The Long Kiss Goodbye

16 May

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Its ok, it is, well it has to be, so it is. It’s ok because this is life, this is love and this is loss. All of these things are elements of being in your 20s and I suppose I have decided to except that all the bullshit is inevitable. I’ll get to my 30’s, I may be battered and bruised when I do but that’s just life.

I’ve decided not to sit here and complain but just to simply tell you what happened. My choice to quit complaining may have something to do with a documentary I watched last night about the abandoned and suffering children in countries not too far from my own, it had an impact. So no complaining just explaining.

He left. This you know. My beau and friend Liam left yesterday to catch a plane to Thailand and go find himself. He couldn’t do it here for whatever reason and so he was leaving. Not leaving me, just leaving. The thing I’ve come to realise in the past few days is that attachments are lovely but they fade, they have to. People break when there’s no growth and he and I have a lot of growing to do, just in very different ways.

It sounds cliche’ but maybe my grandmother was right when she said people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. My season of Liam was lovely but summer is rapidly approaching and it’s a new time.

Do I seem insensitive?

Maybe this is just the way I’m choosing to comfort myself and prevent the huge lump in my throat from becoming tears in my eyes. I love Liam but now he’s gone and I refuse to allow my days to go dark.

We arrived at the train station a little before 10am, it was busy as it always is but in my mind we were the only ones there. So I waited for the train that was going to come and take my boy off with it.

“Will you come?” he asked, four minutes before the train was due.

“Don’t ask me that” I said. I don’t know why but I thought the question was so unfair.

“Would you have if I’d asked? I should’ve asked” he said.

He should have but just as he was saying it, I was glad he hadn’t. Glad because I may have gone. I may have followed this guy around the world living someone else’s dreams. I wanted to go travelling one day but this was not that day, this day was his. I didn’t answer the question, it would have been pointless.

We never talked about our relationship or what him leaving  may mean but in my head this had, as I said, been a season, the spring season and I was content to leave it there.

Our last few minutes went by both quickly and painfully slowly, there was both so much and so little to say. As the train drew in he did something he never does, he engaged me in a PDA. He picked me up and kissed me the long kiss goodbye. And for that moment we were there. And then, well you know what happened next.

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Begin to end

13 May

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Well, the last few days have not exactly been smooth sailing. In fact the last few days have been more tangled and jagged than any I care to remember. Liam’s going. In a few days’ time he will fly out of my life and into whatever the next thing he is searching for may be. It’s no secret I didn’t take the news of him leaving well. How could I? I had figured we were in a place where I had every right to be informed of the decisions he was thinking of making before he made them. WRONG! Here’s a little lesson for the 20 something’s out there: When you’re in a relationship in your 20s it’s not marriage. Nowhere near it in fact and therefore your partner is free to do whatever it is they wish to, with or without your permission or knowledge.

Speaking to friends about my beau’s planned departure, however I got the sense that I could have been going too easy on him.

“What a dick! Like a proper huge dick” Em said, when I confessed to my roommates why I’d been in such a funk lately.

“I mean, I do the dip on girls I don’t care about this guy’s pretty harsh, if I do say so myself” said Steven, to my surprise. He’d done more insensitive things to girls than I could possibly count and here he was surprised and the insensitivity of my beau.

“Maybe, I overestimated how serious this relationship was. Maybe it was just a fling and if so he has every right to up and leave whenever he feels like, no?” I asked.

“NO!” said Em and Steven simultaneously.

And I’m starting to believe they’re right. I mean even if I wasn’t important enough to him to be told about him leaving before he bought the ticket, he knows how important he is to me and therefore should have shown a little consideration.

What a dick!

My phone had been singing for the past few days, with calls and texts and voicemails from the boy whose off to travel. I hadn’t spoken to him since leaving his house that day and, though I knew I had to make it right before he left, I felt it necessary to get out all of my anger and frustration before I did.

And then last night at around 12am he called. And I answered, not because I had figured out what I wanted to say to him but because I wanted to hear his voice, I missed him. So I answered.

“Hello” I said.

“What is this? Are you seriously planning on wasting our last few days together?” he asked, through clear frustration.

“I didn’t know these would be our last few days together until recently so I don’t know how I feel about it and, as you didn’t ask me I’m fairly certain you don’t care how I feel about it”. I said, allowing anger to come strolling into my voice.

“No, I don’t. I’m doing this because I need to do it. It wasn’t about us, or our relationship it was about the fact that I need to do something more. You understand that” he insisted.

