Reset The Clock
Entry by: Seaside Scribbler
13th May 2024
Age 5
Already, you've learned the world is a difficult place to navigate. You used to leap out of bed laughing, but now you want to stay curled in your duvet, warm and safe and tucked away from the difficult navigation of family life. You'd dream marvellous dreams of places that were all your own, with colours and softness and nobody shouting or hitting.
You own a clock. In the morning its alarm is unwelcome but at night the glowing numbers help you go off to sleep because you're always afraid in those first few moments after getting into bed, afraid that the day's events will follow you. The fear and the anger, mostly at you. You watch the glowing numbers and string them together in larger amounts: 1, 12, 123, 1,234, 12,345, 123,456, 1,234,567, chanting each one softly. Westclox, says your clock and it's a friend. In the morning you hide from it, burrowing down, wanting to return to the dreams that you had if you were lucky and it wasn't a night full of unnamed terror. You lose a best friend, your ally against the world who has two of the same names as you, when her mother is killed in a car accident and she moves away. You move across the world for a bit, and then you move again. You learn that you can reinvent yourself, but that you'll always end up the same unlikeable person after a few short weeks. You know this because of what the adults tell you.
Age 15
You hit the snooze button again and again until there are only minutes to get out of bed (you go to sleep dressed to save time), tame your hair with half a tin of hairspray, put on your mask of make-up and dash out of the door. Hardly anyone is up and if they were you'd want to scowl at them. Most days you wake up angry. The biggest voice in the house has left but is instantly replaced by another, weirder one, who you know right away isn't a safe person. You room is a refuge, apart from the times he comes and lays down next to you on your bed, close, too close, making you want to squirm away but impelled to stay by some part of you that is just too afraid to say, Go Away. You plan your escape. It takes three years; three years of mornings when you haven't slept enough (you were reading half the night, unable to sleep) and you hit the snooze button again and again, wanting life to just go away and leave you alone. You're not safe because he comes into your room at will and either lies down or tries to talk or asks you to give him foot massages. You ask for a lock but are not allowed. Exams will allow you to escape. You miss your siblings. You miss your best friend with whom you fight a lot, you two who are cut from the same cloth.
Age 21
University isn't what you thought it would be. You attach yourself to an older, domineering man and get stuck. You fail a year. You disentangle yourself and meet a lovely man who's as messed up as you and though there is lots of love, you fight. You're unable to stop being angry. You experiment with drugs. You spend long nights sitting by your window looking at the cars passing. You go for walks on the beach, crying at you don't know what.
People have died, in between 15 and 21. Three friends, one ex, two grandparents. You wonder who's going to go next.
You sleep. You don't even bother with the snooze button because you no longer have a clock. Sleep is a place you can escape to, but it mostly happens during the day. You look at other people, the popular people and wonder how they know what to do, what to say. You frequently say inappropriate things, thinking they're appropriate. People might find you weird. You try not to care. You cry a lot. You wish you were anyone else.
But you do make a good friend, one with whom it seems you were always destined to meet. You miss your teenage best friend but when you go home you have a terrible argument and it's over a decade before you speak again.
You travel. You come back and live with the boyfriend you fought with. You fight.
Age 25
You meet an unsuitable older man. You have left the boyfriend. You have a string of part time jobs which involve sleeping at odd times of the day due to shift patterns. You hate your alarm. The snooze button is your friend. You're often late. You find a full time job. You find a room in a house full of strange people. You meet a house of ghosts. You frequently hate yourself. You want to be anyone else. Your friend stays by your side down the phone line and never stops listening and you love her but wonder why she loves you back.
One day you run.
Age 31
The years took you on a wandering path and now you live on the other side of the world. You have a boyfriend. You fight, but he's not older and unsuitable and you do make up. Your teenage best friend is in your thoughts so often and you have guilt and wish you knew her, now. Against all odds and in all strangeness (person least likely to become a....) you're a teacher and you find you're really good at it. You meet a lost soul and she becomes a daughter to you. Years later she'll visit.
