I don’t know if I have the right to feel how I am
feeling. I was there, yes, but not close
to where the attacks took place. We were
in Les Halles when everything kicked off.
In an Irish pub (story of my life) I got a BBC news alert telling me
there had been a shooting in Paris.
David and I sort of shrugged it off as maybe a lone gunman or whatever. We even joked that no-one would be in touch
to see if we were okay cos it was Friday night and everyone was out getting
wrecked. Watching the Ireland/Bosnia
match (terrible fog, even worse game), I went to post on Facebook that the
owner had given me free Guinness due to my Irish heritage only to discover my phone had died. I thought nothing of it, happens all the
time. I sat and watched the game, eating
my Taytos and drinking my Guinness.
David was watching the France/Germany game. We had a bit of an argument about stopping
out for ‘just one more’ (those who know me know full well it’s never ‘just one
more’). David wanted to go back nearer
to our hotel in Montrouge as we weren’t too familiar with the centre of Paris
he’d feel safer nearer to where we were staying. We got the Metro and popped into a
restaurant/café/bar nearer to our hotel for a last drink. Both phones were now dead, so we had to
resort to talking to one another…
Imagine that.
Glancing at the TV in the bar, the news was on. Everything looked a hell of a lot worse that
we could have imagined, there were scenes from the France/Germany game, and a
number that seemed to be rising all the time.
We drank up as quickly as we could, and briskly walked back to the
hotel, passing several police cars and ambulances, their sirens wailing in the
dark night. We arrived to the hotel,
plugged in our phones where they both promptly exploded with texts, emails,
Facebook messages and voicemails, one in particular from my mother sounding
severely distressed shouting in the background to my dad ‘She isn’t picking up
her phone…’ We checked the BBC news
website to see the full atrocity that had been committed in Paris that night,
people out celebrating, just having a Friday out at a restaurant or a football
match, or a gig attacked for no good reason.
Murder and rampage; Panic on the streets of Paris. Obviously we got in touch with everyone and
let them know we were okay. Hundreds of
people, people I don’t even know that well, just concerned that we were alive
and safe. It was overwhelming and we
felt guilty for having that little joke earlier on. I spoke to my dad and I’ve never heard so
much relief in a single person’s voice.
Turns out he, along with Tom and Fran and others had phoned the bar we
had been at to check we were okay. We
watched the French news in complete shock.
There was a state of emergency in France. We were due to travel home on Saturday, what
if we couldn’t?
Well, as you all know, we got back safe and sound having
spent the ENTIRE day at Charles De Gaulle airport (just as boring as you
think it would be). We’d intended
spending our last day in Paris seeing things we hadn’t seen like the Arc de
Triomphe and walking down the Champs-Élysées but it seemed safer to just go
straight to CDG. An uneventful tube ride
from Heathrow to Euston and then a cab from Coventry station to Pie Bash and
things seemed right and okay with the world again. But I think that with the adrenaline of
getting out of Paris and back home to Coventry had got me through, because on
Sunday evening, the tears started and they’ve been on and off ever since.
The tears are a mixture of sadness, fear, rage and guilt. Sadness because of the sheer loss of human
life and devastation to so many families and to Paris herself; the fear has
literally just hit me over the past few days; anger manifests itself in the
question of why the fuck did these cunts think it was okay to attack and kill
innocents? And the guilt? The guilt is that I lived but many others
didn’t. There should be 129 more living
breathing beautiful humans on this planet but there aren’t because murderous
cunts stole their lives.
It’s been odd seeing the reactions to what happened in Paris on Friday
13th: such sympathy and solidarity with the French populous, the simple act of
changing one’s Facebook profile picture so it is the colour of the tricolore
has been derided by many as slacktivism but fuck that, people have a fucking
choice to change their FB photo just like those who didn’t change theirs
(myself included) also had that choice.
It’s a sign of solidarity so take your derision and shove it right up
your arse. I am also very much aware of
other atrocities that took and continue to take place and I am able to feel
sadness for all of those things. I am
expressing myself about Paris because I was there, so it kinda hit me a little
harder.
I’m not entirely sure what the point of this blog piece is, truth be
told. Probably catharsis, most likely. I started back at work today and was dreading
it because I was expecting the third degree about the whole thing; I was in
tears last night when I was trying to go to sleep because I didn’t want to have
to talk about it to anyone at work.
Thankfully, save for one person*, they’ve all been fine when I said I
didn’t want to talk about.
I just can’t help but feel though that it isn’t right for me to cry, to
have this grief or whatever it is. I
wasn’t directly affected, other than being in the city when it happened… I
don’t know… I didn’t lose anyone, I didn’t get shot at, I wasn’t near an
explosion… why do I feel this way? It
can’t just be because I’m a caring individual, David is a caring person and he
hasn’t reacted this way… it’s caused me to take a break from one of my
volunteering posts because if I’m in this state, I can’t think about being
there for someone else completely.
This is the end…I’ve sort of tailed off… my mind isn’t in its usual (just
about) working order. Oh, and may thanks
to Carl for the call this morning…I’m sorry you had to hear me cry.
*Me: I don’t want to talk
about it
Them: Oh why, how close
were you to it all?
Me: Not that close
but…Excuse me *rushes to bathroom to cry*
But, yes, back to work on Friday 12 Jan. It's a phased return so I should be back to full duties the first week of February or so. Of course I'm anxious about going back, the team has changed significantly (three members of staff resigned, one was dismissed), leaving the office resembling the Mary Celeste. But one thing I know I can do is to only do the work I can, I shan't be stressing myself out about work because that way another breakdown lies. I've learned to leave work at work (and I know I'm lucky to be in a position where I can do just that). I have to look out for ME now, I'm quite good at neglecting me and focussing on others or other things, but if I don't look out for me now, then who else will? That isn't to say that the support I've received over these six months hasn't been phenomenal with special thanks going to David, my mam and the rest of the family and of course my friends. But I know the signs of my mental health going down and so I must keep an eye on that and I'm the best person to do that (I think anyway).
