A Goodbye is more of a “see you later”

“If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.” ― W.H. Auden

I have had to say goodbye more times than I would have liked, being in my early twenties, there has always been this idea that people only should have to start saying goodbye when society dictates that they’ve lived long enough. Saying the word is always bittersweet, even if you don’t say it out loud it becomes a cathartic experience that we all eventually have to learn to deal with.

Throughout our trips around the sun we say goodbye to friends, loved ones, social stability, careers, school and even certain freedoms that we perhaps took for granted. But that’s not to say that every goodbye is permanent. Maybe a goodbye to who we once were is a good thing. The point is I know what it means to have to start over and to enter a world where your feelings are just that.

No matter how many times we do it, even when it’s for the greater good, it still stings. Although we’ll never forget what we’ve said goodbye to, we owe it to ourselves to keep moving foward. What we can’t do is live with ourselves in fear of the next goodbye becuse, chances are, they wont stop. As we grow, so do they. The trick is to recognise when a goodbye can be a good thing. When it’s a chance to start over.

Goodbye to old habbits, goodbye to bad habbits.

Happy New Year

“Everything in my life was merely prologue until now, merely delay, merely pastime, merely waste of time until I came to know you.”
― André Aciman, Find Me

“New Year New me” Is a phrase that’s so prevalent at this time of year that we forget what it actually means. In three days’ time when the gym memberships start to lose their effect and every shopping trips include more gluten than expected you begin to realise that there was no intention of creating a “new you”. You’ve waded through your Christmas presents and you’ve already decided who to cut off next year based on the idea that a costa coffee gift card is not a convenient or substantial Christmas gift.

I’ve said it before that a “new you” just isn’t practical. To make somebody brand new the idea is that the old you disappears completely and the old you is who brought you here today. Why don’t we try the same you with better choices? The same you that cries at every sad film and the same you that gives themselves fully to someone without expecting something back but never looks behind them. The same you that gives everyone the benefit of the doubt no matter their colour or creed. The next decade needs more people to give them the benefit. We can all talk about our resolutions and they read like catalogue of health and well-being brochures but the truth is, the only resolutions we need to make are ones that benefit ourselves.

When you get an infection in a limb and it becomes dead and necrotic the logical solution is to remove the limb. It’s better to live without an arm than it is to let it kill you. In this decade I plan to take the same approach with people. If they are killing me slowly, they will be cut off. People have always said that life isn’t a race but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s possible to feel like you’re losing.

You can see everyone running ahead and hear them hitting milestones that you haven’t even begin to see. So I’m making this promise to myself, and I invite you to do the same, this decade shall not be measured on the success of others but measured on the distance I have personally travelled. For example, going to a party and not getting blind drunk, going on a date and making it work or even with-holding from the negative comments that could potentially bring everything down. We are but one day in to the new year and If I continue to celebrate the small achievements eventually they’ll make themselves into big wins.

The Silence

“Is it that you don’t like people, or that you just grow tired of them and can’t for the life of you remember why you ever found them interesting?” – Andre Aciman, Find Me

There has to be a point where silence is more attractive than the noise. Sometimes when we catch ourselves in a true moment of silence, when we decide to take care of ourselves, some may say that it’s selfish or that it’s not real but that’s not accurate. Taking care of yourself is a fundamental tool to life. Taking time out to be completely alone and give you the time of pure clarity is really the only self-help tool you need to learn, knowing when to give or when to give up. Sometimes we can find ourselves fighting to live a life or to be who we want ourselves to be without even really giving it a second thought.

Sometimes it takes more than that, sometimes it takes a personal inventory of what we have or what we need to be truly at peace with ourselves, I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion that your identifier is not who you are, not what you are as such. If all you have is your identifier then who are you? Are you a good person? Are you kind? Are you alive?  What do you bring to the table other than what you are? Are you anything other than your identifier? Do you qualify as a decent human? Have you learnt how to react in a situation of conflict?

Sure people can test those theories. They can make you question what it is you stand for and make someone who once believed they were strong and independent that they are the complete opposite. They can make the most hardened soul sensitive and vulnerable and they can make you ask yourself if everything you believed about yourself is true. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but it does take getting used to.

