Sixty Five

I had a drink with a guy after work today. It was the first time since J that I felt remotely excited/ nervous leading up to it. We had things in common and he was fast moving which I appreciated (not a fan of having conversations for weeks without any initiation of meeting in real life). Conversation was easy and flowed well but I sensed a reserved-ness about him. Then all was revealed.

He has just come out of a 6.5 year relationship. They were living together and had been for several years when one day she came home from work and told him that she wasn’t feeling it anymore. That was in August this year. It’s November now. So they’ve been broken up for 3 months. 3 months!

The fuck is he doing on Bumble.

I could be more understanding if he had done the breaking up, because it could have been a long time coming for him and in that case he probably had grieved and made his peace with the end of the relationship by the time the actual break up happened. But in this situation, he was the one who was blindsided, thought everything was going well and is probably (very likely) still processing the loss.

Did I mention they were engaged too? Yup – wedding was going to be in a few months time.

I know the pain of heartbreak all too well, and I could see that he did too. 6.5 years is a very long time to do life with someone. There’s so much history, you can’t just turn that off. I remember when J and I first broke up, I went back on Bumble too. I wanted that intimacy that was all of a sudden ripped away, I wanted to forge something new that would distract me from the loss that cut away at me. But the more dates I went on, the more I realised that I didn’t want intimacy if it wasn’t with him, that I needed to confront the loss and just be sad for a while. Maybe that’s the same with M, maybe he’s looking for something to plug the gaping wound when what he probably needs is to air out the wound and let it heal on its own.

Fuck, how awful would it be to lose a relationship of 6 something years. I can’t fathom that at all. But also, is this all who is left?! Boys who have been dumped or are non-committal or are really weird?!

This can’t be it… right?!?!?

Sixty Four

I’ve been thinking about home since my last post.

There are so many times in my twenties where I feel in between two homes – that of my parents, and the home that I’ll build with my own family. And often I feel like I should be closer to that second home than I am. But actually, home is where I am loved.

Home is at my flat, with those crazy, incredible and wonderful girls.

Home is going to the pub at 5 and coming back at 7 to cook sausage rolls and bake cookies and watch a cheesy movie together.

Home is singing the first three words of a song and knowing those girls will be your harmonisers, dancers, percussion set and hype men.

Home is having people who will support you no matter what – in song and in dance and in life.

Home is loving, and being loved.

Sixty Three

Home.

What does that mean? I used to think it was a place, somewhere familiar and known, somewhere I knew like the back of my palm – the place where I grew up. But recently, the place where I grew up has started to feel more and more foreign, my old haunts dredging up nostalgia that sits at the back of my throat. I don’t feel like I belong there anymore, I’m like a tourist visiting the sites of old memories. Here is the place I went to school, here is the place where I had my first kiss, here is the place I watched the river for hours, trying to calm my soul.

Hometown.

It means the place you’re from, but more than that – it is the town that you call home. My hometown doesn’t feel like home anymore. When I drive through the streets, I see everything that I left behind and each return feels like a regression, a return to a past life that I’m disconnected from.

I was thinking this today when I was back for a wedding. I was in the town that raised me, saw me slowly morph into the person I am today, the town that homed me for so long. I saw old friends who had stayed and remembered the friendship we had once, which is so different now, and the distance between us. I guess this is what happens when you leave a place and settle in another. You have to redefine what home means.

The place that I once was so fond of, and proud to be from, holds nothing for me now. At least, for this time in my life.

Today, after the ceremony and catching up with old friends, I had a little bit of time to kill  before the reception. Growing up there, I always loved going down to the river and reading or writing or, mostly, just watching the water currents. It’s muscle memory that takes me there, I drive without a destination in mind. I parked, and walked to where I used to go with my first boyfriend after school.

I found the rocks where we used to sit and watch the river from, talking about things that teenagers talk about, remembering the excitement of that first relationship and the rich potential of what could be. I sat there like we used to do and watched the river for a while.

When we broke up, he said that I was naive about relationships and love. I think I still am, twelve years later. Maybe the disconnect with my hometown comes from being reminded of a younger version of myself, and how I’ve failed her in where I am in life now. I thought that by my twenties, I would know myself, know others, and know love. But I don’t know any of that, and that’s the only thing I know. Maybe hometown doesn’t feel like home anymore because I’m not comfortable there, always confronted with who I was, who I thought I would become, and the reality of who I am.

At least in my new city, I don’t have that history to bargain with. I don’t have to justify the present me with the past me. There’s a freedom that comes from breaking away from the past.

But isn’t that just running away? The past is still there. I can’t actually be free from it. I have to face the fifteen year old me and tell her that life doesn’t work out the way you think it will, that there will be times of deep sadness that will elbow its way out of you in silent cries, but that there will also be times of intense joy that leave your abs sore from laughing so much. That you won’t have the experiences you hoped for, but that there will be experiences so beautiful and wonderful that you couldn’t have imagined or hoped for them. Yeah, I think that’s what she needs to hear.

Sixty One

I’ve started listening to a podcast – The Partially Examined Life – which is basically a bunch of dudes discussing a paper written by a philosopher. The episode I listened to today was on “An Absurd Reasoning” by Albert Camus.

They were talking about life and meaning and how meaning in life was to be meaningful to someone. Does that make sense? Basically, there is meaning in life if you mean something to someone. Then one of the hosts made a comment about how that was the function that deities, or religion fulfilled. That is, religion gives meaning to people because they feel that the deity finds meaning in them.

Is that all religion is? A tool to hold human beings back from nihilism?

Oh man, I don’t know. I don’t know how to deconstruct my faith constructively. I don’t want to just pull it apart and leave it at that. I want to seek truth but I don’t know how to do that honestly and objectively. But maybe it’s not possible to do it objectively? Damn it, I keep coming back to this issue with free will. I know that I’m born into a life where I’ve inherited a lot of the decisions that other people have made for me (we all are), so my thinking and values and beliefs are already skewed from the get-go. All I can do is my best with what I know.

…But what do I know?!

Sixty

Last Christmas one of my best friends gave me a little fern plant. Recently I re-potted it and it has since slowly died… I’m in denial, still watering the ferns that are now dry and brown, hoping that there’s a little bit of life that will press on, defy all expectations and push a little green leaf out of the soil.

Yeah, not holding my breath on that one.

Fifty Six

I’m home, alone, on a Saturday night at 10:11pm. I’ve just had a shower and washed my hair after getting home after dinner with a close friend. Before that I was sitting my exam and before that I was studying for the exam.

A few weeks ago I would have felt really sad that I was home so early in the evening on a Saturday, and the fact that all my flatmates are still out would have made me feel really shit, like I’m not doing enough with my life.

But today, tonight, right now, I feel good. I don’t feel like I’m lacking, I feel like I had a good day, had a nice catch up with a friend and now am about to settle into some good Netflix. Life feels good.