My Mess Is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety

by Georgia Pritchett

I hated milk. One morning at nursery, the teacher told me I couldn’t play with the other children until I had drunk my milk. Sometimes everything goes right. I didn’t want to play with the other children AND I didn’t want to drink my milk. I sat inside on the floor the whole day. That was a good day.

School was a hideous shock. For one thing, it was full of children and children are idiots. Loud idiots.

This taught me that adults are idiots.

“I had cake and I didn’t join in any of the games.” This has very much been my approach to life.

This taught me that you must never attempt to do something you can’t spell.

“You’re not a dwarf,” she said. “But you are an idiot.” This seemed like worse news.

At primary school, we used to have Assembly once a week. And every week, we would sing the hymn: “My Ding-a-Ling” by Chuck Berry. At least I thought it was a hymn. I found out it wasn’t during a Religious Education lesson at secondary school. That’s when I got my first detention.

My frizzy hair would not work well in stained glass. Stained glass is a very unflattering medium.

I’m not sure about Eternal Life. It seems like life is long enough already.

Apparently wanting to spend twenty-three hours a day wearing pajamas is not a vocation. And wanting to eat my own body weight in chocolate biscuits is not a calling.

A man I liked once told me I looked like Robert Plant. Is that flirting?

I’d never thought about it before, and it turned out she was the only person who hadn’t realized she was gay. She had wondered if she was once, but her mum had told her she absolutely definitely wasn’t and that it was just a thyroid problem.

“Are you an idiot?” one asked. “Yes!” I exclaimed. “Obviously!” Finally I felt understood.

“I’m seeing someone. It might not be a man.” Yes, it turned out I had a thyroid problem too.

People are shallow, ignorant idiots. And when I say people, I very much mean me.

What was printed on the visa was probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me: “Alien with extraordinary ability.” If you’d told me that’s what I’d grow up to be when I was eleven, I’d have taken that.