"You should probably hide in the footwell."

Growing up as a Middle Eastern "expat brat" makes the ability to do the following things impossible:

- Enjoy British KFC.

- Answer the question "Where are you from?"

- Go out without a coat on even in the middle of Summer.

- Put up with Anti-Islamic bigotry.

- See a white pick-up truck without assuming it's going to cut you off.

- Tell people about your past without it sounding like a pack of steaming lies.

The last point is particularly important in the context of the story I'm about to tell. 

On the 29th of May, 2004, seventeen members of a terrorist group calling themselves 'The Jerusalem Squadron' attacked two oil-industry buildings and a foreign workers' housing complex, The Oasis Compound in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. 

I was at school that day for the dress rehearsal of my GCSE leaving ceremony (OWN CLOTHES DAY, YEAH!) We were all lined up on the stage, our form class tutor directing us, when one of the other teachers hurried into the room looking concerned and whispered something into their ear. We were quickly hurried to what was then deemed to be "The Study Room," (which nobody ever used EVER) and waited. And waited. And then we did some more waiting. Several hours passed before we were informed of what was happening. The head of KS4 entered the room, solemn to the bone, and explained that Oasis compound had been attacked, with several people taken hostage, most of which were either severely injured or dead. 

Back then Oasis was considered a "posh" compound. It was expensive and shiny and the swimming pools were amazing and most importantly it was across the road from mine. I panicked. Knowing that my mama was at home and that my then 11 year old brother was at school within our compound, I felt my heart rise up into my mouth. "Has it spread outside of Oasis?" I asked, not particularly wanting to hear the answer. "We don't know. We know that there are a few members of the terrorist group roaming around  and a couple of oil company buildings have been attacked, but we honestly can't tell you anything else." Thankfully nobody in my tutor group were living on Oasis at the time, but the room went deathly quiet regardless. My father was and still is in the oil industry, and for years we had heard horror stories of Westerners getting blown up, pulled out of cars and shot, attacked in the street... My mind became flooded with unpleasant what-ifs, but all we could do was wait. Our school was on total lockdown, along with several others in the city, and we were expressly told that we weren't allowed to leave until further notice. Not quite understanding the severity of the situation, several other students spent the remainder of the afternoon moaning about how they were bored and mumbling "why can't they just let us leave for God's sake?" We were told that we could have our phones on us for keeping in contact with family and thankfully, a few hours in, mine rang. 

I had never been so happy to hear my dad's voice in my entire life. "Sweetheart, I'm coming to pick you up. Be ready." he said. 

As I walked across our vast and seemingly never-ending school carpark, I noticed that the walls surrounding our school had twice as many security gunmen as usual, and this time... there was a tank. In fact, there were two tanks. I saw my dad's car and ran as fast as I possibly could. His brow was furrowed and he gestured for me to get in. Quickly. My school was almost in the middle of nowhere, and as we were flying down the exit road he turned to me and said "You should probably hide in the footwell." I wasn't quite expecting to hear that, but I ducked down anyway. I watched him for the entirety of the journey home, his eyes flickering left and right as we drove through the deserted streets of our usually busy city. We were the only car on the road for a good 90% of the journey, and I felt like we were in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. 

When we finally arrived at our compound, the security was 10 times what it usually was, and we were held at each checkpoint for 10 minutes while they ran mirrors under our car and checked our identification. After what felt like an eternity we were allowed inside. My mum was sat up in the bedroom watching the ticker updates on any and every news network that we had access to. Some of the hostages were British and as such, it was even on BBC News. And so we sat there, on my parents bed, watching the situation unfold in surround sound as military helicopters passed overhead.

We watched as an enormous helicopter spilled open, men tumbling out of it (and one falling over in quite a spectacular fashion) and I uttered "fucking hell" before realising that, even in situations like this, it probably wasn't cool for me to say the F-word in front of my parents. 

Whenever I have tried to explain that day to anybody, they either look at me like I'm speaking in tongues, or I can see the phrase "what a load of bullshit" forming in their mouths before they decide not to say it. My teenage years were somewhat... interesting, and while certain events were terrifying at the time, the stories make for great ice-breakers. Sort of. 

We still laugh about that guy falling out of the helicopter 9 years on, and I hope we never stop, because life is far too short to take seriously.

"Don't bite your nails - there could be poo particles under there. Gross."

Ladies and gentlemen, I have become a nail dork.

Up until a few months ago, I was a nail biter. It was my go to habit for the times when I was sad, angry, excited, bored, focused, anxious, watching a movie, tired, frustrated, breathing...

