In honour of the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's seminal speech, I'd like to tell you about a dream I had last night, although mine was fuelled less by the injustice of racial discrimination than the vodka and Diet Coke which constitutes one of my major food groups these days.
I was in my old family house in Kent. Standing in the kitchen, I realised I had two appointments to get to, half an hour apart. The first was to visit a child, a psychic amalgamation of last years' clients and some kids I used to teach; the second was some sort of personal therapy session that was going to be very insightful, and something I urgently wanted to attend. If I was swift, I could make both. Unfortunately my plan was scuppered by the fleeting nature of subconscious time: when I looked at the clock I realised I was now apparently ten minutes into the child's appointment. I could still make the latter half, but it would mean missing my personal thearpy; to sack it off entirely would mean breaking the heart of said child. What to do.
You don't need to be a Freudian scholar to work out the subtext here. But since I am a Freudian scholar, why don't we take a little jaunt into my psyche. There are several ways one might interpret my dream, all of which no doubt involving some latent infantile desire to fuck my parents and/or kill my brothers, but what I took away from it was this: I was choosing between personal gratification and a desire to help others. My subconscious was catching up with something that struck me fleetingly the other day: dialysis is making me selfish. Which is a very selfish way of saying that I am currently acting like a dick - and I also happen to be on dialysis.
Untethered for the summer from the responsibilities of my Masters, and enjoying the freedom Dermot affords me, I have gone a bit...mental. I have been out almost every night for the last month. Admittedly, amidst the boozy bar crawls and debaucherous dinners have been trips to Strada with Mum (bed by 10) and a couple of evenings spent plodding around the Common. Still, there has been plenty of merriment, lots of alcohol...and lots of dating.
Like every other single Londoner in their mid-twenties, I downloaded Tinder. As a result, I have been on a series of dates, some fantastic ("Duck&Waffle at 1am. He paid. I think he's the one") and some that were...less successful ("He was so short I had to stop in the street to put flats on. And I'M 5 FOOT TALL") but all of which have come to nothing. Now, in my twenty-seven years I have been binned more times than a Zip Car leaflet, but lately it seems that I am the one putting the kibosh on these would-be relationships. My latest date - let's call him Jeremiah (I need to get better with the names, sure) - was not actually a Tinder hook-up but collateral from a drunken night out with Ellie last week. We met for drinks, got on brilliantly, and he might have even liked me...but we shall never know as, having decided that his hair was too gingery for us to ever risk dating seriously, I proceeded to get astonishingly drunk and have sex with him. I know from hard-won experience that only the crazies and the soul mates get in touch again after first-date sex, so I doubt I'll ever hear from him. I do have one recollection from the night, mind: over my fourth (maybe seventh - I tried not to count) passion fruit martini, I turned to Jeremiah and said (slurred): "To be honest...I'm a lone wolf. I am too happy in my own company...I worry that I can't make a relationship work." And yes - that phrase was, "lone wolf".
There is a good chance I am just a mean, solipsistic, pompous narcissist and I dislike myself ardently for this, but the alternative is not much better. It may be that I am now incapable of giving myself to someone else, body and soul, ever again. I feel like I am wed to my dialysis machine. With Dermot in my life - and in my bedroom - there is no room for anyone else and I have emerged from the last six years to find I have become rigidly self-reliant, which is a kind way of saying selfish. Dialysis is the epitome of a selfish act: unless any of you fancy dabbling in a spot of kidney failure and joining me for a hearty session, I'll just keep bumbling on by myself, prepping the machine by myself, dialysing myself, and when I forget to clamp off my top needle and spill a pint of blood on the floor, I have only myself to blame. Dialysis is so much more important than a partner will ever be (unless my Prince Charming comes with the ability to affect my potassium levels) that a part of me wonders: why bother? If I'm happy, and can do occasional sex stuff with whichever passing ginger buys me a drink, why induct another hapless soul into the murky world of kidney failure for the sake of a relationship? Not everyone gets the Disney ending. Not every little girl grows up and gets married. I don't just share my life with Dermot; I owe my life to Dermot and no flesh-and-blood human male - even a tall, attractive, one that plays the guitar and is conversant in Blood Diamond quotes - will ever be able to claim the same. The line between love and hate is tantalisingly thin, and when it comes to dialysis, I don't know where I land.