It’s easy to blame other people and say that they are the reason you reacted irrationally or that they caused you to lose your temper or become reckless and irresponsible. More often than not, people’s actions are just a catalyst that allows that part of us we keep locked away to come out. If you react in violent outbursts or argue by being personal and vindictive, the odds are you are a naturally violent and vindictive person. If your first response is to run from a conflict that might arise or on the other hand run towards it then you probably have a need to self-destruct in more than one way. I’ve met many different kinds of people from all walks of life, it would be easy to say that people were born the way they are or it’s because they were raised a different way but it’s hard to admit that maybe people just are the way they are. Sometimes there is no explanation.

There comes a point when the gun has been fired and once the shot has rung out it’s impossible to put the bullet back. Whether or not it hits the target, the trigger was pulled. It was pulled for a reason. It was pulled to wound or hurt someone and as that shot rings out louder than anything you’ve ever heard before, the silence settles. It’s in that moment that we find clarity again. We realise that it was for the best because if nothing else it let somebody show you their true colours. It’s not a loss it’s a lesson.

I Notice

I notice the way you laugh with your top lip curled because of that chip in your front tooth

I Notice how your shoes have to be lined up exactly

How no crumb or hair can be out of place

How when you sing when you think no ones watching and how every story starts with a purpose

I notice how you think I don’t.

I notice how your heart beats irregularly

The way your fists clench when you get excited

I notice how you become catatonic when you’re concentrating and being passionate.

I notice when you think I’m being resistant but it’s different

I notice how you think I don’t.

I notice when you’re angry or sad,

Because I’ve let you down again,

I notice that look when you think I’m lying

And I notice when you think I’m in pain

I notice that you think I don’t.

I recognise the look of disappointment or hurt

And I notice when you think I don’t care

I notice when I’m being irrational and take it out on you and I notice

That you didn’t ask for any of this

I notice when you think my eyes

are closed and recognise what’s right in front of me

I notice the pattern and the circle that we repeat

I notice how you like my passion until it effects you negatively

But most of all, I notice how you don’t notice me at all.

Turn Off the Lights

“You asshole, you love and that’s how you are in love. Any expert, observing

human bodies, can see how she’s exceptional, how she ruins us all” – You Love, You Wonder, By Brenda Shaughnessy

Leaving a relationship, for any reason, is never easy: this is a common fact. But in the end you realise some other common facts; that it was for a reason, that you’ll get over it eventually and that somewhere down the line a relative or friend has informed you you’re better off without them.

There is one thing that’s almost never thought of however; starting a new one.

As Valentine’s Day once again approaches, I am left to wonder why being alone is more and more acceptable today than it ever has been.

When starting a new relationship there are many questions one has to consider; what am I looking for? Who am I looking for? Do I want a one night stand or a pre-nup and a house in the suburbs? Whatever it is, the real question is am I ready?

When are you ever ready to really open up again to one person, in any way? Sometimes it’s almost as if you’ve been stood in a room full of cockroaches and you’ve just turned the lights on. All the bugs scatter and you’re stood in an empty kitchen all alone with a day old pizza. However, the minute you turn the lights off and stop looking all the cockroaches come crawling back out ready to fuck off the minute you decide to start looking again. How long do we intend to keep the lights off? When’s the appropriate amount time to wait before turning them back on? Or are we better off not looking and letting whatever is hiding in the dark just come and get us?

I believe that on some level we are all cockroaches; crawling in and out of each others lives perpetually wandering around in the dark bumping into each other by accident. It not only explains why we consistently crawl up to people who aren’t interested but also why the minute somebody turns their lights on and shows any interest most of us run and hide.

In the same sense maybe we’re all better off keeping the lights off. Maybe we should stop actively looking and let whomever and whatever stumble into our lives, stop trying and just enjoy every relationship we should perhaps make on the way.

To answer my original question: The truth is it doesn’t matter how long you wait or how you find it, you’ll never be ready. You’ll never be ready for the long nights or the first kisses and butterflies in your stomach. All we can do is hope that when we find it, it’ll last and it will be right.

Otherwise you can all switch off the lights, right?