It was the physical manifestation of my inner "turmoil," as it were, and I hated it. I spent years of my life with my hands balled up inside my sleeves and, while I wasn't a particularly gross example of a nail biter (think short rather than barely there,) I still felt self conscious of anybody even glancing at my hands. This was only made worse when I was 10 and my uncle decided that it would be really funny to give me a wart. He is only a few years older than me, and so he was more like an annoying but loveable older brother to me. As such, our relationship revolved around him winding me up in one way or another as often as humanly possible. He had a wart on his finger that he used to waft in my direction saying "Look, Laura, you're going to get a wart!" and naturally I would recoil in horror. On one of these occasions he held me down and rubbed it on my hand, laughing himself into a dribbling stupor while I shouted "NO, GROSS, GET OFF YOU HORRIBLE GIT!" He casually stated (through his laughter) that I probably wouldn't get it and not to worry. A few months passed and I noticed a small raised bump forming around my middle finger nail. Putting it down to my skin nibbling habits I brushed it off as nothing and forgot about it. A month later and it was the size of a raisin. It was gross. Had I not been a nail biter, it probably wouldn't have caught and instead of doing the smart thing and showing my parents, which would have likely resulted in a trip to Boots, I hid it. I hid it until every single nail on BOTH hands was surrounded by these disgusting, cauliflower-esque skin demons and I was deserving of the name "Toad Fingers." Thankfully nobody at school picked up on that diamond nickname.

It took about 6 rounds of awful, bright white wart removal potions to kill them off, but by that point the damage was already done. I hated my fingers and continued to hide them inside my sleeves until I hit 16 and realised that Saudi Arabia was too damn HOT to be walking around in a hoodie with my sleeves balled up. 

I didn't like the nail biting habit, but then decided I didn't give a sh*t anymore and that it was my way of coping with my strange, warped little brain. As the years passed and I slipped into a deeper sense of doom and dread it became an hourly occurrence and through no want of trying, I simply couldn't grow them. The second any white tips started to show they were off. 

 My ex used to physically bat my hand out of my mouth every time I went to bite them, even though he was a nail biter himself, and I would glare at him and shout "YOU DAMN DIRTY HYPOCRITE," but it didn't diminish the fact that he found it "really gross." 

Earlier this year I realised what it takes to grow your nails. Contentment. Contentment and a cute boy who makes you laugh a LOT. I didn't need to try... I simply stopped biting them. The happier I became, the longer they got, and the longer they got, the more I liked them. I started frequenting nail art blogs and Instagram accounts and realised "I can do ART... on my NAILS." It was like some sort of divine epiphany... and then the obsession started. I couldn't walk past a Superdrug or a Pharmacy without skipping inside to oggle the pretty colours and make various fireworks display watching noises. "Ooooh... AHHHH... look at the COLOURS... oh, GLITTERY!" 

Collecting nail varnish has become my cheapest and most satisfying addiction to date, and I now have an impressive collection of over 60 different colours. Some glittery, some shimmery, some that look different from one angle to the next, some that crackle, some that look like crocodile skin... It's plain old delicious. My spirit animal, Cousin Simone, gave me a box full of nail polish, tiny jewels, brushes, etc, and once I had little nail art brushes in my possession I was trying a different design every single day. I've had Simpsons nails, Harry Potter nails, zombie nails, Pixar nails, Despicable Me minion nails and some with pretty little flowers on. 

It's my birthday a week Tuesday. Money for nail polish is all I plan to ask for. That and chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

"Yes, but how do you know if you don't SCAN ME?"

"Dear Dr. Google,

I hate you. You are a scaremongering bastard and a rubbish doctor and you should be stricken off and did I mention that I hate you?

Also, I hate you. You suck.

Shut up.

Love (hate,)

Lou"

I'd like to apologise in advance for this post, as it may come across that I am on some sort of an insanity bender. I'm not (very much). After relapsing into a fit of abject terror that I'm about to drop dead at any given minute, I figured that dumping (not like that, sicko) a bunch of text onto a pretend piece of paper floating around in the wisdom-fuelled cosmos that is "THE INTERNET" might be a good way for me to bleach my brain.

2009 was not, I repeat, NOT a good year for my family. My mama and I seemed to suffer the most because, as women, we're inherently mental anyway. Sorry, feminists, but it's true. My grandfather on my mum's side passed away in early 2009 and it hit the family like a tonne of bricks. 

To mama and I, he was our "man." He was her daddy, and he was my 'Grampyabadoo.' While I'm sure that many women think that the most treasured men in their lives are the best, we KNEW that he was. He was strong, hard-working, fiercely loving and could dazzle a lady 20 years his junior at 100 feet with a cheeky grin and flash of his teeth. He can't take much credit for the teeth, as they weren't actually his... in this he took great pleasure in proving to me on a regular basis. He would take them out and gurn just to get a laugh out of me. Sometimes the laugh would be tinged with "I'm not hungry anymore," but for the most part, it was just a hearty, unadulterated belly laugh. 