I was in my old family house in Kent. Standing in the kitchen, I realised I had two appointments to get to, half an hour apart. The first was to visit a child, a psychic amalgamation of last years' clients and some kids I used to teach; the second was some sort of personal therapy session that was going to be very insightful, and something I urgently wanted to attend. If I was swift, I could make both. Unfortunately my plan was scuppered by the fleeting nature of subconscious time: when I looked at the clock I realised I was now apparently ten minutes into the child's appointment. I could still make the latter half, but it would mean missing my personal thearpy; to sack it off entirely would mean breaking the heart of said child. What to do.
You don't need to be a Freudian scholar to work out the subtext here. But since I am a Freudian scholar, why don't we take a little jaunt into my psyche. There are several ways one might interpret my dream, all of which no doubt involving some latent infantile desire to fuck my parents and/or kill my brothers, but what I took away from it was this: I was choosing between personal gratification and a desire to help others. My subconscious was catching up with something that struck me fleetingly the other day: dialysis is making me selfish. Which is a very selfish way of saying that I am currently acting like a dick - and I also happen to be on dialysis.
Untethered for the summer from the responsibilities of my Masters, and enjoying the freedom Dermot affords me, I have gone a bit...mental. I have been out almost every night for the last month. Admittedly, amidst the boozy bar crawls and debaucherous dinners have been trips to Strada with Mum (bed by 10) and a couple of evenings spent plodding around the Common. Still, there has been plenty of merriment, lots of alcohol...and lots of dating.
Like every other single Londoner in their mid-twenties, I downloaded Tinder. As a result, I have been on a series of dates, some fantastic ("Duck&Waffle at 1am. He paid. I think he's the one") and some that were...less successful ("He was so short I had to stop in the street to put flats on. And I'M 5 FOOT TALL") but all of which have come to nothing. Now, in my twenty-seven years I have been binned more times than a Zip Car leaflet, but lately it seems that I am the one putting the kibosh on these would-be relationships. My latest date - let's call him Jeremiah (I need to get better with the names, sure) - was not actually a Tinder hook-up but collateral from a drunken night out with Ellie last week. We met for drinks, got on brilliantly, and he might have even liked me...but we shall never know as, having decided that his hair was too gingery for us to ever risk dating seriously, I proceeded to get astonishingly drunk and have sex with him. I know from hard-won experience that only the crazies and the soul mates get in touch again after first-date sex, so I doubt I'll ever hear from him. I do have one recollection from the night, mind: over my fourth (maybe seventh - I tried not to count) passion fruit martini, I turned to Jeremiah and said (slurred): "To be honest...I'm a lone wolf. I am too happy in my own company...I worry that I can't make a relationship work." And yes - that phrase was, "lone wolf".
There is a good chance I am just a mean, solipsistic, pompous narcissist and I dislike myself ardently for this, but the alternative is not much better. It may be that I am now incapable of giving myself to someone else, body and soul, ever again. I feel like I am wed to my dialysis machine. With Dermot in my life - and in my bedroom - there is no room for anyone else and I have emerged from the last six years to find I have become rigidly self-reliant, which is a kind way of saying selfish. Dialysis is the epitome of a selfish act: unless any of you fancy dabbling in a spot of kidney failure and joining me for a hearty session, I'll just keep bumbling on by myself, prepping the machine by myself, dialysing myself, and when I forget to clamp off my top needle and spill a pint of blood on the floor, I have only myself to blame. Dialysis is so much more important than a partner will ever be (unless my Prince Charming comes with the ability to affect my potassium levels) that a part of me wonders: why bother? If I'm happy, and can do occasional sex stuff with whichever passing ginger buys me a drink, why induct another hapless soul into the murky world of kidney failure for the sake of a relationship? Not everyone gets the Disney ending. Not every little girl grows up and gets married. I don't just share my life with Dermot; I owe my life to Dermot and no flesh-and-blood human male - even a tall, attractive, one that plays the guitar and is conversant in Blood Diamond quotes - will ever be able to claim the same. The line between love and hate is tantalisingly thin, and when it comes to dialysis, I don't know where I land.
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