I’m on the train home after my mini break with Mini in Totnes. The apartment was perfect, with a huge terrace, a Big Green Egg barbecue, a huge outdoor table, deckchairs, organic bed linen.
The fridge was stocked with wine and water. There was fresh sourdough. Four bedrooms, a huge kitchen, plenty of space! I ate every day at the Bull Inn opposite; the owner, Geetie, ran the Duke of Cambridge in Islington, where I dined every Friday night, fearing that my then-husband would dirty the kitchen just moments after H, the cleaner, left.
I didn’t pack any dog food, because Mini only eats human food. After this weekend, I bet she will only eat restaurant food from now on. I decided to leave alone, on the train, without my friend, to unwind.
But I’ve discovered that the worst part of vacations is that I always take myself with me.
The three pristine, sleepless beds only made me feel like an idiot: what have I done with my life? Why am I alone?
I hid in the apartment with a novel: Yellowface. With its story of social media trials, its protagonist, a failed writer who lives alone, scouring the internet for other writers who are more successful than her, hit a little too close to home.
This made me very anxious.
I sat in a corner wondering why I wasn’t in a villa surrounded by my family
I was planning to go out. I booked a table at the Pig at Combe, where I had previously been with David 1.0.
But I couldn’t convince a taxi company to take us. One even hung up on me on the phone at the prospect of a 40 mile round trip fare.
I wanted to take Mini to the beach but I was afraid it would be too much for her.
So, faced with the options offered by the wildness of Dartmoor and the red sand of the Sidmouth coastline, I opted for a tiny patch of grass 20 meters from the apartment, where Mini would pee next to a sign that shouted, “Don’t pee.” let your dog mess up our community garden!’
I watched the Women’s World Cup final on my laptop, worried that if I went to a pub the cheers would disturb Mini.
I then watched Silver Linings Playbook and Juliet, Naked, which I’ve seen dozens of times before.
I sat in a corner of the Bull Inn every evening, wondering why I wasn’t in a villa, surrounded by family, under a heavy pergola, with deep shared bowls of food. Laugh.
But unfortunately, real life is not like a romantic comedy. Mental illness makes you undateable, not Jennifer Lawrence.
The rock star you meet online doesn’t sit in a coffee shop, waiting, standing with a smile when he sees you, ready for your happy ending.
He certainly doesn’t look like Ethan Hawke. Someone recently posted online that staying at a spa was hell because being surrounded by people in slippers was like being locked in an asylum. So true.
I understand why, whenever I travel for work, I always book a treatment at the hotel spa. It’s something to do, an hour or so where I can try not to catastrophize.
A few moments where I look, at least from the outside, normal.
As if a man was waiting for me at the bar, a life waiting for me when I got home.
I had texted David 1.0 to tell him I was in Devon. He seemed to think I was with a man. For what?
“A little break is sometimes called a one-night stand. »
Oh! For God’s sake. Who, seriously, would want me?
On Saturday evening, feeling like I should make an effort, I put on jeans, my new Navygrey V-neck, Gucci slides. After a few minutes, a man came to my table and leaned over.
Shit ! I’m still catnip! Catnip for men! And then he said, “Your ears are making a very high-pitched ringing sound. My wife wears hearing aids, so I think they need to be inserted a little more.
Oh my God. I want to shrivel up and die.
I go back to the apartment and close the curtains.
I’m now on the train home, phew, after enlisting three men and a woman to help me get Mini – who has a fear of space – onto the carriage.
Me? I’m already looking forward to coming down in six hours.
