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.