You're always tired. Always. You drink too much, you sleep in, you stay up too late. The alarm clock's snooze function gets so overused it goes on strike. You're often late.
You wish you were anyone else. You write a list of things you'd like to be:
Happy.
Loving yourself.
Popular.
Not angry.
Confident.
The list has 15 other items like this. (Decades and several house moves later, you find this list in a box and realise with a shock that you are now these things. Somehow, in all that wandering, you sort yourself out. But that's leaping ahead. Other things have to happen first)
Age 36 and you are back on the side of the world you started on. Took you 8 years plus 2 to get back here. You're pregnant and terrified. You know you'll be a terrible mother. You think you'll die in childbirth. You're exhausted and you argue with the boyfriend from the other side of the world. You are so afraid you will make a mess of it all you find a therapist and you talk and you talk. And she helps, but then you move house again.
You have one baby, then another. You don't die. You think you're a bad mother. You become ill. You move house. You don't sleep much. Sleep becomes the thing you crave most in the world. The snooze button gets broken. In the end you don't need a clock, screaming needs wake you.
They grow and you've found another therapist and you think, Actually, actually, I've done an all right job. For the first time in your life you start to sleep properly.
When your first baby is in a pram, you go to visit the teenage best friend, and you realise you have to be in each other's lives. You talk about those messed up dangerous years. You forgive each other and although the guilt doesn't quite go (because you're good at guilt) you loosen your hold on it, just a little.
Age 43
You become ill. You survive. You go back to work. You parent and you do OK. Your children are who you live for. You adore them and you try to be the person you needed. They grow up unafraid to sleep, they don't have nightmares, they like themselves.
You get married. Shock! It was the cancer, you tell everyone, I reassessed. Soon after that you speak out about the unsafe person who made you leave, and most of your family stops speaking to you. You go on antidepressants. You struggle at work. You make good friends. One of them is taken by cancer.
Age 49
You have a big fat breakdown. You leave your job one day and don't stop crying. It's almost a relief, as you stop holding onto everything quite so hard. You find a good therapist. You try not to let the children - now teenagers - be affected by it. You are angry, often. The menopause decides now would be a great time to up its game with you. You consider it's all, just, a, bit, too, much....
You can only sleep well during the day. You hit that snooze button because the day is just too much... you never want to get up.
Age 51
You find a fantastic CBT therapist.
You stop being angry.
You accept.
You look at yourself and you think, Hello. Welcome. I like you.
And one morning
the alarm goes off
and you leap out of bed, in anticipation of lovely coffee
and you look around
and you see two amazing teen children who you've helped shape
and a man who adores you
and a house that is full of colour and warmth
and friends you love and who love you back
and chickens
and cats
and a smiley dog
and the sort of life that you'd
EXACTLY
wished you could live
when you were little
the sort of life
you dreamed about
the sort of life
that you created, once you stopped hating the very idea of you.
So you look back, peer backwards in time to that 5 year old, that 15 year old, that 21 year old and you hug them and whisper, get up. Reset the alarm and get out of bed and start work on this life. Because one day it will be perfect for you. Just hang on, because you're a good person. You're not bad, angry, awkward and difficult. You will be liked. Life has some tricks and tips you must learn but if you get up, reset that clock, turn the alarm off and start the day, you'll be OK.
And you look back, peer backwards in time to that 25 year old, that 31 year old, that 36 year old, that 43 year old and you say: Look at you, becoming. You whisper in her sleeping ear: when the alarm goes off, get up. Start the day. Start the work. Joy is coming, and it's all yours. Every day, reset the clock. Open your eyes. Step out of the cocoon and unfurl your wings. Fly into the day because good things are coming and you're starting them now, you just don't know it. You look back and you smile and you tell yourself to just keep going and it'll get better and it'll get better and it'll get better.
And when the bad things do happen, as they will, you will step out of the flames and shake the soot out of your hair and you'll go to bed and rest. And in the morning you'll reset the alarm, reset the clock, and you'll go make a coffee.
