Holy Water, hot water

I wash my hands in a strange way.
Like a surgeon, like a chef, like someone who needs to be clean.
I run the water so hot, it's almost scolding, with soap, always to much, and I run my hands over and under, fingers interlacing, palms brushed together, wrists together, like they're about to be tied.
Over and under, over and over.
It's obsessive.

I had forgotten that I do it.
And have done for a long time.
The compulsion surfaces during times of sadness and vulnerability
I find myself standing over a sink staring into space. Just washing.
Washing it all away.

I have a memory that grazes through my brain, from such a long time ago, of a mans arms around me, washing my hands with me, I don't know if it was my father, or if it was a foe. I don't remember, all I know it was the action "like this" and it haunts me and somehow travels with me.

It's a strange fibre that moves with me through the years.

I remember the feeling of my thighs burning in the water, as I sat in the bath, until the hot water turned cold, until the transparency turned red. Grazed knees, bloody mouth, black smudges on my cheeks, dirt and desperation under my fingernails. I sat. In disgust. In denial. Hoping the water would just wash it away.

I flinch when she touches certain parts of me, or if I feel certain fibres on my skin.
We walked through a shop a few months ago, and there was a mirror hanging on a sideboard, identical to the one I had to look into that night.
Broken pieces.
It made me feel sick.
A certain shade of carpet and it tricks my body and I swears it can feel the burn, against my knees and my cheek.
The smell of Angel aftershave, makes me want to curl up in a ball and put my hands palm down on the floor.


Anyway! I got out of that bath, got dressed, and went about my life like nothing had happened.
I'm good at that.
And through the weeks and the months that followed, I couldn't stop. I stood in the shower for what felt like days, my hands wrinkled from the water.
When I found out I was pregnant, I felt dirty from the inside out, I couldn't get that thing out of me quick enough, every fibre of my being resented the very presence of that night. I laughed at the hilarity of fate, giving me such a sick reminder. It couldn't just let me walk away, forget it. Oh no, I had to have a repercussion.

The day I found out, I was pissed up and in A and E, not feeling well. I couldn't understand why, I had drunk that much before, why did I feel so bad?
"You're pregnant Miss Barker,"
It's a good job I was lying down when they told me because I couldn't catch my breath.
19. Pregnant. What would my parents think?

I rang my dad.
I asked him to pick me up from the hospital. He didn't even know I was in the area, I had come back up north for a weekend of hardcore drinking, not family guilt and realism.
The whole thing was so inconvenient. He told me so.
It was conditional, for me to stay.
I would go straight to my room and not come out - they were having a family dinner with my brothers new girlfriend.
I would leave first thing and get the train back to Uni, no questions asked.
I agreed.

And so, he picked me up, we sat in silence on the short ride home. I went straight to my room as I had said I would and I spent the whole night, psychotic, alone, and in shock.
Putting different sized pillows up my shirt and staring at myself in the full length mirror in my teenage bedroom. That mirror never was my friend, and now it was showing me a 2 month pregnant horror story.

I went back to Uni, I went straight to the doctors and I asked for an abortion. The doctor asked me why, I told him. It was liberating, to tell another soul why I needed this exorcism as fast as possible.
He agreed, as long as I promised to attend counselling, I would have said yes to anything at that point.

So from the dirty deed in October, to the abortion in the 3rd week of December 2006, I washed.
Long hot showers, sporadic lectures and seminars, drinks with friends, promiscuous behaviour, more hot showers.
Anything to distract me from the feeling of filth.
I was dirty.
I have always been.

It's that feeling that made prostitution such an easy option for me, it was an absolute acceptance that I would be good at it, because it was at my core, dirty soul and dirty mind, I might as well seize the power and the money and make it part of me.
So I did.
And I was good at it.
Because there are two things I excel at in this life - sex and lies.
It's not as glamorous as it sounds, but it does allow the escapism for all involved to be whoever they want to be.

Of course, that all comes unstuck when you actually fall in love.
How do you give yourself to another person when you actually care about who they are and how you make them feel.
How do you let love take you?
Sometimes she whispers how much she loves me, how beautiful I am, and I hate to hear it, because I don't believe it.
And I get scared.
I want to give her all of me, not just a projection of what I think she wants.

She noticed the hand washing obsession, she asked me about it, and I told her the truth.
Its rare but it does happen.

She knows about the night when I was 19, shes had to pick up the pieces 10 years on.

She knows I'm the hooker, the fucker, the druggie and the whore.
She still says I love you, and it confuses my mind.

