The Other Me

The Other Me

The moment it happened I broke in two pieces.

I wasn’t conscious of it at the time. It only really became obvious after a while as the little differences started to emerge, the differences between me and The Other Me.

Don’t get me wrong, there was definitely pain. So much terrible pain in one tiny fraction of a second. But some part of your subconscious is prepared for that, I think. The moment you find out you’ve lost someone, your whole body sort of crumples in on itself and your chest aches so much you think you can’t take it a second longer. But I just assumed that was the grief, the shock. Now I know that’s what it feels like when your soul splinters.

From that moment there were two of me walking around. The one who lost her father, and the one who didn't.

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One of us has to learn how to grieve. How to plan a funeral. She can tell you from experience there is nothing quite as macabre as googling a funeral home. But she doesn’t know where else to go, who else to call. It doesn’t feel right asking someone who’s recently buried their dead relative for recommendations. Hey, so who do you rate in the funeral business? Four and half stars or more only.

The Other Me gets up the next day and goes to work. She has a good day, impresses her boss with a solid piece of analysis. That night she gets home and watches a comedy on Netflix in her fiance's arms and laughs so hard her sides ache the next day.

As the days turned into weeks, one of us has to quit her job and move back in with her mother. She has to call exactly five wedding providers and cancel the dream day she’d been planning for months. Each time she has to tell them why. There’s been a death in the family you see. It’s quite tragic. She learns what it’s like to watch her life slowly fall apart, like a car crash in slow motion. One of us will never forget what it’s like to lie awake at night and hear the anguished sobs of her mother from the next room and know there’s nothing she can do about it.

The Other Me gets a promotion and settles on a florist and cake for the wedding. She sees her parents every other Sunday for lunch – it’s a chore but she knows how important family is so she bears it gracefully.

One of us has to step in to help her mother with the family business. She has to walk in and sit in her father’s chair and smile at all the people who used to work with him every day like it isn’t the most fucked up thing in the world. She learns what it’s like to dig deep, so deep into your strength that you scrape the bottom, until you’re nothing but an empty shell.

The Other Me has the wedding of her dreams on May 15th. It’s a warm Autumn day and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Her father walks her down the aisle, and when it comes time for their dance she cries like a little girl. As the sun sets over the rolling green hills, she holds on tight to her newly minted husband and weeps tears of joy for how exquisite the moment is.

On May 15th, one of us has a terrible fight with her mother. Still living under the same roof, it’s obvious the proximity is wearing thin - although she knows that’s just the excuse she tells herself afterwards so that the bile of guilt doesn’t overwhelm her. The truth is they are burning with resentment; they both have this messed up idea that they had to be strong for each other when the only thing they want to do is fall apart. Let the dishes pile up, the laundry fester, the business fail. How easy it would all be if they could just let go.

[Maybe it would’ve been better that way, maybe they would’ve been able to grieve and get it out of their system. Maybe all that hurt wouldn’t have left scars.]

The Other Me is afraid of scary movies, and hates sleeping in the dark. She always leaves the door slightly ajar with the hall light on, just in case. It annoys her husband, who loves the dark. It’s one of the things they argue about even though the fights are halfhearted at best. They love each other silly and he kisses her in public all the time even thought it makes her feel a bit self conscious.

One of us can’t fear the dark anymore. She knows there’s nothing waiting for her in the blackness that could hurt her as much as her father did. The real horrors are rooted inside, where she can’t escape. Where the anxiety sometimes becomes too much to bear and she stays awake at night afraid of all the horrible things that could happen. She’s afraid of answering the phone, knowing that any phone call could break her apart again. She’s held together with duct tape and pure nerve.

The Other Me gets into meditation. She downloads the app and wakes up early every morning to do a 10-minute session. Except on Mondays, when even she indulges herself with a little sleep in, because who likes Mondays anyway? She has a glass of wine on Fridays, and a few more on Saturday, but otherwise she avoids drinking during the week.

One of us has a borderline drinking problem. She’s not a full blown alcoholic, but she knows she reaches for that bottle of a wine a little too greedily at the end of the day. A little too desperate to dull the edge of her day, her week, her life. She drinks so she doesn’t have to be alone with herself for too long.

The Other Me takes on a hard project at work and gets a talking down from her boss when she makes a big mistake. He’s a jerk, but he’s also right, and it sits on her skin like a festering wound. She goes home and cries about it to her husband, who holds her and tells her everything will be okay. She hates her boss, hates the world for how unfair it all is. She’s the sort of naive you don’t see much anymore, who cries at the end of sad movies and tells everyone about it.

One of us has to learn just how strong she really is. She moves out of her mother’s house and begins to plan a wedding again. It’s not the same, it never will be, but it’s enough. She learns to love being her own boss and turns down a job offer at a lucrative firm that she’d always dreamed of working at. She can’t leave her mother, but it’s more than that. She can’t follow orders anymore, she can’t work for someone else. She wears her strength like armour and is fiercely proud of how thick it’s become. She hates sad movies.

The Other Me looks for another position. She can’t quite get over that incident with her boss, and she feels like maybe she’s not being appreciated enough at her job. She finds a role that pays a lot more and takes it, feeling like for once she’s actually being valued for how hard she works. On her first day, she stays back till 10, but she knows that’s what she signed up for. It’s what everyone else is doing, after all.

One of us leaves work in the middle of the afternoon to get a massage because she can. She gets home that evening and drinks one glass of wine and is asleep by 9. It’s a fucking glorious day. It’s not quite freedom, but it’s near enough. She finally gets married, and her mother walks her down the aisle. They cry bittersweet tears the whole day.

The Other Me thinks about having children, but her career is just taking off. Her new job is tough and she has to give it everything she’s got. There’s just no room in her life for a baby, not right now. Maybe in a few years once she’s senior enough to take charge of her life again.

One of us gives birth to a baby boy, and for the first time in five years, for the first time since she lost her dad, she cries tears of pure joy. She cries so hard the nurses ask her if she’s okay and keep hovering around expecting her to fall apart. But the truth is, she feels like she’s been put back together again. It’s a good thing she doesn’t give a fuck what they think anyway. She just holds her little boy as tight as she can and smiles.

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One day, I’m walking down the street and I see The Other Me. She’s absolutely beautiful. She’s wearing that dress I saw in the window the other day but couldn’t bring myself to buy. She’s obviously on an important phone call, oozing stress through her eyeballs, but she’s loving every minute of it. She’s confident and graceful and everything I’d ever dreamed of being, once upon a time.

I can tell the moment she sees me, because the corners of her mouth twitch up in a smile. It’s not for me, but for the boy in the pram with eyes the colour of cloudy skies and curls the colour of wet sand. My phone rings in my pocket, and I look down to see who’s calling. I smile and silence the call.

It can wait until tomorrow.