He spent his life in the fields, and as such, looked somewhat mixed race. His tan was incredible, and my lucky mama inherited the same genes. I inherited my father's tanning skills, and he and I spent many summers peeling our own skin off to find white, freckly skin underneath... all the while, Grampy and mama were outside worshipping the sun and turning a healthy shade of golden brown.

It was because he was so strong that his passing away winded us all to such a shocking degree. At his funeral I cried for the entirety of the service. From start to finish my then-boyfriend could do absolutely nothing to console me. I'm still inconsolable about it now. As the rest of the family sniffled and choked their way through Jerusalem, I stood with tears streaming down my face at a rate I've never known (and haven't known since,) and my heart shattered into a million tiny pieces. Last year, at a friends wedding, one of their chosen hymns was Jerusalem, and being totally caught off guard by it I burst into tears, mid-ceremony.

As the year went on, I found myself recovering, little by little, with the odd fit of insane bawling thrown in for good measure. My mama was the same. By September, I was in the throes of a legit mental breakdown. Everything I knew to be "me" was pissed into the wind and I ended up with a beautiful, emotional clinger-onner called "Generalised Anxiety Disorder." I spent every waking moment of my life feeling like my body was shutting down on me, and it felt terrible. I wrestled with my brain constantly, trying to understand why I felt so physically busted up, and then I opened Google... and for the first time, I Googled my symptoms.

According to Dr. Google, I was simultaneously dying of HIV, cancer of every organ, Multiple Sclerosis, heart failure, DVT and various types of aneurysms/embolisms in parts of my body I didn't even know existed.  As this went on, my body simply felt worse and worse. I'd wake up every morning with a racing, skipping, skedaddling, ski-dap-diddly-doo-wopping heart beat, and I'd feel dizzy and absolutely sick to my stomach. 

I dropped out of uni and then ended a three year relationship that, bizarrely, I was quite happy with at the time, but my fear of hurting him quickly transpired into... you guessed it... me actually hurting him by ending things. He and I lived together with my best friend at the time, and I ended up sleeping on a blow up bed under the dining room table for six months before moving out and finally starting to get myself back on track. My 'wife' and I fell out of contact, which broke my heart. I was sadly too proud to contact her, worrying that I'd ruined it for good... and yet, a matter of minutes into speaking to each other again the following year and we were closer than ever. I got a job working six days a week at the seafront aquarium and it helped, somewhat. I thought less about my broken body and more about how exhausted I was from such long hours. I was also quite focused on the murderer living next door. 

(http://andotherupliftingtales.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/beagleman-stop-building-my-coffin-at.html)

The two years that followed have included moving five times, bringing a beautiful baby girl into the world, separating from her daddy and finally getting myself back into education so that I can build a happy life for us together. We are happy in Scotland. Life is good. I'm still suffering with this, but now surrounded by people I love and who love me in turn. My family, although they don't understand how I feel, or why I'm as neurotic as I am,  give me time and a willingness to try and understand that most people don't care to do. My wife is my rock. She tells me what's what and keeps me grounded, but also completely understands me in a way that very few people do. I'm also incredibly lucky in that I have found somebody to call my own, who seemingly has the patience of 10 men with regards to my neuroses. Not only is he patient, but he is one of the kindest and most thoughtful people I've ever had the pleasure to know. His healthy dose of geeky-weirdo (*his* words, not mine!) is also much loved and much appreciated. 

At the moment it's my leg. My leg and a suspicious node in my groin on that side. According to Dr. Google, I either have Lymphoma, or I should have dropped dead of a blood clot travelling up to my lungs months ago. While I cope better with the feeling of impending doom nowadays, my brain still doesn't work the same way that others do. Last night my right ("good") leg had an irritating cramp, and this morning it is no better. My brain has decided that I have Peripheral Artery Disease and that I'm not far off a stroke. For most people, this would be a "ow, my leg... what's for dinner?" moment. For me it's a game changer. It can ruin hours, days, weeks or even months of my life when something like this pops up. The fact that my leg has felt a little better the last few days is enough to tell me that I'm not dying, and I'm recovering slowly, little by little, with help from a few very important people. At the moment I try to keep myself grounded partly for my daughter, and partly because Grampyabadoo would be shouting at me from the heavens if he knew how badly losing him affected me. He would be throwing cheese sandwiches at me from the clouds and shouting and reminding me that you have to "eat a lot of dirt before you die." - that everyone has to go through a certain amount of hardship in their lives and that this is part of mine. I see him in my dreams at least once a month, even now. Whether he is just a part of the background, or teaching M her times-tables on a warm Summer Sunday as he did with me... he is always there, and he always will be.

As the years go by I have my moments where I wonder if I will ever feel normal, but for the most part, I am blessed. And Grampy, if you can read this, I still don't know off by heart what 12 x 12 is. Sorry.

"The only way out, is through." - Robert Frost.