A piece to help raise awareness about the painful, isolating, debilitating, often misunderstood illness that is ME and the loss of adolescence due to that. If you take the time to read it, thank you and if you ever meet anyone with ME, I hope it helps people to see that no-one would ever choose such a thing.

You never told me you had grown,
I just watched you leave.
I stayed in silence far behind,
Just now I cannot breath.                                                        

                                                UNEVEN TIME

11th May 1991

I’m always the last one to grow older. Of my three friends, Lisa, Mill, Hayley and me, my birthday is the last. Lisa and Mill turned eleven last year, just before Christmas. They’ve always been friends, since before I was around. I think they arranged to be born close together so to always be the same age and height. And Hayley, Hayley’s younger although she’s the same height as Lisa and Mill. All three of them, tall enough to see over my head and yours, too, I bet. I have to stare up, crane back my head, just to see if they’re smiling or frowning. But thankfully, usually, we play on the floor and then all their faces can just look into mine. I’m not short on the floor, even when Hayley turned eleven last March and I stayed ten for a while.
But today is my birthday! Today I turn eleven. Eleven! I catch up to my friends and we’re even. And maybe I’ve grown, just a little. This purple satin dress that I wore to their parties looks a little shorter-it does! I can just see the mole on the back of my knee and before, I’m sure I couldn’t. I chose purple for this party, purple everything. Pink’s now too young at eleven. Purple balloons and streamers, purple paper plates and even purple glitter on my cheeks. Mum keeps saying it’s like purple rain and then laughing, as if it’s a joke. I always painted my pictures with rain that was blue so I just smile and hope that there’s presents. And as I stand in this purple room, the sweet smell of cake wafting in from the kitchen, there’s a knock at the door and muffled voices of chatter.
“They’re here!” I shout as I rush to the door and fling it open.
“Happy Birthday!”, they cry, “Happy Birthday”, in chorus.
Then inside they come, invitation not needed.

6th May 1994

My birthday-four days, one hour, 32 minutes away. I can’t sleep. I lay, holding my breath, my eyes growing large in the dark. I’m not afraid, I’m not. Lisa is afraid. She still sleeps curled up in the corner of her bed with the lamp on. She told me last year. I thought that was silly. At fourteen, you can’t tell people you’re afraid. You can’t run to the brick wall, our wall, at the back of the playground and play  Chinese whispers with fears, can you? My secrets seem to drag me down in silence. They started last year, shivering in a bed, unable to stand. My body recklessly letting in a Stranger, an illness, a sentence with no way of breaking it.
I wonder if Lisa’s awake, too? If I could just get to my window, I’d see her house with that  lamp on, blazing into the street.
Why are black shapes always at the foot of my bed? Here in the dark, I wiggle my toes. Test them. They stay still but what if they’re testing me? What if they’re waiting? Slowly, my eyes fixed on the shadows, I swivel on elbows, my bare feet hitting the floor. Pain sears up my legs and jolts at my heart. Go away, go away.
I chose blue for this bedroom, in the height of summer to look like the sky. Now, in the dark, it’s just cold, like the sea. Down on my knees I go, drowning, and crawl to the window. I pull myself up, although my body resents it, and part the curtains. And there it is! A dim light, though I feel its warmth as if it’s a fire. I am not alone.

A conversation begins to replay in my head.

“What will you be when you’re older?”
“Say again?”, I reply.
Lisa rolls her wide eyes.
“I said, what will you be when you’re older?”
“How old?” I ask, sitting in thistles and weeds.
“Doesn’t matter,” Lisa shrugs, “I’m getting away.”
“To travel the world?!” Hayley laughs.
“Don’t be daft, just parts of it. We can’t sit in this field forever.”
My nails plummet into the brown butter earth.
“The logical step to any future,” Mill chips in, “is getting a good education.”
“This from the girl that wanted Chemistry books for her birthday,” Lisa tuts.
“Well, it’s true!,” Mill snaps, weaving her fingers into her wiry brown hair, “who would choose to work in a shop?”
“My mum!”, Lisa cries.
“Sorry.”
“The main thing is this,” Hayley begins, “is that we all stay together. Although, I will be famous but will keep you little people in mind!” A devil’s grin sweeps her face.
“Hey!” We shout, all four leaping up together.
Quickly we charge, the thrill of a chase running at speed. We’ll catch her, we’ll catch her!
But suddenly, without warning, my legs tire. They plough into the earth, or so it feels.
“Wait!” I cry, “wait!”-but they’re gone.

At my window, back in my room, the conversation stops dead and I fall. I fall beneath towers of books, the work to catch up on, now the classrooms have gone-and I fall.

12th May 1998

I got a post card.

Hi!
    Lisa here! I made it and am finally Down Under. The next twelve months had better go slowly. I’m so glad I took a year out to travel, it feels like my one chance to see the world. The weather’s amazing and the people are so friendly which helps as I’ve got work fruit picking on a farm.
     Happy eighteenth, the real reason I’m writing! How the years fly by. My eighteenth is still a blur! Too much to drink! I wish you’d been there. At night, when I can’t sleep, I think of you all. With Mill at uni and Hayley at drama college, I hope we won’t all grow apart. We won’t! Do you remember how we used to swap our Bon Jovi posters? We had that rota, three weeks and then swap! It makes me blush to remember. I’m glad we grew up and found real music!
     Well, bye for now. Take care and have a happy birthday. Get better soon!  x x x x

I bury down in my duvet and stare at the four walls. My head spins in the silence as the blood drains from my cheeks. Still in this bed, still! The clock flashes past midnight. My birthday moves on. I want to claw back the red digits, stop time in its tracks. I fight it but still time marches on with me growing older, lost in a bed. My eyes sting but I fight it. I stare at the walls.
     “I’ll take them down,” I mutter, “I must take them down.”
On my faded blue wall, stuck, two Bon Jovi posters glare back.


