I never related to Bree from Desperate Housewives. Her depiction of finishing her housework then pouring a drink, seemed far from my attitude. Yet here I am, 32 and a half years under my belt, house clean and tidy, washing all done and sorted, two glasses down. Oh and it’s 2:30 in the afternoon.
I have rewatched Desperate Housewives at various points in my life.
First introduced to it aged 18. My Media Studies tutor designed an assignment around the first episode. She was maybe 23. I was easily hooked. The storylines of dysfunctional house wives played into my own expectations of family life. On a Saturday jaunt to town with some random friend, HMV had the first three seasons on offer. Back in the days when DVD players were still a thing, I bought them.
Living at my mum’s temporarily at the time, she became hooked on the series, too. Encouraging me to watch the latest ones on Sky boxsets, part of a new package she had bought.
I wasn’t reliably home at that age (wherever that was). Mum had a lot more late nights watching the series than I did. And not long later I departed on my next adventure. I never finished the series, although I had vague recollections of a time jump. My mum told me all about it. Probably trying to connect with me.
It was many years later, two years into a career as a tea, trying to live a more ordinary life, that I revisited those DVDs. I had time, space, and a nice TV. Nothing I had sought out in life, but things I had somehow associated with the level of contentedness necessary to sit and binge watch TV. My ex was asleep by half 8 due to working early. Whilst I had spent the first year joining him in this behaviour, the second year was filled with my efforts to find myself in the life I had created.
Heavily overweight and staring at my own life of desperation out in front of me, the series helped me make the last leap in life that I know of. I had acquired all the trimmings to life. All the things I had been brought up to value, were sitting in front of me. I had security, belonging, a nice house and a nicer car. A man who would never hurt me or cheat on me. But I was depressed. Something was missing.
Ben had met me at a crossroads. A past that I was keen to hide. A future I had already set up by training into a career that was solidified in who wanted to be, not who I had been. The thing that was missing was the truth. As homely as I felt, Ben didn’t know the truth. Moreover, I was never prepared to tell him. He was an accessory to me avoiding my truth.
I watched the later series on demand. just a week after returning from a first class cruise around the Caribbean that included a proposal with a ring I could only dream about, I felt doom.
I admitted my mum’s misgivings to my ‘fiancé’. As expected, he fumed. He told me I needed to put it to bed, or leave.
The life of Bree and others on the screen started to look more like mine. Keeping house. The latest table decorations. Conversations with “friends” I had made became centred on the new Dyson or childcare plans. Apart from those precious weeks in Scotland. Where I could be carefree again. Where I could be me without accusation.
If I carried on. I’d be another person stuck in a sea of desperation. I didn’t see the series as a comfort. I saw it as a challenge. What not to do.
I thought that was the answer. If I didn’t behave like those women, I wouldn’t have their problems. I gave up the security. And the house. And the cars. For the unknown. For Scotland. For being me without accusation.
Except I needed the accusation. I wasn’t mature enough to hold myself to account.
Since then I’ve never felt at home. I reverted to my younger attitude: home was wherever I laid my head. I steadily covered my feelings of not belonging, with drugs and alcohol. Watched my career get further and further from my expectations. Lived with people who had no expectations because they had grown up with nothing. Their expectations of nothing made e ery tiny achievement of mine seem like a mountain. I lived off that. As the same time, I existed alongside a man who was covering his own set of problems.
And here I am.
Drinking wine and binge watching Desperate Housewives.
Technically not from the beginning. I stumbled across the boxsets at my mum’s. Watched the first two seasons over the summer whilst battling with the biggest change I could ever have imagined.
The prompt to watching the rest of the series was when grief hit for a second time. October 31st 2022. 9 months after losing my mum.
Drinking has become a different sort of crutch. I always drank to get drunk. Never out of habit. Always for a good time. In the absence of a good time, I didn’t realise I had replaced what others used drink for, with another habit: smoking.
