This is Part 2 of THE STORM IN A TEACUP SERIES. It was written over two years ago, before Jack and I made peace. We have come a long way!
You may or may not remember a post I published some time ago entitled:
Well, I have finally been able to sit down and write about what happened after that strange conversation. It’s been hard going, because my emotions are still a bit volatile whenever I recall the events that led up to that night I went to a London park on my own and woke up the next day in an ambulance. But I am relieved I have managed to get so much out of my heart and onto paper. So during the next few days, I am going to present the events of the week that followed that conversation over a cup of tea.
So, here we go:
At first, I was slightly in shock, because I had not been expecting the words he uttered, and I was bowled over at the humility he had displayed. Those beautiful expressions he directed towards me played games with my mind. Over the next twenty-four hours my feelings developed at a reckless pace. Every real or perceived offence or transgression on his part vanished far from my mind. By the time I had percolated my emotions, I was left with admiration, esteem, fondness and joy which before had been almost buried beneath frustration, hurt, bewilderment and humiliation.
All that was forgotten with the new-found elation he had triggered in me. He seemed very happy too. The air seemed to have lifted completely. He chatted with me freely in front of the rest of our flatmates and any visitors. Outside of the flat he was comfortable with me. In front of our neighbours and friends he treated me pleasantly and gallantly. I enjoyed the freedom of being able to talk and laugh with him. I was curious about the gentle and fond glances he kept on sending my way.
It affected me deeply. It was hard to suppress my smiles. I loved every moment of his company when he was like this. I was brimming over with delight. I can’t remember ever feeling so intensely happy with any other man in my life. So I did something I have done thousands of times over the years to all sorts of different people. I sat down and wrote a thank you card to him. I wrote that I had been touched by his humility and kindness and was so grateful that finally the air had cleared. I wrote that I too wanted us to be friends and enjoy living in the flat together.
He seemed thoroughly pleased and gratified with my thank you card. Of course he thanked me personally for it.
I loathe to admit what happened next…
The rumours began to arrive back with me. The words I heard ranged from cute to crude, from ridicule to outright rude, from drole to dreadful, from silly to slanderous, from vile to vicious. If I give you a tame example, you will wonder what I was upset about, but if I give you examples of the most degrading things said and published on social media, it will make my site unsuitable for readers of all ages to read – so use your imagination. As they stacked up, I became troubled. In essence, people thought my flatmate and I were now an official item, that we were now “going public” about an intimate relationship which we had been apparently been trying to keep a secret.
Even my best friends asked me if it was true that he and I had now “got together”. I assured them that was not the case at all, I told them we had just sat down and had a chat and cleared the air, and we both felt so much better now.
“So, you haven’t slept together? You are not going out with him?”
“No! Of course not! No, I am not going out with him.”
“Well, that’s what everyone is saying.”
Ugh! I was sick of all of these ridiculous rumours. I intensely disliked that he was a celebrity and seemed to be always on the radar for people to create fanciful stories and fiction regarding his personal life, which was now invading my privacy and peace of mind. I wondered how people could say these things? Why didn’t they get a life! Or at least a hobby, something that would absorb their attention in a more constructive way – like chess, or oil-painting, or fly-fishing. Anything! Just leave me alone!
I think my close friends believed me, but they asked probing questions, seemingly determined that there was something I was not being fully open about.
“But would you like something to develop with him?”
“I can’t really answer that. At the moment he is being wonderful. But I’ve spent months thinking he could not stand me because he has been so hostile. It’s only been a couple of days since we’ve been getting on. I just hope he is being genuine, well, I will have to wait and see how long it lasts.”
“You do like him don’t you?”
It was only to my best friend Marta, that I was brave enough to admit, “If he stays like this then I am going to fall in love with him“.
My friends showed me some awful comments and photos on various forms of social media of or about my flatmate and I. Most were being spread through Whatsapp groups, but they were spilling over onto Instagram, Facebook and other forms of sharing brainless nonsense.
I was amazed at how many photographs must have been snapped up of he and I during the last two days while we were near home. Who was taking these photos? Could it have been one of our neighbours? Or several of our neighbours? Or just people passing and recognizing him and seeing an opportunity? It seems unlikely that it was just one person. But why take these pictures and then use them to make up stories that were untrue? Was it even legal to be publishing their baseless presumptions? I hated seeing what people had written about the photos that were being shared. So crass!