11th May 2001

Five foot four. Not short, not tall, undecided. Did I just make average height? Does it matter today? They’re coming, they’re all coming home as I dance in my room, newly painted, as if poured over with fresh cream. And for the first time in years, I am standing without support. Last month, the Stranger in my body decided to leave and pack up its bags to chase a new victim. Finally empty. Empty. Who desires that? So, something new took its place but, unlike before, was addictive to feel. It chased me, made me want to return. To what, I don’t know, but my friends are all coming. I hear them downstairs, their voices all muddled. I need to go down. I smooth my soft purple dress over my hips, draw a last breath in my room and run down the stairs to meet them.
        “ARRRRRRRRRR!!” we all scream together.
         “21 today!” they all laugh, Lisa, Hayley and Mill.
We rush to each other, eight arms linking back together, and a pain stabs hard at my throat.
Time stops.
My heart holds its beat. I close my eyes for a second and there in the silence, I can see us all together. Finally together, as if time had turned back. As if time never passed. Four young girls, with the world at our feet-and if I stay here, I can catch it. The years erase from my mind.
Here, I never got ill.

“Wake up!,” Hayley’s voice crashes into my head, “Drink this! I’ve brought champagne!”
A glass of champagne is pushed into my hand and my heart starts beating. I laugh, nervously. I look up to see them all drinking cascades of fizz. The alcoholic smell hits me hard in the face.
“I, I can’t drink,” I stutter as a way of apology.
Really?!,” Hayley replies.
How do I tell them I’ve never really tried? Should I start now? Probably but I reach for an orange juice. It stagnates in my hand.
“So!,” Lisa cries, “What’s the plan for tonight? And let’s stick to it this time!”
Suddenly, they’re all laughing. It roars out of their mouths and punches the room.
“What is it?” I ask, desperate to know.
“Oh, nothing,” Hayley giggles, “Just last month……we got lost……..Mill was driving!”
“Charming!” Mill tuts, “Next time you can!”
I nod and laugh eagerly but they’ve already stopped.
“You should drive,” Hayley nods, glancing at me, “If you’re not drinking that is.”
“You all drive?” I ask.
“Well, yeh,” she replies, the obvious answer, “Why can’t you?”
I shake my head, just a little, hoping they won’t notice.

Suddenly,  out of the corner of my eye, I realise we aren’t the only four in the room. My eyes rush to the sofa.
“Oh,” Lisa begins, “I hope you don’t mind, this is Simon, my boyfriend. I thought you’d want to meet him.”
He rises from his seat and grows six feet in a second. His clothes all entangled as if put on in a rush.
“Hi,” he nods, his voice in a low rumble, “hope that’s ok.”
I step back. I shouldn’t but I didn’t know he was there. I stare up at his face, his forehead lined with thick burrows. He must be older than me, than them. My chest suddenly grows tight. They all just stare as if there’s the right thing I should say. I don’t know what it is.
It’s not like a man should make this any different. I saw them at school, although then they were boys. Then, we never spoke to them much.

“Hello,” he continues, “ You ok?”
He towers above me as I carry on staring. My eyes, in silence, whither down to the floor. I try to speak but I can’t.
“Is she ok?,” he whispers, leaning over to Lisa.
Shhhh,” Lisa replies, her voice low, uneasy.
I wait, as if one of them might reach for my hand. It hangs down, empty. My fists start to clench.
“Hello…..” he repeats trailing off for my answer.
My answer won’t follow. Instead, my throat dries, trapping my voice when I swallow. Their uncomfortable feet shuffle on the ground. The odd one out, my feet curl under.
“Does the girl speak?,” he frowns.
Shhhh,” Lisa hisses.
A knot stabs in my stomach.
Tears blister my face.
I try to hide them in panic.
“She’s crying,” I hear, feeling all their eyes burn into me.
I can’t breath, I just burn. Humiliation scolding.
“Sorry,” I splutter.
But like a child, before they answer, I’ve already run away. As they back away in surprise, I escape out the door.
I run from the house, out to the street, my twenty one years disappearing behind me. Cold air hits my face. I slap it back in defiance. It can’t tell me to turn back, not now. I run faster, harder, my legs taking the strain. Past houses and cars that fly by in a blur. My chest swells to bursting as I gasp for more air, my heart hammering harder as sweat drips down my back. I run like I used to as a child charging forward to nothing but running fast just the same. I run far away to our field where I fall.

The field swallows me whole as my body drains empty. The breath of the Stranger threatens to breathe once again down my neck. Mud smears up to my knees as I kneel in the dirt. The silence is everywhere, broken only by the sound of my breathing. The tears on my face are now too startled to fall. The last of the daylight gives way to the shadows. They flood from the trees as if desperate to be let out. They fall on my body, to mock me, to hide me. In the dark, my cheeks burn, humiliation still taunting. In the stillness, I can almost hear them all laughing and drinking. Why couldn’t I have just followed their lead? I wring my hands tightly. What will they think of me? How will I explain all this dirt over me? My eyes rush over the field, almost expecting to see them. Almost expecting a group of young girls to rush up. But it’s empty and they’re older and I’m still in this field. How did our time become so uneven in parts? I let my head fall, tired from looking. Instead, I just stare down at the grass. But there in the silence, there in the field, with no-one around, I just feel the time pass. And there, as my memories rush off into the night and leave me alone, I begin.