I did. Recent events in my life had led to more uncertainty and confusion than ever before. In fact the only thing of which I had been certain was he and I. Now apparently that certainty was gone too. Maybe my real problem was I hated the fact that he was brave enough to take a risk and maybe get some answers while I was content to just keep trudging on. Or maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t offered to take me with him. I’m not sure if I’d have gone but it would have been nice to be asked.

The conversation ended with me making my way to his place. When I arrived we didn’t talk much, there was no amount of talking that could figure everything out in the space of one night. So we went to bed, huddling together for the time we had. And just as I was drifting to sleep I felt the need to tell him:

“I’m proud of you. I couldn’t do it”.

And I really was.

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The loving heart, that fickle friend

9 May

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It’s not real, any of what we have in our 20s, it is fleeting, a whiff, a mirage thrown in front of our faces to lull us into a false sense of security. Then it is removed, whatever ‘it’ is, is taken away from of us for the delight of some higher power I can never understand. The things we love in our 20s now to me seem fickle and if I could give this “fickleness” a name there is only one I’d use.

I would not use his name because I feel he will define my 20s but because he is the thing I loved that is  fickle. And, like these early years of my 20s, he will soon be nothing but a memory I may one day yearn to be resurrected.

WOW! That was morbid. I’m feeling morbid today and here’s why:

It has been perfection, or as close to perfection as I consider natural. Its been laughs and tears and I’ve loved it. But, as I am learning through these turbulent times perfection does not last. Only a few days ago my brother ended his short-term relationship with his wife and is now, once again and rather unexpectedly single.

But, with Liam and I there have been no troubles, smooth sailing, maybe too smooth I suppose I should have been expecting a storm. It was 9pm and we were a bed. I’ve come to be so comfortable in his bed. It was his space but he’d made it mine also. There, laying on his chest I sat listening to all his plans. He was apparently done with music, music was no longer where it was at. He’d said something like that to me once before years ago, the first time around. He told me he was done with art and hasn’t picked up a paint brush since.

Now he was done with music. “Ok” I thought to myself, “what’s your next obsession?”.

Now what I’m about to tell you may come across in a calm way but I feel the need to clarify that I was in no way calm when it happened.

“So what’s next? What’s your plan?” I asked looking in an excited child-like manner.

He didn’t look at me. In fact at no point in this conversation did we have eye contact. This was unusual for him, he was the kind of guy who believed you could only really understand someone through eye contact, eye’s tell the souls truths but he didn’t look at me.

“Well, I already know what I’m going to do. In fact I cemented the plan today. I dropped £600 into it” he said.

At this point I didn’t realise what he was about to say so I began making jokes in my head. What on earth has he dropped £600 on? A house for us to live in? A crazy business venture?

“On what I asked” waiting curiously for the answer. And then he told me. He told me very simply. He told me in the kind of way I’d expect him to.

“I’m leaving next week. I bought a ticket to Thailand I’m going to travel again for the next year or so”.

I can’t exactly tell you what I felt in this moment, shock really wouldn’t cover it. Shock could hardly describe it. All I know is I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think.

I chose not to ask questions. There was no point. I wanted to yell at him but how could I yell at a lost soul trying to find himself? On the other hand, how could I not yell at someone who hadn’t considered me? I also wanted to cry, I wanted to cry for the time and feelings that I had consciously poured out of myself and into this relationship but I didn’t.

What I did next was use a skill that I have come to realise I need to master well should life continue on this perfectionless route. I grabbed the emotions that were beginning to pour from my eyes, I grabbed the words that were forming at my tongue, I pulled my heart from his tightly clenched fists and shoved them all down my throat. I swallowed them all and as they passed into my aching stomach, I responded without them.

“Great!” I said. Nothing more. Did he expect more? Why had I expected more? This was him, gone with the wind.

Without gifting him another word I left his bed and walked to the grotty roof of his apartment. I sat there alone and let myself feel what I needed to feel. I sat there for hours and he let me.

Of course he did.

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Future Unknown

6 May

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It was that time, the end, the true end to something I personally believe should never have begun. Had he not have been in that place, he would never have had to go through what he did yesterday. To be perfectly honest I’ve chosen to see it as part of a necessary process that he needs to go through in order to find his happiness once again.

