annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Witty/Barb I thought I'd have a little toke on my pipe and then write about Barb. She was a big influence, a great support and just a beloved person I feel proud to have known. Having a toke wasn't necessarily a great idea as I find I'm very distractible but we'll see how we go. When I first signed up on diaryland, my first blog, I used to click on the link of any blogs I saw mentioned in the 'just posted' box which had a cool name. Barb was awittykitty - aw man, I just went to her site https://awittykitty.wordpress.com/ and of course they start with the most recent which was written when she was very ill. In fact she died a few weeks after. Still being funny but also letting the pain out, being honest. Brutal it is. I didn't know whether to link to it, but I will. Scroll back a bit, a lot, you'll love it. She's a brilliant writer, and a world-creator. The first thing I saw on the blog she had then was a big image saying 'Putting the fun in dysfunctional' (Jesus, I just googled to see if I could find the original image and all you get is shitloads of merchandise with that emblazoned on it. Fuck that). Back then though, whenever it was, 2005 or 2006, I'd not heard the phrase and certainly never encountered the concept of not being shamed by being mentally ill. And I had indeed been completely dysfunctional. It was thrilling. From that first encounter, a whole new world. I embraced the idea of more fun and less shame at once, though clearly it was a project, not a decision. Shame doesn't fuck off at once. I don't know how long it took us to move through the stages of our relationship. We started with me as her lurker, reading every post, starting to leave comments, trying to come up with one that would entice her to reply. She got LOADS of comments, too many to reply to them all, but eventually replied to one of mine, then started reading my blog and on we went. I just found all our emails and read some of them - we wrote shitloads once we got going, that and live chat on Facebook, which was hard as there was a time lapse so we were always replying to an old one in an ever expanding thread. It took me a long time to really grasp just how much Barb was still living with anxiety and depression. Her writing is so beautiful and witty- she doesn't offload any of her pain onto the reader, but it's there. And she's wise and kind. From the beginning she saw that I was right at the start of learning to live with mentalness and dropped little nuggets of wisdom into my life so gently and subtly that I barely noticed, just shifted a bit on my axis. She lived in upstate New York, was a few years older than me, had been a journalist, briefly, was single and childless but had a cat, Guardcat aka Sierra, who truly was a good companion. What did I learn from her? Art. Art is everything - not for creating masterpieces, but for taking you to a great place while you are creating. That changed my life. I was already into having a go, but Barb taught me that it matters, it's not just a hobby - it's a key survival skill that needs to be prioritised. Not ahead of everything else necessarily, but to make sure it happens, doesn't get lost amongst less nourishing stuff. I've kept going with that ever since because she was right. Nature. I didn't learn that till I stayed with her. Can you believe it, I stayed with her? I also learned something on the day I arrived. I'd bought a digital camera for the trip and when I got to her place I realised I'd lost it on the journey. I was well pissed off and could easily have slid into mega moaning about it, but I noticed that it was making her anxious and I sucked it up, said I'd have to get another one and let it go, changed the subject and the mood. I think that was the first time I did that - put the expression of my own feelings second even when I felt they were justified, because it didn't matter as much as someone else's feelings. She told me that I was the first person who'd slept over at hers before, then later that actually no one else had been inside her home at all. I was quite overwhelmed by this at first, but she was right, we do know each other through our blogs and I was a safe person to have in her home. I've met loads of bloggies now and all bar one were exactly as I'd imagined. Not physically, just who we are. (It's not a good idea, by the way, to photoshop your image to make yourself look more attractive. It causes a negative response on first face to face meeting. Really? That's you?) I learned a strange thing through Barb and her blog, alongside Hil and Betty and their blogs (neither of them blog any more, shame). They're both in the US, younger than me and Barb by about 25-30 years, living with mental health issues, artistic, great writers. I suddenly realised we were all the same in certain key aspects. None of us thought we were much good at anything, or attractive or worth anything much at all, but we could all see how fabulous the other three were. It didn't matter how much we told each other that this painting was fabulous, that you're gorgeous, that your last blog post was hilarious and heart-breaking all at the same time (they were, all four of us write like that, not every day, but often), we could all only believe it for about five minutes before descending back into simmering self-loathing. It was seeing how Barb and Hil and Betty all did this, and all told me the same things I was telling them that made me think, "Crikey, does that mean I'm one of these fabulous, creative, resourceful, strong women?" Well, yes it does, fuckers, it does. Gosh. That was probably ten years ago, that epiphany, and I'm still struggling to incorporate the belief that I'm all right and quite good in some ways without becoming too big for my boots or a smart-arse (nobody likes them). Feel free to add any other belittling phrases that you encountered as you emerged into the world, or better still, don't. She felt like my sister, Barb did, and she took me into her world, joyfully and hilariously. We larked about and napped and I went across the road to the library so she could have some down time and I could write a bit. When I was home we kept in touch on a daily basis, sharing our struggles and triumphs. I thought we'd cruise into old age together, that she'd come over here, somehow, but she already had the melanoma that would kill her and dies less than two years later. Not being able to go to her funeral, or to share my grief and sorrow with anyone who understood was unbearable. We need a tradition of what to do when your best blog buddy dies. When Paula died, I was sent a video of her funeral, which was a comfort of sorts. Maybe we should all make arrangements for zooming our funerals - it could be done. OK, stopping here, though I could go on for hours probably. Keep safe, y'all. I love knowing that some of you remember Barb, or Witty as she was known. These friendships are real. Night night xxx 12:44 a.m. - 25.07.22 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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