Well, This Sucks.



What I learn as I grow older is that most things don't last forever. It's hard though, to know how to keep going when the things you thought would, don't.

That's where I'm at right now.

Things have changed a little bit (and by ‘a little bit’ I mean 'enormously') because there has been A Break Up. Yup, that’s right: I had been in a relationship for seven and a half years until, well, now.

Now I'm not.

Now, I am single and not at ALL 'ready to mingle.' What even is that phrase anyway? Ready to curl up and die perhaps, if that's the same. I don't think it is.

Crikey.

How dramatic does that sound? Some days I raise my eyebrows at myself.  On the bad days though, it doesn't feel dramatic enough. On the better days, like today I just sort of paint on a smile and pretend like on the inside I'm not falling apart.

It turns out that whilst I was planning the rest of our lives together, he was realising he perhaps wasn't in love with me after all. I have a lot of feelings about that, most of them centred around pain and confusion but you know, I don't want to be one of those people who airs her dirty laundry in public. Besides which, I still love the guy: there are things I could say, in pain and in anger that I would no doubt only come to regret later. If you're expecting this to be a messy post, a gory 'what went wrong' or an angry 'I hate him so much right now' then I can only apologise because you won't find that here.

The whole break-up (ow that still fucking hurts) made me do a lot of thinking though, a lot of pondering over the (un)certainty of love and the fragility of human relationships and how much of a leap of faith it is to believe in the things people say: how words, even the nice ones - especially the nice ones - have the power to wound.


Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.


I'm sorry, I call bullshit. 



Words hurt more than anything. An I love you that turns out not to be true, a forever that isn't quite that long, a brutally simple it's over, those are words that hurt like a knife through the heart and have the power to make you crumble even as you fight to remain upright.

So what do you do (when your good isn't good enough, she sings lustily and a little off key because she'll always be a too-old Glee fangirl); when it all falls apart, how do you get through the day? 



Sadly, I cannot tell you what will work for you should you ever end up where I am (and I hope to god that you don't). I can only tell you what seems to be working for me, if you can call it that. (It doesn't feel like it's working. It feels like I'm driving in fog, and I have no idea really what anything looks like. I'm following the tail lights of the car in front just to get through the day.)

So, in case you were you know, interested, here it is: Josephine's break-up survival kit:

Fruit gums. For real. My relationship with food is the opposite of healthy, especially in times of stress and I'm struggling right now to finish a meal. You know what I am eating though? Rowntree’s Fruit Gums. I can't get enough of those babies. I say to you, then, should someone ever drop your heart from the top of a skyscraper, that if you don't feel like eating a masterchef quality meal then don't. Your heart is broken; you're allowed to feel sick to your stomach. It's fine. It's also fine to eat a full bag of fruit gums (large bar of chocolate, multipack of crisps) if you like. Just you know, be aware they can't sustain you for ever.

Glee. Thank the Lord for Amazon Prime oh my god. If it weren't for Blaine Anderson and his, well his everything, then the whole actual 'breaking up' part of this break up would have been so much more crippling than it was. As it is, I watched Glee again, and was granted a tiny reprieve from the mess that is my life for the length of an episode and was unreasonably grateful for it. 


Also Once Upon A Time. And The Vampire Diaries.

And Arrow, which I totally watch for the plot.


Shut up. I do. Why would you even doubt me?!




The thing about television is that it is absolute escapism, and shows like Glee require zero thought, zero energy, you don't even need to turn the page. Let the singing teenagers do their thing and make it all marginally better for that our before you turn out the light and manage not to sleep. Oh sleep, how I miss you.

Tears. I've cried a sea of them and I'm fine with that. I'm not just mourning the years we had together, I'm mourning the years I thought we still had to come. I'm crying for my love for him which feels misplaced and my trust in him which feels abused. I'm crying because I really don't know what the hell else I am supposed to do, because I feel stupid and lost and alone, because I feel worthless and ugly and so so confused.

I'm crying because quite simply, it hurts. 

There's a strange kind of peace that comes from a good cry, the body-shaking, snot-nosed, wailing that leaves you with a headache. Sometimes a cry gives me what I need to get out of bed the next day and carry on. So my advice to anyone: if You've got a bruised heart, then cry, just cry

A book. A good book. Hours that would have been spent with my sweetie are now left empty. Of course I fill them with a book. Have you met me? It's a good job I think that my TBR is mountainous (perhaps that's what he dropped my heart off of, the top of my TBR. He always did say I had too many books) because I will never be short of reading material. Live to read. Read to Live ,and right now reading kind of is what I'm living for. I'm not all that fond of my world right now, I'm glad to hang out in someone else's. Although it’s funny because my concentration is shot to hell and a book I could probably read in a day normally is taking me upwards of a week. I’m enjoying doing the reading, it’s just taking me so long. I’ve read and loved Last Night in Montreal, Jakob’s Colours, The Time in Between and The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland…recently. Check them out.

My friends. And my parents. They're the best. The ones on my doorstep and the ones far away. I'm lucky to have them and if they're reading this I hope they know that I love the bones of them. I've been pretty shocking lately I know that. I'll get better though, I know I will and when I do then I'll find a way to show them all how grateful I am that they're here right now saving my life, some of them for the second time. There's nothing in life more precious than people you can trust to love you when you're are your worst and I am so lucky that I have the people I do. You're all invaluable to me right now (always) and I will never ever forget this. Thank you. I love you.



Normal service will be resumed from the next post. I just kind of wanted to get something out, perhaps for catharsis and perhaps because this is my blog and I feel like my current train wreck of a life should be acknowledged. I'm not searching for sympathy, but if you want to send fruit gums, I wouldn't say no; the two for £2 offer at Sainsbury's has ended now you see.