Sunday morning and my parents and I are helping my brother move out of his apartment. Just to refresh your memories, this is the apartment that my brother has had for several years. He lived there as a bachelor and used to rent it out when he’d go on his “round the world wanderings.” However, at the beginning of this year he returned from a trip to Cuba with a wife he’d known for less than 3 weeks. The two of them moved in to his apartment and before long she was pregnant. Despite my family’s ability to warm to the idea, he wasn’t happy. This unhappiness was evident fairly early on but my brother was determined to soldier on. I had believed all was well until I found him drunk on a curb in the East End and he revealed to me that not only had his wife Alicia had a miscarriage but that it had confirmed the fact that he was no longer in love with her. It was only after a revealing conversation with his girlfriend…sorry Wife that I discovered she had slept with someone else.

And that is what brought us to the place we were at yesterday. My brother had decided to move out of his apartment and leave it to her until she figured out what she wanted to do. I didn’t really understand how he had come to this decision but here we were. Until he figured out what he was going to do with himself he was planned to move back in with my parents, to no doubt be subjected to a significantly large amount of judgement. We arrived at the apartment in a rented van. Entering their home was surreal, it was a house divided, certain pictures were missing from the walls, there was no sense of the people who lived there. In place of what had once appeared to be the happy dwelling of two people very much in love, was emptiness, confusion the tangible product of separation.

I had expected my brother to look beaten, affected, equally as down as that night on the curb but he didn’t. On this Sunday morning my brother looked well, not exactly happy just more relieved, relieved to be moving out of what had been an apparently negative situation. His wife was not there, she had decided it would be best to avoid my family and their recent meetings informed me that was probably the best decision. I don’t mean to sound selfish but it didn’t matter where she was at this point I was there for my brother.

My parents played their usual roles in uncomfortable situations, my mum was tactful and sensitive, it was clear she was going to wait until things were more settled to give my brother the “Please don’t marry random girls you meet on holiday” talk. My father however, played his usual role of being highly and unintentionally insensitive.

“Well, this is a shame. I’ve been working on my Spanish so Alicia and I could talk” my dad said while picking up the box marked ‘Books’.

“You really messed this one up, not only have you lost your financial freedom but also the flat you bought when you had it” my dad joked, while packing my brothers camera.

My brother Xav didn’t respond, I was glad, I didn’t see it necessary but I had to love my dad’s social awkwardness, even at 50 + he still couldn’t read a room.

We were finished before twelve, in a matter of hours my brother had packed up the life he had created with this woman. This was the woman with whom he’d intended to share his life, the woman who was to be the mother of his child. And yet here we were, with boxes at the very end.

He didn’t take a look back as we left, I suppose he didn’t see it as something he needed to do and together we walked out, locking the door on his old life.

Arriving at my parents Xav went up to his old room, partly I feel to avoid my father’s jokes and my mother’s sympathy.  Shortly after I followed. His room is the same as when he left. I’ll never forget that day, when he left me for his new apartment. I spent every night for a month sleeping in his room wishing he’d come back to save me from my parents. And there he was, years later still the same, lying on his bed with his eyes closed listening to music through his headphones.

Words aren’t always necessary, so I didn’t say any as a lay beside him and grabbed an earphone. We just laid there as song after song played, two siblings back home, equally uncertain of the future.

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Oh what a night!

3 May

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The life of a 20-Something consists of many exciting events. There’s the first big time job. The first new apartment. The first car. The first real asshole you date. The first real nice guy you date. The first time you realise that these exciting events aren’t that exciting. Well for me I have recently embarked on a journey of experience. I’ve started writing freelance for an awesome magazine. No! This doesn’t not mean I have the kind of job that will ease all my stresses and burdens, not at all. It does however mean I have tasks. Projects. Things to do that prevent me from dwelling on my own misfortunes and give up on life in my early 20’s.

Last night was perhaps one of the biggest, most exciting events I’ve ever had the luxury of experiencing. And I was on the guest list! Now I know for those lucky ones among you a guest list is an everyday kind of jam. But, for a young girl who grew up in the East London being on a guest list that isn’t for a 5 year olds birthday party is a big thing. The event, for which I was working press, was one of those star studded, fashion dripping affairs in which I generally have no place. But, I’d done my research, I’d chosen one of the only La Di Da typed dresses I own and had somehow managed to look somewhat adequate (for a member of the press that doesn’t get photographed).

I went with a date, my amazing friend Mya who, post break up has managed to look more stunning than ever before. I’ve always heard it said that that’s the first sign a woman’s really over someone. When they change their look and start a fresh, thats exactly what she’d done. So, my fresh friend and made our way to a place in London I don’t usually find myself.

