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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.