Love Song

I've neglected writing here recently not because I've run out of things to say, but because I am working on becoming an emotionless shell, and reliving the happiest times of my life doesn't help with that.

J and I discussed the work gossip kerfuffle. She said she believed me but it doesn't matter really.

J's sister has bought a puppy. It hurt because it felt like Boadicea and I had been replaced, and there was no chance of us going back. Boadicea is an anti-social old codger when it comes to other dogs.

So I found J, fixed her and then my job was done. She didn't need me anymore. And anything good I bought to J and C they have kept, or replaced.

It's been 17 days and it's still so raw, my supply of drugs and alcohol has run dry, and now I have no means of escape.

I'm so tired but I can't sleep, and when I do I dream of her. When I'm awake I think of her. I swear there's some sort of radio conspiracy that is to play every love song in existence ever whenever I'm around.

This morning I woke up to the song "My Kind of Love" by Emeli Sande. 30 seconds after waking up, I was in tears.

I remember going shopping with my friend a few months ago, she's in a long term relationship herself, we were listening to "The One That Got Away", I turned to her and said (jokingly) the one thing I missed about being single was being able to relate to break up songs. She agreed. Looking back on it now I want to slap myself.

I kept thinking about J today, I remember at the end of New Years Eve, an hour or so into New Years Day, our mutual friend had just left and she put our song on. We danced around the kitchen and I was so happy and touched that I cried. It was such a perfect moment, the two of us rotating slowly, her smiling and Boadicea standing behind us, barking furiously because she hates PDA. Our little family. Not perfect by normal standards but perfect for me.

I miss that. I miss her.

It hurts to know I'll never have that again.

And I feel like I didn't only lose J when we broke up, I lost myself too. Because she was me, without her I'm only half a person.

Secrets and Lies

I spent a lot of time last night thinking about J. I wanted to text her, but seeing as it was 1 o'clock in the morning I thought better of it. It'll keep, I thought. I should probably sleep on it and see what I want to say, anyway.

I didn't sleep well, and my first thought upon waking was: "Text J". So I did, I asked if she'd be up to talking to me on the phone.

About 30 seconds later:

"No, and stop talking about me 2 [my friend] shes blabbing it 2 every1 and now its making problems 4 me at work" And then this, from her sister: "Why hav you been saying bout my shit bout my sisterr and lying to ppl eg [my friend]!!"

What the fuck?

I have NOT been spreading lies about J, or anyone she works with (this is what I'd been accused of, as it turns out) as well as making J out to be (and I quote) a "monster". Anyone who knows me knows that I have not said one bad word about J since we broke up, mostly because I am still in fucking love with her.

Go ahead, check my twitter from 24th May onwards, look at my facebook, ask anyone I've spoken to about my break up. I have not said ONE FUCKING THING against her. I miss her terribly, yes. She's broken my heart, yes. I feel like my life is in ruins, yes.

I think I managed to convince C (J's sister), that I had nothing to do with it. J however, seems determined to hate me, for some unknown reason. Maybe it makes it easier for her, maybe she can justify her actions if she thinks I'm a complete bitch.

Sorry J, but you know that deep down, that's not me.

I spoke to the friend in question, she knows the girl that J & C works with. She admitted she let slip J & I were no longer together (I wasn't aware it was a secret, but hey), she categorically denied calling J a "monster" and seemed utterly confused by what was going on.

I believe her, why wouldn't I? She might occasionally let things slip that she shouldn't, but I know, after 15 years of friendship, that she does have my best interests at heart. I also know she has nothing against J, because aside from the fact that she broke up with me, I have nothing against J.

So it's all a big fucking mess, I don't think J's interested in a friendship with me. That's her choice. I'm not okay with it, but hey. Maybe if she acts like a heartless bitch it'll be easier for me to let her go. And that, is the first bad thing I have said about J.

The Way Things Are

I text her last night. I apologised for the Wednesday night (well, technically Thursday morning) mishap. Told her I hoped she was taking care of herself and that Boadicea was settling in well. She replied quickly, it was carefully constructed, the words well chosen so that their meaning could not be misconstrued, there was no kiss, no punctuation. I replied to that, brushing off her question asking how I was doing (what was I supposed to do, lie? Or fuck up our perfectly cordial conversation by saying: "well actually, you've pretty much ruined my life and I've never felt more alone"? No, of course not) instead I told her "make sure you don't over-work yourself" blah blah blah. 

She didn't reply to that.

The texts and calls, tweets and BBMs from concerned well-wishers are waning now, as I knew they would. My friends are tiring of my depressive state. "It's been a week, get over it!" (No-one has actually said this outright, it's just the impression I'm getting). People don't want to take care of me, they want me to bounce-back and be the old Shannon who didn't give a fuck and was almost famous for her ability to cut people off and not bat an eyelid.

