People often ask me how I work with ‘crazy’ people. 

I tell them that waking up knowing I had to go to Laura Ashley was infinitely more disheartening than getting up to go to an acute mental health ward. 

The ward is hard. Extremely hard. You will never know work like it. Mentally, physically, emotionally. It sucks everything from you. It never ends. The manic patients are up all hours, screaming, talking, crying. The depressed patients, the quiet ones, you have to keep an eye on them else they try and end their life whilst no one is watching. The agressive patients, hearing voices, demanding, throwing punches, being secluded. 24 hours a day. Seven days a week.

And they may curse you, and try and hurt you, but you persist. You are unfailingly patient and understanding. And they get better. And you watch it with your own eyes. This broken person regrown. And you’ll tell them, my, I remember when you first came in. And they’ll look at you, all sheepish, and say ‘I know, I can’t remember it, but I know.’ And they really can’t remember a thing. They were lost in some dark place. And they clasp your hands in theirs and thank you for being so kind. And they apologise for ever being cruel or horrible to you. And they leave with a new life than the one they left behind.

And that is infinitely more rewarding than any Laura Ashley window display.

I write down all the things you say to me. The notable phrases. When you’re angry, when you’re happy. I note them down and keep a hold of them. They remind me that people say truthful things at both times, at both ends of the spectrum. People also tell you lies. It reminds me not to become caught, not to get lost in the things people say. ‘Cause some time, maybe later on, a minute or two - maybe years from now, they won’t mean any of it. And all that will be left are your hazy memories.

Every once in a while, I dream about you. 

Your face morphs into others, your hair changes and your mannerisms become warmer - and yet I know it is you. I know by the vividity of the dream and the intensity of my own feelings. 

I wake up in a heightened state of emotion, my heart racing, my hands shaking from fear. It is as if someone has hurled my past into my present.

I am left reeling, unsettled and off-balance for the entire day.

Things seem to be falling apart, but only in my head. Does anyone know that feeling? Every day is the same, circling, repeating feelings over and over and over. I need to break it, but I don’t know how. I hate (absolutely hate) admitting weakness or admitting defeat. It is what has got me to this stage in my career, but it is also what has kept me in unhealthy, abusive relationships in the past. Maybe I give too much, try too hard, overanalyse, try to talk about/reason/rationalise things in an attempt to help, and am just too overwhelming in my need to be self sufficient that I have finally gone and done it and pushed everyone away. To the point where they don’t even want to talk to me. God, am I really that awful? Yes, probably. “You’re impossibly difficult without being difficult at all” is what I’ve been told and maybe they are right.

It’s strange. You move through people who have none of anything to give, well not to you anyway. Stifling, suppressed with feet tucked under chairs, hands encircling wine glasses, strands tucked behind ears. Such rituals performed for something unseeing, unfeeling. Unfamiliar, darkened hands on you, breaking your very self apart and separating the pieces. Rough and hardened, like overwrought plasticine you fit yourself, mould yourself anew but it is never the same.

Then there is something else, something new. Someone who cocoons you gently, gently - like some precious egg. You are breakable, winged and mounted on the pedestal of those who are loved. You are so, finally, loveable. 

It’s strange coming home to an empty house after growing accustomed to another presence by your side.
Quietly padding around the house, making pasta, drinking wine. Putting the television on as a background hum.
It’s odd, this strange sadness. It’s not a missing, a longing to return, I am not one for quick fixes. Instead I try to explore, to understand my feelings and all I come to is uncertainty.

What I was never sure of with you.

I wish I knew what to write here to make sense of my thoughts, yet they are all so conflicted. This is what life is about, no? Decisions, choices. You hope there is some kind of existent fate, inwardly turning you down some path; in reality you never feel more alone than at those crossroad moments. They overwhelmingly pinpoint both the insignificance of your decisions and the grand importance they maintain in your psyche. You are bitter - ‘whoever said “you will know what to do” was a filthy liar’ - and utterly perplexed. 

I am truly lost. I want to go to sleep.

Today was one of those ‘I need to sort my life out’ days. 

I got into a rather fierce debate with my assistant manager this morning, as she asked me to ‘keep an eye’ on a regular customer who was in our shop. Slightly bemused I began questioning her - had she been seen shoplifting before? The reply? ‘Well, no, but she comes in here a lot and she always seems shifty to me.’

This lady is around 50 years old and of Indian descent. She wears customary Indian dress, has a strong Indian accent and often brings in her 28 year old son who has severe mental retardation and other health problems. She is extremely kind and very rarely buys anything, only doing so when she has saved up enough money to purchase an item she has wanted for months. How do I know this? Because I have taken the time to speak to her many, many times over the years.

The problem? She is not a classic ‘Laura Ashley’ customer. For those who don’t know the company it is a traditionally white, middle-upper class store, with products that are extremely over-priced. Maybe the reason I got so defensive on behalf of this lady is because in this company I am not a classic ‘Laura Ashley’ employee or in society, metaphorically, a classic ‘Laura Ashley’ member. 

This institutionalised, subtle racism and prejudice is something that I have noticed in my four years at Laura Ashley and my 21 years on this Earth (you should see the looks I get when people meet my tall, attractive, white Father). I will not for a moment put up with it - and if I can help anyone else along the way, the more accepting our society will become.