Letting go of control, because the sun belongs to everyone.

I’ve spent 3 years with the whole world at my feet, taking none of it because everything wasn’t exactly as it ‘should’ be, not understanding why I am still miserable.

Valentine’s Day at Kew Gardens, in the same sun.

It’s February 23rd and I was early to work today. I’m never early to work (and, truthfully, it was an accident - Sunday bus services gave me no other option), so a gentler stroll down the hill gave me space to breathe for once. There was a sun I feel I hadn’t seen in years (England, I hate you, I love you, I hope you drown), and the air was crisp and beautiful. I had the space to breathe for once. I don’t think I’ve breathed in months, not really. I suppose I didn’t feel I had much to breathe for. But this morning, I had the space to breathe, and so I did. I breathed. And I looked, and I thought.

I heard a pigeon above me, and when I looked for him he was round and shining and beautiful, basking in the sun like it belonged to him. I suppose it did. I suppose he understood something I continue to struggle with; the sun belongs to everyone. I watched him - because for once, I had the time - and I breathed, and I thought. My mind traced careful steps around his feathers and his beak and his eyes and his crooked feet. There are so many like him, feeling the same sun, the same hunger. And that is not, I realised, a reason to stop feeling it. So, I breathed. I felt the sun. I looked. And I thought.

In a truth which I wrestle with breathlessly for at least a few hours a day, I have been at my boyfriend’s throat for a while. In an effort to preserve a previous understanding of myself, I’d like to say we have been at each other’s throats, but I’d be lying. In all honesty, every time a snarky comment or a jab lurches out of my throat, he seems a little confused, despite his desire to understand. Everything I say feels like it comes out of left field, and I don’t even know it’s coming until it’s there, at our feet, a mountain of why and when and what ifs piling up between us until I struggle to meet his eyes. Of course, if you ask him this, he’ll tell you that it is fair and just and I am making an effort to communicate. But at what point does open, honest, communication become too much? I say the same things every day. I don’t know where they come from - it’s not his fault; really, it’s not. He’ll drop his eyebrows for half a second, or hesitate before saying something, and suddenly I feel like I’m going to vomit. Like the ground underneath me should open up and swallow me whole, that we’d both be better for it, that it’s what we both want, all because of an eyebrow twitch, or a pause, or a tired tone. And this is why I have to admit that I have been at his throat; I have not allowed him to be human enough. In using my tired hands to bandage my old wounds up with it’s okays and you are alloweds, I have been scratching him with the same fingers. Do you still love me and are we okay and please don’t hate me and is something wrong and I love you, I love you, please, every chance my stomach gets, regardless of what the eyebrow drop or the hesitation really means. He’s had a long day. He’s really, honestly, just tired. How many times can he be asked the same questions before he starts to believe them? How many times can his tiredness be about a busy day before it becomes about the anxious verbal vomit he’s met with when he’s home? GCSE Sociology warned me about self-fulfilling prophecy, and here I am, puppeteering it against my own will years later.

The pigeon cooed in the golden light, and everything else was quiet. It didn’t matter how many other pigeons there were, or what they were doing (do pigeons even have the capacity to be aware of others, out of sight?) because he could sing to himself in the sun. I felt the same sun on my face. I breathed. I thought. He’s the only one that matters to him, and how beautiful and how freeing, to be in charge of only yourself-

And suddenly, I was the right size. I was in my body, in a way I never am (in the words of Gabrielle Zevin in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, “..your body, when it was sick, was no longer your own”). I am 5’1.5 and suddenly, I felt like it. Suddenly the houses belonging to everyone else stood tall. I didn’t know who lived in them. Someone did. Suddenly the cars driving past were full of people going to their Sunday shift, or to see their family, or to go shopping. Suddenly I could feel my feet on the floor and my hands in my gloves. Suddenly, I was just me. And I wanted to cry, because everything was lighter, and everything seemed simpler, and I understood what I hadn’t previously, and I was afraid none of it would last. All I have is this. Me: my arms and my legs and my stomach and my bones. It makes sense.

I have been raised to understand control. In order for anything to work, someone has to be in control of it. Nothing should be autonomous, especially not for me, because if there was no Mother to tell me when to shower, I would be an inconvenience. If there was no Mother to tell me what to eat, I would be unhealthy. If there was no school girls to tell me who to talk to, I would be a loser. If there was no ex-boyfriends to tell me what to wear, I would be a slut. If there was no ex-boyfriends to tell me what to say, I would be alone. And I have spent years thinking on some subconscious level that this is how it has to be, and to be thankful for it. Because I am sick, and I am small, and I have had a hard past, so if people didn’t tell me exactly how to do everything, how could I ever be the person they told me I was meant to be? And really, as I realise now, because if they couldn’t control how alone or unhealthy they were, it was a comfort to have control of someone else. As I understood it, unless I wanted my entire life to implode, someone had to have control of everything, always. And when it went from the only control I had being my limbs and a razor, to being completely and entirely left to my own devices once I turned 18, nothing and everything made sense. I’ve spent 3 years with the whole world at my feet and endless opportunities to make friends and have experiences and feel alive, taking none of it because everything wasn’t exactly as it ‘should’ be, not understanding why I am still miserable.

But the sun kissed my face this morning. And a pigeon looked at that same sun like this world was made just for him. And I realised I had the time, I had the space, and most importantly I didn’t need to earn anything, to just breathe. I am one person, and that is beautiful. When it comes down to it, the only thing that is certain, the only thing I can ever count on really controlling, is myself. And there are billions of others who will only ever be able to control themselves, too. The sun this morning was made for me, just like it was made for the pigeon, just like it was made for the commuters and the families and the runners and the squirrels and the trees, just like it was made for my boyfriend. All of whom will use it differently, because they can; it is for them. All I am is myself, and I don’t have to be in control of anything more. The sun was made for my boyfriend to do with it what he wishes. And the reason I fell in love with him is because I love what he chooses to do with it.

So to my beloved, who always wants to understand, who always wants to do the right thing, who always wants to love: I am sorry. I have not been well, and in my distress, I saw you as an extension of myself, something to manage and control. I love you because you are you. Because when the sun gives itself to you, you thank it. In trying to control everything around me, I had lost myself, and I felt I was losing you. But the beauty is that you have never been mine to lose. You can be tired, or sad, or hungry, and it can have nothing to do with me. Because I am 5’1.5, and I can breathe, and the sun was made for you just as much as it was made for me. I love you because of your own experiences, and I made myself miserable trying to take them away from you, for no reason other than I didn’t know I could do any different. And in this process of unlearning everything I know, I will look at the tall trees and feel the sun and I will do my best to know that we are different, and that is why I love you.