The night was one that you don’t see often in London. It was the type of night where conversations are easy, people are approachable and a cocktail dress is perfectly appropriate even when, I might add, just the thought of stepping outside for a cigarette makes you shiver uncontrollably. Last night saw little old me and my, exquisitely dressed friend, rubbing shoulders with actors and actresses, directors and producers. Now, in a situation like this I’m likely to feel intimidated. What on earth do I have to say to an actress who’d starred in 12,000 films before the age of twelve? How can I catch a joke with critically acclaimed director? Am I worthy enough to stand beside a professional cat woman and take twitter bound pictures? I’d have thought not. But there Mya and I were holding our own.

I don’t know if I’d mentioned this but Mya’s an actress. The world of acting’s a tough one and it takes a while before you can say you’re an actress. No one defines how long, how many jobs you need to have gotten, how many films you need to be in. Last night however I was not the struggling, graduate writer who doesn’t know how she’s going to pay her rent next month and she was not  the student who acts on the side. We were simply the writer and actress dressed to the nines sipping on complimentary vodka and energy drinks (nights sponsor).

I’m a close knit kind of girl, I’ve had the same friends for years and though I can welcome people into my life it’s on an acquaintance type ticket. However last night I met a fellow writer, a  New Yorker and  a fabulous one at that. Within minutes the three of us were cracking jokes, flirting with the charmers and planning trips abroad. That only happens rarely but this chic Laura was a cool one.

I’m sharing this so enthusiastically because it’s the first night in a while that London has held my hand, that I’ve felt inspired and excited by the prospect of the future. It was a good one!

Back home and slightly tipsy I sat on my bed in my cocktail dress and thanked the stars for nights like those. All was good although complimentary vodka was the double edged sword! I feel pretty like shite today

Happy Friday!!!!!!!!!

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The search for direction

28 Apr

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Where am I going? I have no clue. I want to have a clue but I truly feel clueless. Are we supposed to know in our 20’s? Is there supposed to be a clear picture? Who the hell knows. Not me! When I graduated from university I was fairly optimistic. I believed that the world would open up it’s soft-skinned hands to me and place me inside my hopes and dreams. The plan was plan your dreams and the rest is up to fate. Little did I know the higher powers were somewhere up there laughing at my plans.

Today I find myself out in town. South London to be exact. I was visiting a gallery I’m supposed to be reviewing for an art based magazine. Now, growing up in London I feel I know it. I feel I know which streets to cut down in order to avoid the traffic. I feel I know where the hidden gem-typed bars that only the locals know about can be found. I feel I know London fairly well. But, south London and I aren’t exactly the best of friends. I once ended up in Peckham, South London following a “gathering” in Southbank and found myself particularly lost and rapped up the night by getting mugged. Well yesterday was a similar story (minus the mugging), just more so in the sense that I considered it a metaphor for my life.

All I know is I got off at the right stop. I was where I was supposed to be when I left the station to walk to the gallery but, somewhere between the station and my reluctance to ask someone, I got really lost.

So there I was in my hometown, my beautiful city, with a camera for article pictures and a map, trying to find my own way. I felt like a tourist in London town! It was about as frustrating as things get. Then I turned another corner and ended up in a place that looked nothing like anywhere I’ve ever found in London. I was lost! Lost! And not just lost on my way to a gallery, I’m lost in life! I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, honestly I don’t have a clue.

Standing on a street corner with a map I had to ask myself or the “universe” some questions. Will I ever find a job? Will I ever be able to get my own place? Am I a productive human being? Am I just an unemployed statistic?

And then, just as I was about to cry, like honestly cry. I’m a 22 year old who was about to cry because I couldn’t find a gallery in south London. Just as my eyes were welling up. A tall, dark and handsome fellow came up behind me:

“Are you lost chick?” he said, with a compassionate face.

Yes! I am lost in life, in love, in general, in every way you can ever imagine.

“Yes” I said, smiling through my own stupid sadness.

“let me help you out. Where are you heading?” he responded.

To my dreams, to a life that is productive or easy, or both.

After setting me on my way, I thanked the handsome stranger, who I know believe was so perfect in presence, timing and looks that he could have been a figment of my imagination. Arriving at my destination I was relieved. I did what I was there to do. And as I left I got my map out once again and asked myself, in more ways than one:

“Where the fuck am I going?”

I suppose the universe isn’t ready to give me all the answers yet, but I don’t mind, if every so often it sends a handsome stranger to help me along the way.

