Why So Retro?

I’m always asked why I’m so stuck in the past, which is a very good question.

From 2001 backwards my health was much better, I was excited about the future and enjoying my work. I was full of energy and determined to make the most of myself and opportunities to further improve my skills and progress with my chosen career.

Ever since then everything has gone down hill fast. Very fast.

I developed fibromyalgia from working too hard. What a sick punishment that is. Enjoying my job so much it’s contributed to crippling pain. What’s that all about? My boss kept my job open for about six months but alas, it wasn’t meant to be which hit me hard. Almost fatally hard.

Then a cocktail of other problems started to emerge over the subsequent years. The one precious consolation is that I met my husband, ironically, at a fibromyalgia support group at The Royal London Hospital which neither of us planned to attend that night.

I always talk about the past and liven up whilst doing so. Recollections flood into my mind and I feel 25 again. An age I feel I’m permanently trapped. I even created an Instagram account called Retro Floozy to upload commercial memories of the past.

But why am I so retro?

Working it out wasn’t rocket science. I didn’t need the help of therapy, apps or books. Most of it stems from a strong desire to understand my past. The positive and warm memories buffer the traumatic. The misunderstood. The mystery. The what in the actual fuck just happened here?

Grunge and Disney were my coping skills back then when this shark was circling herself. Upbeat 60s compilations loudly playing from dad’s stereo added a boost in mood. A shark downing an energy drink and going on the rampage… Just a thought!

Music and films were my self-taught coping skills as I struggled to work myself out. Plus the nature all around me. An old oak near Seafield, Scotland, deemed my Faraway Tree where I sat against imagining an Enid Blyton world above it’s huge, strong branches. Maybe I wanted to be like that tree: strong and beautiful.

Though I felt lost, ugly, lonely, dark, I suddenly realised…

Perhaps the retro floozy in me felt strong, alive, fuelled by the desire to explore everything life has to offer. I was undiagnosed and erratic yet very self aware. Frighteningly so.

Loving the prime of your life, though tinged with utter confusion, is not necessarily a negative virtue as people may conclude. It keeps me youthful inside and more able to face problems in a new light each time. I can then retreat to my comfort zone of music, films and video games should I need time alone. I become that girl again as opposed to this frustrated woman. Don’t misunderstand me, I thrive in the company of friends and family.

Should I sit there in my Sonic the Hedgehog pyjamas excitedly recollecting the 90s, ignore me and go and put the kettle on. White coffee please.