure. And I started watching ice hockey, staying up all hours of the night, and went to New York and Chicago to see all my new favourite players.

And then everything stopped. And here I am in limbo, with no idea what will happen in the future. Apparently they’re going to announce a lockdown extension until June this afternoon. Even when it’s lifted, what’s going to happen?

I’ve been really happy in my life during the past year or so. But I’ve been lonely. My years in the dance world were filled with people and love and friendship (before Annette and her sister came along). I’d forgotten what that was like. I’m so accustomed to my solitude now that life in lockdown isn’t that different to life the rest of the time when I’m home. I still talk to my remaining friends online. I still write. I still go for walks along the beach when I’m able to make myself go outside.

Whatever happens next, I hope for more. I hope I can create a new life with more people in it again. I miss people. I was wary of them for so long after the trauma of Annette and her sister, but I’m over that now. I’m over them. Annette’s sister was in New York when I was there, going to Swan Lake. The girl I gave my tickets to told me. It didn’t bother me in the slightest. She has no more power over me. There’s nothing more she can take. I have nothing left to lose.

But I’d like a new world. One where I’m no longer living in constant trauma. One where I can have friends and be a friend. One where I can engage more with the world around me, not just with beaches and mountains and forests. Funny that now the world is more dangerous than ever, I actively want to be a part of it.

I don’t know if travel will continue for me. I was really sad to lose all the travel I had planned for this year, but on one level it was a relief. What if I can never travel again? What if this is the end? What if I never get to return to Canada or Chicago, or to visit my dad in New Zealand or my brother in Australia? What if this is it?

I could live with that.