Frozen

  I, like many people in the modern world have become quite taken with the animated motion picture Frozen. I like watching Frozen, I like the prettiness of it and I like the simpleness of it. When I watch Frozen I tend to feel a shared understanding with the main character Elsa.

  Elsa grows up in a traditional family with a mother, father and sister. I did this too, nothing all that unusual about it. I grew up a little bit troubled, there was always something there waiting to really pick its moment and strike whereas my sister had an altogether sunnier disposition. I would shut myself away with books and become determined to be as isolated as possible when my sister wanted to go out and play outside. She was mischievous and fun, I was serious and pensive. We're still like that to a certain extent, she is still mischievous and fun and I am still serious and pensive. Those are our roles and that's just how it is.

  My sister decided to get married and so that's exactly what she's doing. I may meet a man and decide I like him and my natural reaction is to get as far away as I can. Lucy gets married, Helen runs off. I've driven my parents mad with this sort of behaviour, stop running Helen they'll say to me, just stand still and enjoy the flowers. I do a lot of flowers watching, smelling and enjoying. Eventually I start to feel like something is missing and something may come to fill up the gap but the something never stays for very long and I find myself a bit like Elsa stuck up there in her icy tower willing myself not to feel anything and just praying for it all to be over and for the next happy flowers moment to come along. I'm always alone and calm during the flowers moments, it's only ever me and I seem to manage really well like that. I'll think of the people I've known and wish them well, I'll wonder what might happen if I ever see them again and smile. Maybe we'll get a coffee and then he'll wander off to his happy and stable wife and I'll wander off to my happy and stable cat. As long as I'm a size 10 I don’t really mind, being a size 10 makes all of the difference.

  My sister has found herself wandering up icy mountains to try and fetch me down in the past. "Come on Helen, you can come down. I'm here now." She's rescued me before has my sister. She's fought off the bad guys, shouted down the ex boyfriends in train stations and appeared like Florence Nightingale in the hospital during my most recent 'moment.' I wake up grateful for my sister. I also wake up looking at her because I have a nice little picture collage thing by my bed so she's always there. I know she wants me to be happy and stable like she is. I know she wants me to have a healthy frame of mind like she has and I know that she feels like the other half of her has arrived back when I come home again which is how I feel too.

  Lucy being my other half was just fine until I started to grow up a bit this last year. I left, Lucy got engaged (to a lovely young man, you'd think he was Prince Charming if you caught him in a certain light) and everything is changing for us. I'm still being pensive, over thinking about palm trees and falling down holes and emerging with cuts and bruises all over my face. My sister is organising a very fun wedding, it's going to be great is this wedding but she can't be my other half anymore because she's in the middle of building another entity and so Pensive Helen is wondering what she should do next. My mind is mostly made up, I'd like to do a masters next year and then go after a creative writing dream but I worry that I will get depressed again and be unable to concentrate on it… and I'm back up there in my icy tower pacing backwards and forwards and worrying that I'll never live a normal life or indeed be a normal wife. If I can't do a master's without getting all anxious and stressed about it in advance, how will I be able to do anything at all? Locking yourself up inside is so much easier than going outdoors and really feeling the world around you. Why worry about what you haven't got when you make it an impossibility for yourself anyway?

I do this a lot, this over anxious, over worrying, over stressed thing and it's made me strip everything back to be as basic as possible. Cook, work, watch TV, cook, work, watch TV and do some sewing in the quiet moments. I very rarely drink alcohol, I barely date and I don't involve myself past the capacity I have set for myself. Wouldn't it be great if I did though? Wouldn't it be great if just once I wasn't left confused, baffled and mystified by the actions of another and be allowed to just slowly get used to someone, enjoy them and gradually live a more 3 dimensional life? Or maybe not, maybe it's just not the way for me and I'm safer in my icy tower accompanied by cosy blankets, ever faithful teddy bear and a fantastic collection of attractive mugs.