The picture that prompted a life change
The picture that prompted a life change
I hate this photograph, but I owe it an enormous debt
We all have one. At least one. A picture that tells us more truths about what was going on in our lives at that moment than any number of interventions from family, friends, lovers or colleagues could ever do. (Well, they could, but would we listen? I think not.)
This is one such picture. I hate it. I was 46 but I looked decades older. The jowls. The bags. The way my face folds in creases around my clenched jaw. Portrait of a stressed woman.
It was taken (without my knowledge, I would have kicked up a stink) on a train by my husband, J, around the end of my tenure at Red. I’m not sure if it was pre- or post- breakdown. Pre, probably, as I’m radiating tension. It wasn’t my first breakdown. Not that I would ever have used that word then. Much too loaded. But even then I wasn’t prepared to admit that I needed to listen to my body and JUST BLOODY STOP. So, my body made me.
I was a cl…