There were a couple of photos that were strange. In one he seemed to be playing with my hair, but I am sure he never did. Another, I remember holding his bag for him while he ran back up to the flat to find his keys. When he came down to the foyer of our block of flats, he had taken his bag from me and put it on the floor and knelt down and started rooting through his bag and sure enough, the keys were in the bag. Somehow, someone had caught a photo of him leaning forward (I think it was as he was about to kneel) and it looked as if he was coming in towards me for a kiss). I saw immediately the way it looked. I now realize how cameras can tell lies, for all he was doing was kneeling down.
There was one photo that had been taken from a very unfortunate camera angle. I remember he had opened a car door for me and I had turned around and smiled graciously thanking him. But in the photo it looked as if his hand was on my behind and I was enjoying it. Believe me, he did not lay a finger on me, otherwise there really would have been a story to tell, along with a black eye. But it was just the angle the picture was taken. He had his right hand held out as he was inviting me to get into the car…and it really did look as if his hand was planted firmly on my derriere and I was giving him a smile of enjoyment. Ugh!
Ugh! Sometimes, I hate cameras, hate social media…or at least the way some heartless people have used them.
I will finish this post for now…but I have more to come….look out for:
I have had a lot of time to plan for my first official public outing with Jack. I have been watching what I eat for a while. I have been trying to walk everywhere instead of catching the bus. Jack has done a lot of walking with me too.
But the thing is…being in public with Jack means something I hate! It means cameras! I hate seeing myself in photographs. That is why I have been being more strict with myself than usual.
This post is about a subject that could be misinterpreted, or even misdiagnosed. I do not generally have low self-esteem. I am secure in myself. More than that I am happy with myself. I also have a lot of confidence in public, social and other settings. I don’t become shy or nervous without a very good reason.
However, this post is not about my strengths. It is about one of my weaknesses. I have more than one weakness. But this particular weakness is frustrating. It is a ridiculous irrational oddity. But it has a powerful effect on me.
Strangely, I don’t have those feelings when I look into a mirror. Mirrors are fine. Perhaps mirrors are kinder than cameras. But what I see in the mirror is pleasant, even attractive (lol – if I do say so myself!)
It all started when I mentioned to Goldfinch that Jack and I were heading to our first public event together. I told Goldfinch I was going to be wearing a lovely dress. Goldfinch asked me for a photo of me in the dress. Oh boy! A simple request, you might think. Not in my case.
The following night, we had an amazing time. All my confidence came back at the event, because I was focused on other people, both Jack and everyone else. I had no shyness, not low self-esteem. But people took photos. Some of those photos on now on their Instagram accounts. Jack says we look great, but I have begged him not to let me see them.
I don’t like that Jack saw me so upset about something that must seem so ridiculous. He has now seen a crippling weakness and how it makes me crumble. He wants to “cure” me. But he will have a battle. I have felt that way since I was a small girl. I have always hated to see photographs and video footage of myself. It hasn’t stopped me from being on stage, on television, and in fashion shows. Neither has it stopped me posing for cameras. But I can only do and enjoy any of that on the proviso that I don’t see the images the camera has captured afterwards.
I have a problem with my tablet. I don’t understand why the camera is not working properly anymore. In the past I could take as many photographs as I wanted and the tablet would store them. At a later date, I could look at my photographs and delete them or edit them and then if I thought they were keepers I would also blue-tooth them to my laptop.
This has been causing me problems. The biggest and most upsetting realization is that I had lost all of my photographs from Australia, except one. That’s right – I have one photograph from Australia. None of the photos I took of Goldfinch or of the scenery in Australia are there. I thought I was going crazy. I thought there must be a way to retrieve my photos. But no! Nobody who has tried to help me can recover them. I have a blurry photo partially obscured by my fingertip of something I had cooked for him. Can you imagine my tears when I realized???
I do not understand why this is happening. Before I went to Australia I deleted around one hundred old photos that I had already blue-toothed to my laptop. I also cleared the cached data. So there should have been plenty of memory available. Indeed my tablet is indicating I have plenty of unused memory gigobites or whatever they are called. I took videos and photos of kangeroos, koala, bandicoots, kookaburras and all sorts of buildings and places in Adelaide and the surrounding countryside. All lost! Gutted! Absolutely gutted!
Caramel 