And you'll fly into the day and into the next wonderful part of your
wonderful
life.
Already, you've learned the world is a difficult place to navigate. You used to leap out of bed laughing, but now you want to stay curled in your duvet, warm and safe and tucked away from the difficult navigation of family life. You'd dream marvellous dreams of places that were all your own, with colours and softness and nobody shouting or hitting.
You own a clock. In the morning its alarm is unwelcome but at night the glowing numbers help you go off to sleep because you're always afraid in those first few moments after getting into bed, afraid that the day's events will follow you. The fear and the anger, mostly at you. You watch the glowing numbers and string them together in larger amounts: 1, 12, 123, 1,234, 12,345, 123,456, 1,234,567, chanting each one softly. Westclox, says your clock and it's a friend. In the morning you hide from it, burrowing down, wanting to return to the dreams that you had if you were lucky and it wasn't a night full of unnamed terror. You lose a best friend, your ally against the world who has two of the same names as you, when her mother is killed in a car accident and she moves away. You move across the world for a bit, and then you move again. You learn that you can reinvent yourself, but that you'll always end up the same unlikeable person after a few short weeks. You know this because of what the adults tell you.
Age 15
You hit the snooze button again and again until there are only minutes to get out of bed (you go to sleep dressed to save time), tame your hair with half a tin of hairspray, put on your mask of make-up and dash out of the door. Hardly anyone is up and if they were you'd want to scowl at them. Most days you wake up angry. The biggest voice in the house has left but is instantly replaced by another, weirder one, who you know right away isn't a safe person. You room is a refuge, apart from the times he comes and lays down next to you on your bed, close, too close, making you want to squirm away but impelled to stay by some part of you that is just too afraid to say, Go Away. You plan your escape. It takes three years; three years of mornings when you haven't slept enough (you were reading half the night, unable to sleep) and you hit the snooze button again and again, wanting life to just go away and leave you alone. You're not safe because he comes into your room at will and either lies down or tries to talk or asks you to give him foot massages. You ask for a lock but are not allowed. Exams will allow you to escape. You miss your siblings. You miss your best friend with whom you fight a lot, you two who are cut from the same cloth.
Age 21
University isn't what you thought it would be. You attach yourself to an older, domineering man and get stuck. You fail a year. You disentangle yourself and meet a lovely man who's as messed up as you and though there is lots of love, you fight. You're unable to stop being angry. You experiment with drugs. You spend long nights sitting by your window looking at the cars passing. You go for walks on the beach, crying at you don't know what.
People have died, in between 15 and 21. Three friends, one ex, two grandparents. You wonder who's going to go next.
You sleep. You don't even bother with the snooze button because you no longer have a clock. Sleep is a place you can escape to, but it mostly happens during the day. You look at other people, the popular people and wonder how they know what to do, what to say. You frequently say inappropriate things, thinking they're appropriate. People might find you weird. You try not to care. You cry a lot. You wish you were anyone else.
But you do make a good friend, one with whom it seems you were always destined to meet. You miss your teenage best friend but when you go home you have a terrible argument and it's over a decade before you speak again.
You travel. You come back and live with the boyfriend you fought with. You fight.
Age 25
You meet an unsuitable older man. You have left the boyfriend. You have a string of part time jobs which involve sleeping at odd times of the day due to shift patterns. You hate your alarm. The snooze button is your friend. You're often late. You find a full time job. You find a room in a house full of strange people. You meet a house of ghosts. You frequently hate yourself. You want to be anyone else. Your friend stays by your side down the phone line and never stops listening and you love her but wonder why she loves you back.
One day you run.
Age 31
The years took you on a wandering path and now you live on the other side of the world. You have a boyfriend. You fight, but he's not older and unsuitable and you do make up. Your teenage best friend is in your thoughts so often and you have guilt and wish you knew her, now. Against all odds and in all strangeness (person least likely to become a....) you're a teacher and you find you're really good at it. You meet a lost soul and she becomes a daughter to you. Years later she'll visit.
