Last Summer

Last Summer

The smell of a little cafe where the barista knows your order (“capp, no sugar?”)

Driving to work on a Saturday morning through the deserted streets

Driving home from a different work at midnight on a Tuesday; the streets just as deserted

 Screaming across the kitchen table at your helpless mother how much I fucking hate my life!

Crying yourself not to sleep, but to anxious, sickening wakefulness

Being greeted with a genuine ‘good morning!’ as you walk into work

Going for a job interview when all you want to do is curl up in bed and never venture into the real world again

Feeling physically sick just seeing a place you used to go together

Debating the value of leaving – for real

Reigniting a dormant passion

Realising that some jobs you never expected to take can not only teach you valuable things, but also be thoroughly enjoyable

Walking into work and everybody saying ‘oh my god, what’s wrong?’ (it’s written all over your face)

Getting so drunk the night becomes a blur

Staying in other people’s beds; waking up with the knowledge that that won’t fix it and now you merely hate yourself

Waking up from nightmares not sure whether they were real or not, whether you’d prefer for them to be or not

Rekindling old friendships

Discovering a liking for children, and a sure-fire way of interacting with them

Broadening friendship groups (and then narrowing them again, by choice or default)

Failing

Succeeding

Sobbing through a throat raw from screaming that you can’t deal with this anymore, that you have to see a doctor or a professional or anybody

The realisation that that was probably one of the best decisions you’ve ever made

Seeing him out without you and breaking down completely all over again

And again

…and again

Realising that despite all the help and all the progress that you can’t make a life here, not now

Cutting off contact, re-establishing it and then cutting it off again

Riding your horse in the river on a warm summer’s day, laughing genuinely for the first time in a long while as he paws water high enough that it splashes your face

Wrapping your hands around a warm coffee brewed by your favourite barista as you sit outside and wait for it to be time to go to work

Sipping the same type of coffee as you tell people that you’re leaving

Letting old mentors know that you’re pursuing your dream

The first Christmas without him – painful, raw, agonising

Running to mum’s arms on Christmas Eve when the tears just won’t stop

A taboo relationship with a convenient person that makes you realise that sometimes affection springs out of the most unlikely of places

The disagreement with your best friend; the first actually serious one you’ve had

Writing, re-writing, emailing, researching, applying, paying, researching some more

Taking the leap even though you’re not sure where it’ll take you and even if it’s more flight than adventure at that moment

Making the most of the beach while you can

Reading updates for uni and realising that you don’t even need to worry about that

Feeling excited, and then disenchanted, and then excited all over again

Choosing a date

Booking a flight

Saying goodbye

Arriving…

For a brand new summer on the other side of the world.