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The Ups and Downs

26 Apr

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The life of a 20-Something is in no way a route of perfection. There are many elements that make and threat to break the plans that we lay out for ourselves.  For all the 20-Something’s I know life, in this particular stretch, has been both sweeter and harsher than any other period so far and I guess that’s something we have to accept about life in general, it will be down and it will, most always, come up again.

I think in my case, life has always maintained a balance. When things are bad I always have a voice that urges me:

“keep going! It’s going to get better”.

Of course when I’m immensely happy there is a similarly powerful voice which reminds me to not

“get too comfortable in the happiness, it probably won’t last”.

So I live my life barring these two status’ in mind. This is exactly why, when the events of last night occurred I was, well not entirely surprised.

We had our first argument. Liam and I. I feel the need to mention that we are not the type to argue, in fact previously I considered him chilled like a Buddha, you know, the kind of dude who returns home to find his house has burnt down and says

“well I’ll see what I can do, if it can’t be fixed I’ll find a new one”. So when I found myself arguing with him  it was totally unexpected.

Yesterday was a good one for me. I have been taken on as a freelancer for another magazine and as such was required to do, the cool type of research for an interview. The day left me buzzing and, despite calling everyone I know I was most excited to tell Liam how the day had been.

I arrived at his house and knocked on the door. Now, do you remember what happened last time I came to visit him unannounced? Before he moved into a solo flat and thus had a friend let me in, only to discover…him in bed with another girl. Well, even though we hadn’t defined our relationship then and things had changed now, I always feared walking in on a situation like that again.

As the door opened I was greeted not by Liam but by a girl, THAT GIRL. Now I had to ask myself: is this the week of awkward arrivals? Because odd people have been popping up everywhere. I was stunned but did everything I could to hide my shock:

“Am I at the right place?! I said jokingly taking a step back.

“Yea, he’s inside” she said.

Now I had to hold myself back from:

  1. Asking her why the hell she was opening my beau’s door
  2. Pushing her out of the way
  3. Turning around and walking away for fear I’d walk in to find him with his pants down like the last time.

What the hell was she doing here? Were Liam and I still in an open relationship? Had I just been kept in the dark?

I walked in to find Liam on the floor with his guitar, now I did sigh a little air of relief because he wasn’t naked (in fact he was fully clothed) but even so, what the hell was she doing here?

Upon seeing me he got up and gifted me a kiss, which I reluctantly accepted. For the next 40 or so minutes the two of them laughed and joked about stories and people I didn’t know and then she made her leave…probably to go and ruin another relationship (wow! Sorry guys that was a little mean).

When he returned from showing her out I was silent. Dead silent. I was fuming. How dare he do this. I was totally through with playing the girl who was okay with everything. What a total dick! He noticed my silence and asked me several times what the problem was, before hopping out of his clothes and putting on his faithful pyjama bottoms. Then he asked again:

“What’s the matter?”

The matter is you just had the girl you slept with in your house and I didn’t know you were still seeing each other. I don’t want you to tell me everything but a little update would be nice. I mean how often is she here? Are you still sleeping with her?

“Nothing” I replied

Then he spoke again and this got me going:

“You’re being an idiot” he said.

I saw red

“No you are. I don’t mean to become all overly attached girlfriend on you but what is happening here? If I’m not mistaken isn’t she the girl who had a second home in your bed not so long ago?” I said yelling slightly.

“So that’s what this is about. We were not having sex. She’s a friend who I used to sleep with. It’s in the past” he said, yelling slightly louder.

“Well your “past” was very present  for a thing of the past”. Not my best phrasing

And then he said two words, two words he’s never said to me before:

“Fuck off”.

I was stunned, I’d never seen him that angry. It kind of scared me that I’d been capable of pissing him off so easily. I immediately knew I’d overreacted. Shit. I walked into the bathroom and locked the door. I sat for a moment and considered storming out but I stayed. I took a shower to calm myself down and then walked out to find him in the kitchen.

“That was stupid” he said, standing there looking calmer.

“Yea” I replied.

Now, I’ve heard of these times before, but never really experienced them, when the strain of an argument is healed simply with physical action. We walked towards each other simultaneously and with the power of two bodies, the dread of the argument disappeared and he took me in his arms. Angry passion dissolved into pure passion and that was that.

After I thought about her being there, the worry, the anxiety but then I decided to take a different approach, I thought simply:

For every down there will be an up. So I enjoyed my present high.

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