You're always tired. Always. You drink too much, you sleep in, you stay up too late. The alarm clock's snooze function gets so overused it goes on strike. You're often late.
You wish you were anyone else. You write a list of things you'd like to be:
Happy.
Loving yourself.
Popular.
Not angry.
Confident.
The list has 15 other items like this. (Decades and several house moves later, you find this list in a box and realise with a shock that you are now these things. Somehow, in all that wandering, you sort yourself out. But that's leaping ahead. Other things have to happen first)
Age 36 and you are back on the side of the world you started on. Took you 8 years plus 2 to get back here. You're pregnant and terrified. You know you'll be a terrible mother. You think you'll die in childbirth. You're exhausted and you argue with the boyfriend from the other side of the world. You are so afraid you will make a mess of it all you find a therapist and you talk and you talk. And she helps, but then you move house again.
You have one baby, then another. You don't die. You think you're a bad mother. You become ill. You move house. You don't sleep much. Sleep becomes the thing you crave most in the world. The snooze button gets broken. In the end you don't need a clock, screaming needs wake you.
They grow and you've found another therapist and you think, Actually, actually, I've done an all right job. For the first time in your life you start to sleep properly.
When your first baby is in a pram, you go to visit the teenage best friend, and you realise you have to be in each other's lives. You talk about those messed up dangerous years. You forgive each other and although the guilt doesn't quite go (because you're good at guilt) you loosen your hold on it, just a little.
Age 43
You become ill. You survive. You go back to work. You parent and you do OK. Your children are who you live for. You adore them and you try to be the person you needed. They grow up unafraid to sleep, they don't have nightmares, they like themselves.
You get married. Shock! It was the cancer, you tell everyone, I reassessed. Soon after that you speak out about the unsafe person who made you leave, and most of your family stops speaking to you. You go on antidepressants. You struggle at work. You make good friends. One of them is taken by cancer.
Age 49
You have a big fat breakdown. You leave your job one day and don't stop crying. It's almost a relief, as you stop holding onto everything quite so hard. You find a good therapist. You try not to let the children - now teenagers - be affected by it. You are angry, often. The menopause decides now would be a great time to up its game with you. You consider it's all, just, a, bit, too, much....
You can only sleep well during the day. You hit that snooze button because the day is just too much... you never want to get up.
Age 51
You find a fantastic CBT therapist.
You stop being angry.
You accept.
You look at yourself and you think, Hello. Welcome. I like you.
And one morning
the alarm goes off
and you leap out of bed, in anticipation of lovely coffee
and you look around
and you see two amazing teen children who you've helped shape
and a man who adores you
and a house that is full of colour and warmth
and friends you love and who love you back
and chickens
and cats
and a smiley dog
and the sort of life that you'd
EXACTLY
wished you could live
when you were little
the sort of life
you dreamed about
the sort of life
that you created, once you stopped hating the very idea of you.
So you look back, peer backwards in time to that 5 year old, that 15 year old, that 21 year old and you hug them and whisper, get up. Reset the alarm and get out of bed and start work on this life. Because one day it will be perfect for you. Just hang on, because you're a good person. You're not bad, angry, awkward and difficult. You will be liked. Life has some tricks and tips you must learn but if you get up, reset that clock, turn the alarm off and start the day, you'll be OK.
And you look back, peer backwards in time to that 25 year old, that 31 year old, that 36 year old, that 43 year old and you say: Look at you, becoming. You whisper in her sleeping ear: when the alarm goes off, get up. Start the day. Start the work. Joy is coming, and it's all yours. Every day, reset the clock. Open your eyes. Step out of the cocoon and unfurl your wings. Fly into the day because good things are coming and you're starting them now, you just don't know it. You look back and you smile and you tell yourself to just keep going and it'll get better and it'll get better and it'll get better.
And when the bad things do happen, as they will, you will step out of the flames and shake the soot out of your hair and you'll go to bed and rest. And in the morning you'll reset the alarm, reset the clock, and you'll go make a coffee.
And you'll fly into the day and into the next wonderful part of your
wonderful
life.
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