ITV had a camera pointed in my face a few months ago, and they asked me a question that made me cry.
And those of you who know me, it takes something profound for that to happen.
"How does it make you feel, to know Sarah loves you, despite knowing all of it?"

Dirty.
Still so dirty.
I find it hard to let go.

Yesterday I read yet more vicious spouting from someone insignificant, but that maintains a hold on my emotion because she knows my sore spots.

And it made me feel so defeated.
And then it made me laugh.
Always so inaccurate that girl.
Train station? Oh no my love, I've never been that kind of girl, oh once upon a time you could find me in a locked warehouse giving it away for £35 a go, with 50% going to the man in charge.
But then there are times you could find me in my 5* serviced apartment, making £300 an hour to make a man believe I was his. Paid in cash and cocaine and shiny, pretty things. It was quite a life. And I wouldn't change it, despite its imprints on my mind.
We don't all give it away for free.

Alas, a small victory from a small mind, it hurt. Because it struck my lowest chord.

That the world sees me as I see myself, tainted.

And then it occurred to me, tainted and dirty and filthy at the core I may be, but I read those messages and those little comments and I held the hand of a girl who loves me more than she loves herself, the stupid thing.
She held my hand and said "Don't you dare cry,"
And I said "I'm sorry," that is embarassing for her to always have to defend and pretend shes OK with who I am and the choices I've made.
And once again, she rescues my broken mind and says as she looks into my eyes "I'm not embarassed by you, I'm not ashamed of you, I love you,"

So I suppose our water bill is probably higher than it should be, and I'll carry on washing away my sins, over and under for a long time to come, but that doesn't mean it all has to be undone.
One day I will wash my hands, and I will look up in the mirror that hangs over our sink, and I'll be OK with the person who is looking back.
One day.

Tell me your value

Tell me your value,

How much are you worth?
Does the price change,

At your best,

At your worst?

How much am I paying you?

For a minute of your time?

Will you make me happy?

For seconds, minutes, moments,

Will you be mine?

Tell me please,

Whilst your down on your knees,

What's your purpose?

Why are you here?

Do you like to feel so worthless?

And if so why?

What made you like this?

No hopes and no dreams,

Just pound notes,

Shoved into the waistband of your jeans.

Such sadness in such pretty eyes,

Lines of shame and pain,

Etched along the inside of her thighs.

She tracks them like a timeline,

Scars, scars, lies, lies.

She had a pretty pair of jeans once,

She felt of so pretty wearing that light denim,

That tight denim,

And then there was him.

Ripped those jeans right off.

Cut those pretty knees right open,

Wiped herself down and shook that bloody night away,

Stood in front of a broken mirror

And didn't like what she saw.

Because that story,

Gets old,

The more it gets told.

Silly little girl,

Silly little whore.

Don't you think you're worth a little more?

It doesn't have to be money,

It doesn't have to be your lying on the floor.

It can be better.

It can.

For those seconds, minutes, moments.

Somehow.

She wiped the make up from her face,

Cleaned off the blood,

There you go pretty girl.

You're all good.

Always running.

Always hiding.

Always a head in the sand.

Thats what makes it so hard to stand.

How can you stand tall?

How can you ever feel proud?

Feel clean,

Feel safe,

Feel good,

Because thats nothing you've ever been,

Always on those god dam knees.

What she would give for a line of cocaine,

Some distorted notion it would take away the pain,

It wouldn't,

It would wind up just the same.

Just as insane.

It seems easier to let it fall,

Watch the pieces hit the ground,

See whats what,

If theres anything left to save.

But not her.

Never her.

Scared to let anyone see you,

When you have nothing left to give,

Just you,

Naked, pure, raw,

What good are you now?

With no bank balance,

No glory,

You're nothing now.

What value do you hold?

If only good intentions and hopeful hearts were worth their weight in gold.

Fire and Ice

Do you know what drives me in my life?
The one motivation which has pushed me forward time and time again, that drives me from the darkness into the light?

Proving people wrong.

It's not the most honourable of motivation but it's who I am.

Tell me I'm worthless - I will show you what I'm worth. It's 100 of you.
Tell me I'm a liar - and slowly but surely I'll blind you with the truth.
Tell me I'm finished - I'll show you the marathon, not the sprint.
Tell me I'm nothing - I'll be everything you wished you were and more.

I have made so many wrong decisions lately, all stemming from this incessant need to please, to be great, to achieve things bigger and better than anyone thought possible of me.

SUCH STUPIDITY.

When you are born, unwanted.
When you live, unloved.
It's hard not to see yourself as something or someone who MUST prove their value.
Because if you don't have value, you don't have worth, if you don't have worth, your dispensable.

