was ready for colour again.
One Month Ago…
The Places You Used To Belong…
It took three months for me to not
want to text you about every little thing that made me laugh or cry. To be
fair, it took me almost three months to laugh again full stop.
By December I had stopped texting you pretty much
completely. I still wanted to. I thought of you every day and my fingers itched
to send you a few words. I didn’t want to say I missed you or that I loved you,
I just wanted to know you were OK. But I didn’t. I managed to stop myself.
Instead, I focused on Christmas. I had plans to visit family and see my
friends. I made a full itinerary that covered pretty much the entire month
because I had figured out that keeping busy was key. It helped keep away those
thoughts of you. It stopped your words from spinning around my head. It made me
feel almost normal again, and God, that was a beautiful feeling. I knew I wasn’t
quite there, but only being twenty or thirty percent present was still a
welcome relief. I wasn’t crazy after all. It was amazing.
I often thought back a few months, to when I was at the
bottom of a black hole, certain I was never going to feel better. I was
positive that feeling of being pulled down and down and down was never going to
end. Eventually I would just collapse under the weight of gravity and misery
and crumble to dust.
But I didn’t. It surprised me. I surprised me.
Sometimes my heart caught me unaware and I was hit by such a
wave of longing and loneliness that I could have suffocated. But I carried on,
trying to leave you behind.
I still saw things all the time I wanted to tell you about.
I still thought of things that you would find funny and I started towards my
phone, thinking maybe you would be happy to hear from me and hear all about it,
but then I would remember how far I had come and knew I didn’t want to go back.
I knew any contact from you would have done it. I knew a single word from you,
in person or on my phone screen, would have sent me tumbling back weeks of
progress.
My friends were amazing. I had finally come clean about
where I had been and what had been happening. My phone had started to buzz and
beep all the time, them checking in on me and saving me from my thoughts. I
don’t know where I would be without them. You still had your own alerts, just
in case. We had a plan, my friends and I, that if your alerts were ever to
sound I was to contact them immediately. I was not to be left alone with any
contact with you. It was a good plan. It made me feel safe because I knew I was
weak when it came to you. Maybe I always will be.
December passed in a blur of tinsel and learning to live
again.
I gave my family and friends all paintings for Christmas.
They were bright watercolours, using all the colours of the rainbow. I did it
because I could. Those colours no longer made me hurt. I wanted them in my
world again. Bright beautiful colour.
On Christmas Day I gave myself a present; I deleted all the
texts I had saved from you, and I finally gave up that tiny last flicker of
hope that we could go back to what we had once been.
I also finally deleted your number.
Merry Christmas me.
Today…
You Look An Awful Lot Like Hope…
I saw you today. You were in the indoor
market, looking at cakes, and you were with her. Pan I suppose. Although maybe
not. I might never know. Your arm, which used to belong around my waist, was
around her shoulders. Whoever she was, she was beautiful, as I might have
expected. You said something to her, right up close to her ear, and she threw
her head back to laugh. I watched her blonde hair swish over her shoulders and
across the skin on your forearm, the same skin that I used to run my fingertips
across. You made her pretty skin flush. Your blue eyes sparkled and I felt like
I couldn’t breathe.
I was better though, better than before. Better than when I
thought life without you meant nothing. Better than when I thought I would
never
One Month Ago…
The Places You Used To Belong…
It took three months for me to not
want to text you about every little thing that made me laugh or cry. To be
fair, it took me almost three months to laugh again full stop.
By December I had stopped texting you pretty much
completely. I still wanted to. I thought of you every day and my fingers itched
to send you a few words. I didn’t want to say I missed you or that I loved you,
I just wanted to know you were OK. But I didn’t. I managed to stop myself.
Instead, I focused on Christmas. I had plans to visit family and see my
friends. I made a full itinerary that covered pretty much the entire month
because I had figured out that keeping busy was key. It helped keep away those
thoughts of you. It stopped your words from spinning around my head. It made me
feel almost normal again, and God, that was a beautiful feeling. I knew I wasn’t
quite there, but only being twenty or thirty percent present was still a
welcome relief. I wasn’t crazy after all. It was amazing.
I often thought back a few months, to when I was at the
bottom of a black hole, certain I was never going to feel better. I was
positive that feeling of being pulled down and down and down was never going to
end. Eventually I would just collapse under the weight of gravity and misery
and crumble to dust.
But I didn’t. It surprised me. I surprised me.
Sometimes my heart caught me unaware and I was hit by such a
wave of longing and loneliness that I could have suffocated. But I carried on,
trying to leave you behind.
I still saw things all the time I wanted to tell you about.
I still thought of things that you would find funny and I started towards my
phone, thinking maybe you would be happy to hear from me and hear all about it,
but then I would remember how far I had come and knew I didn’t want to go back.
I knew any contact from you would have done it. I knew a single word from you,
in person or on my phone screen, would have sent me tumbling back weeks of
progress.
My friends were amazing. I had finally come clean about
where I had been and what had been happening. My phone had started to buzz and
beep all the time, them checking in on me and saving me from my thoughts. I
don’t know where I would be without them. You still had your own alerts, just
in case. We had a plan, my friends and I, that if your alerts were ever to
sound I was to contact them immediately. I was not to be left alone with any
contact with you. It was a good plan. It made me feel safe because I knew I was
weak when it came to you. Maybe I always will be.
December passed in a blur of tinsel and learning to live
again.
I gave my family and friends all paintings for Christmas.
They were bright watercolours, using all the colours of the rainbow. I did it
because I could. Those colours no longer made me hurt. I wanted them in my
world again. Bright beautiful colour.
On Christmas Day I gave myself a present; I deleted all the
texts I had saved from you, and I finally gave up that tiny last flicker of
hope that we could go back to what we had once been.
I also finally deleted your number.
Merry Christmas me.
Today…
You Look An Awful Lot Like Hope…
I saw you today. You were in the indoor
market, looking at cakes, and you were with her. Pan I suppose. Although maybe
not. I might never know. Your arm, which used to belong around my waist, was
around her shoulders. Whoever she was, she was beautiful, as I might have
expected. You said something to her, right up close to her ear, and she threw
her head back to laugh. I watched her blonde hair swish over her shoulders and
across the skin on your forearm, the same skin that I used to run my fingertips
across. You made her pretty skin flush. Your blue eyes sparkled and I felt like
I couldn’t breathe.
I was better though, better than before. Better than when I
thought life without you meant nothing. Better than when I thought I would
never
Similar Books
