It is difficult to know where to begin. I was going to be so many things and I had so many plans, and then I disappeared. Emotionally yes, but to an extent, physically. The last I think you heard from me was two years ago, in the summer before I went to university. I had returned from a working trip to Budapest and I was looking into the Otherworld, being as I was ideally located.
What happened in the meantime, I could put down to faerie intervention, or simple ill health. I couldn't say either way, though the former may be an excuse because I don't want to face up to the truth. To pick up a long story as concisely as I may: in a flurry of activity, I moved into my student flat. I was to read Classical Studies at Edinburgh Uni. My flat was a dive and in the worst part of town surrounded by clubs and whatnot but I was thrilled. To be out in the city, living independently, and studying the ancient worlds! It was a chaotic few weeks and university has a steep learning curve, and I managed. I was getting into the swing of it, as it were, and I got my first assignments in. Even managed to give a presentation on the significance of religion in the day to day lives of the ancient Romans. And then, I... stopped coping. For years I've struggled with depression and bulimia, and they both returned incredibly brutally. I stopped going to lectures. Then I stopped going to tutorials. Then I stopped doing the reading, handing in assignments. University didn't exist for me. My days consisted of lying in bed drinking vodka and having small anxiety attacks every time I heard the doorbell. My flatmates never saw me. My curtains were never drawn. I lived in a tiny cocoon in an unwashed bed and I was sad.
It was a nervous breakdown, essentially. I lied to my family and friends and made them believe I was doing well. I can't even expand much more than that, because I have almost no memories of the last year and a half. I've gone into a sort of fugue state about it. I lost myself there. I think perhaps it was faerie mischief, because I was beginning to work with them in the countryside and then I tore myself away from them and into the city. Perhaps they wanted vengeance and they stole my mind. Perhaps I just buckled under the stress.
After first year ended, I had dozens of unanswered emails from university admin. I was unsure where I stood, whether I was even still enrolled. I moved back in with my mother for the summer and looked for a flat with my friends. I spent the summer in the attic mostly, still trying and failing not to be depressed. We found a flat, and it's beautiful. I live there now.
I'm no longer a student. I'm disgusted at myself for how badly I failed. I was supposed to be an intellectual. I was supposed to study. But I had to support myself without a student loan. I hate even typing this. Now I work at Subway and I spend my days wearing a cap and making sandwiches for people. It's awful and I hate it so much and I feel like I've lost so much of myself there. It isn't helping my depression at all. The only silver lining is that I found a boyfriend. He's twenty three (and I, nineteen), and he's terribly tall and was in the merchant navy. He's loud and opinionated and odd and earthy and grounded and I love him-- have done for five or six months. He's the only thing at work that makes my shifts bearable.
That's where I have been since I fell off the map. Now, I hope to improve myself. I can only move up. Before I even think about getting a better job I need to sort out my mental health. I've no magic in me any more. I'm only sad and dull. It's no way to live. I hope you understand. I need my spark back. And I will get it.
x maddie