I learnt this at a young age, my value was as a play thing.
I have always operated on the basis of being needed, being useful, being necessary.
Because if you are all of those things, the likelihood of you being tossed aside and thrown away becomes less likely.

Through my teenage years, my parents would laugh and poke fun at my ability to buy people, always compared me to my brother, who had a vast group of friends based on something quite different, based on something he offered other people - himself. Just as he was. It was enough. He exudes a self confidence that is very "take me or leave me, hate me or love me, I don't care"
That's the difference between us, I do care. I have always cared.

I live in constant fear of what people think of me.
Always have.
Whether its my parents, my teachers, my friends, my lovers.
I worry. Constantly.
Which is why I live my life like some sort of iguana, forever changing my personality, it is no wonder that at the age of 29 I still do not know who I am. Which version.

What I do know is how and why, I am who I am.
The good, the bad and the ugly.
What I do know is that all of it revolves around one very sad, self-pitying fact and desire, to be loved.

My beautiful, still very new to me sister said something quite startling to me when I was with her a few weeks ago.
"Stop finding your self worth in other people,"

How do you do that?
If you don't feel you have any worth, and the only way you have ever felt flickers of it is when you see it reflected in someone elses opinion of you, then it's an impossible habit to break.

I am inherently selfish.
I put myself first in most situations, I live entirely on instinct, be it not a very good one, its mostly self-preservation.
And yet at the same time, I put myself in the most ridiculous of vulnerable situations.
I give every fibre of my being and every inch of my life in some bizarre hope of helping people, being good for people, being kind for people.

Sarah tells me this too is selfish in essence, I compare it to the episode of Friends where Pheobe spends an entire day trying to do one selfless deed, a deed that can only be truly selfless is you don't even feel good about it, if it brings no positives to your life, only the person or situation.

I see it more as cleansing of the soul.
The only way to remember I am a good person at heart.
That if I can help someone, somehow, in some small way, it gives strength to my integrity as a decent human being.
Because, when you are the druggie, the hooker, the compulsive liar, the convict, the cunt, the cheat, the girl who had two sets of parents and neither stuck, well; its pretty hard to feel good about yourself, let alone try to get a balanced view of who you are.

I have never cried so much in my entire life than I have done in the past few weeks, I have felt like my entire world has been ripped from me.
But this week, I opened my eyes and realised thats just not true.
I am control of my life.
This life that I built.

I woke up.
Sarah was sleeping next to me.
Gordon was snoring.
The house was warm.
The coffee was on.

She went to work, I got to work.
And we somehow started again.

When someone tries to steal your essence, degrade who you are and all that you've done. Well, in me, its brings out anger, hatred, resentment, all such ugly qualities.
I've sat, spinning out of control, hating and hurting. What wasted emotion. What a waste of time.

All time I could have spent putting positive things in place, not safeguarding and protecting, just hard work and business as usual.

It's fire and ice.

I'm the fire, the shit storm is the ice.

I'll burn bright, and you my friend will just be cold.

As my friends and family and support sit and stoke my fire, we all stay warm, together.
You, well you will be left outside, in the cold. Showing the world you true colours and the ugliness inside.

You see the difference between you and I is that despite it all, the different versions of Fran, I know, deep down, who I am.

It's kindness and dreams, wrapped up in all the wrong approaches, but its pure, with delusionally honest intentions.
When people get hurt in my wake, it's accidental, because I'm too stupid to see what I've done.
But you, toxicity and poison, spread like a disease.
You know what you are doing. You always have.
I never claimed to be good, but you, just plain bad.

So come at me December, January, February, March.
Bring on the medication, bring on the CBT, DBT, the psychs, the hurt.
I'll take it all on, and I'll feel so much better for it.
Whats broken inside me, it's a demon, and I can't snuff it out, but I can try to cure it, it won't be there forever.

I'm going to bake and bake, until I feel better.
Until the money rolls back in.

You can't beat me.

Only hard work will win.
And that my friend, is something I LIVE FOR.

Thank you to my friends, for holding me together, for never loosing faith in me and constantly spurring me on.
In particularly Deenie, you lunatic. You've loved me for 18 years.
God only knows why.
But forever you make me feel, like me. Whatever that is.
Dance to Lion King with me forever <3

To my Sarah, who's heart is sore, but still manages to love me. Fruit cake.
For holding my hand when you'd rather use yours to slap me.
Just you. Truly.

To my somewhat incredible and insightful big sister, I don't know who you are or what you've done with Donna, but you have given me the best advice.
I will eventually listen.
I like to do things ass backwards and take the long way round, but I get there.
I promise I'm not Bridie part two.