It takes ages to get drunk, so I have to plan for it being a night on it. I have to put aside some time and some people. I wasn’t going to be one of those desperate women; drinking in the middle of the day. Oh no.
I started smoking grass for various reasons. It had plenty of benefits. Living with someone who could take the risk of meeting up with madmen with dogs; we acquired whatever we needed. The stuff we got was decent and a decent price.
Since he was arrested and I severed ties with almost everyone I knew, I’ve had to rely on small time growers. Growing shit that just doesn’t do the job. To keep the price down to what buyers expect, they had to cut corners somewhere. It wasn’t providing any of the appeal of the soft sticky nuggets that Ru bought home.
I still have the remainders of over an ounce I bought back in the summer. With Ru, an ounce lasted a month at best. Summer was 4 months ago. I can’t even blame Ru. I smoked that stuff, too. It was good. This stuff made me feel anxious and hungry. The next day was fraught with anxiety. Yet still I found myself rolling when I had finished the necessary activities of the day. To distract from the time I had to otherwise think or do. Because… What would I think? What would I do?
It was then I realised I had a habit.
No not a drinking habit. But a habit nonetheless. A habit of avoiding my problems.
Smoke has its drawbacks. It’s bad for the lungs. Smells terrible. And is still illegal to purchase.
I don’t smoke daily like I did with Ru.
I miss it.
I miss him.
I miss me when I met him.
I remember being 29. I remember feeling like the world was mine. I remember feeling like I was part of something. The me I held on a pedestal as the time was no angel. She was still using drugs. She had no idea what I know now. She couldn’t see what others saw.
I met a man. He is the best thing I’ve known in a long time. But he shows me what I am not. I feel inferior. I shouldn’t feel that way. But I do. He is a reminder of the life I left behind. And he is a statement to how far from that life I have strayed. The memories are still there, so is the intent. But is the person?
He still loves me. But that love isn’t (and shouldn’t be) what defines me.
I am not inferior. Neither is he.
I will be fine without him. But I need to address what it would be like without him.
I got used to be alone, or so I had thought. Except I was never really alone. Not really. The house that is half finished, is testament to that.
So here I am, sitting in my room. Drinking wine. Watching reruns of a show that depicts social and emotional problems of housewives in a different country to mine, over a decade ago.
Bree drinking wine is the least of my worries. I see it now. It wasn’t about the wine. Or the affairs. Or anything else my mind had concluded years before. It was the expectation of life.
I expected my mum to be here. That is all. Without her and her invasion of my privacy, I am lost. I don’t know what to do yet. And everyone I respect has always said “if you don’t know what to do, do nothing “. So ‘nothing’ is what I’m doing.
We all need purpose. This is my purpose, now. Writing is my purpose. Studying is my purpose. How people think and do, is my purpose. How I make money out of it, is for the future. I’ll figure it out. I’ve been given the gift of time.
I’ve barely worked in months. I think people judge me. I hope my partner doesn’t . But if he does, I won’t judge him. Life is hard for many, including him. The luxury of time and money is something most people I could care for, can only dream of. I have never dreamt of this moment. For as long as I can remember I have restricted my dreams to those based on reality: a reality that involved living month to month and person to person.
This sudden change in circumstance has thrown me. On top of the grief. If anything, it made the grief worse.
I cannot complain. I have money and time. The grief others suffer does not seem to fit with mine. I am able to grieve in peace, without having to go to work in the morning.
I’ve been writing for months, now. I haven’t even been putting it online. Yet. Maybe one day. When I’m ready.
Until then. It’s okay to spend a day with a bottle of wine.
There’s nothing horrendous about that.
I’ll go back to studying, tomorrow. I’m not avoiding the problems anymore, just giving myself a break from them. Friendships will come when I feel less like driving my car off a cliff and more like interacting with society again. Maybe I don’t need to leap this time. I just need to reach out.
FaerieFalls 