That's just not who I am anymore.

It's easy to "not give a fuck" when you don't know what you're missing, but when you do...

I'm lonely and I fucking hate it. But I don't just want anyone's company. I want the company of a select few, and they're 2 and a half hours away and busy living their own lives.

My self-destructive behaviour isn't for attention, it's just something to DO.

I know it's self-destructive, I know it won't help. But I don't care. Nothing I have done the past 8 days has made me feel any worse. You know why? Because there's nothing left to hurt. It's already done. It's like punching a corpse in the face - that's how much I feel it.

Writing helps, slightly. And sleep is a brief reprieve from heart-ache. I can't keep up either permanently though, and then the thoughts, the memories, the reality slips back in.

I feel restless, but I have no energy. I'm angry, but I'm in love with the person I'm angry with. I need to talk about things, but I can't talk to the people around me.

The result is this mess. I can't punish her so I'm punishing myself. If I do enough damage to myself physically maybe the emotional hurt will dull. It seems to be working. I've got to toe the line though, can't go too far. I swore I'd look after Boadicea so that means staying alive. 

It doesn't mean I can't make myself suffer though.

Meeting Andrew

I needed to blow off some steam. After arriving in Sussex on Sunday I hadn’t done much, I slept a lot. Keeping up appearances was exhausting. The relative I’m staying with didn’t know about my relationship with J. I think she suspected, but I never told her outright. I knew she would disapprove. I didn’t have the energy to explain, to fight for the validity of it. After all, my relationship with J was no longer valid. How could I fight for something that I no longer believed in?

I decided to go to Brighton on Wednesday, a friend who used to go to uni there assured me that bars would be open on a Wednesday. Brighton was like London, there was always a party somewhere, you just had to find it. And I was determined to. It took about an hour to get there, as I walked down from the station I passed the shop where J and I had brought cakes the last time we were there. I bought a tray of chips from a stand on the pier, the same place I’d bought chips with J the year before. I stood  by the railings and watched the sea. The tide was in, and a dense fog was settling atop the waves. I watched it draw closer and engulf the sea. My feet hurt so I took off my boots. I knew of a bar along the seafront. R Bar, I’d been there before (with J, of course). 

It didn’t take me long to find it. I peered through the windows to try and gauge the crowd, mostly older men with their partners, what looked like a few heterosexual couples… I stood outside and smoked a cigarette whilst I considered whether I had the balls to do this. This is coming from a girl who had never set foot in a nightclub before, never “gone out on the pull”, never even made the first move when it came to people I was interested in. I kept my head down as I walked in, briefly making eye contact with a girl sitting on a bar stool in the doorway, I thought she might’ve been a bouncer. She looked at me strangely but no move to stop me, so I slunk in and found an empty stool next to the bar.

The place was nearly empty, and mostly men. I ordered a drink and pulled out my phone.
“This was a stupid idea.” I told my friend via text. I scrolled through my facebook newsfeed and tried not to look too out of place. I wondered if people thought I’d been stood up, or if I had any idea that I was sitting in one of Brighton’s most prolific gay bars. I was on my second drink when he came in, he stood next to me at the bar with his friend and they ordered their drinks. I saw him give me the once over and I felt a bit braver. He made a point of telling the bartender that his friend was just that, and he “didn’t go that way, no offence.” I was pretty sure that comment was for my benefit. His friend excused himself to take a call and he turned his attention on me. I can’t remember how the conversation started, only that it friendly, bordering on flirtatious. I asked him his name, and he shook my hand, caressing my wrist and taking in the tattoo there.

“My dog.” I explained, watching his thumb stroke the inked paw prints. He showed me the tattoo on his left wrist, an amateur crucifix. He told me he hadn’t had enough money to get the full thing, he explained what he had envisioned and I tried to look like I was listening. I was uncomfortably aware of how inexperienced I was in this situation, but he didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he found it endearing. His friend returned some time later, I had the distinct impression as giving us space. Andrew, as I found out he was called, invited me to join them. He told me it was a friend’s birthday and they were up from London celebrating. I told him briefly about J. We went upstairs to join the rest of his friends. I remember him asking;
“So, do you prefer men or women?”
“Depends on my mood.” I told him.
“So you’re volatile?” He smirked.
“You could say that.”  I replied.

We didn’t stay in R bar for long before Patrick, the birthday boy, suggested we move on elsewhere. Andrew disappeared for a moment and the rest of the party moved on, I stood outside with his friend, Farai and we had a cigarette. I found out that the group were nurses. And I joked that Farai should know better about the dangers of smoking. Farai smiled and told me.
“We’re gonna die anyway.”

Next stop was Poison Ivy, a small bar slightly further away from the sea front. The place was pretty much dead. Our party of eight making up the majority of the patrons. They had a stage for karaoke set up, and it didn’t take long for the group to make the most of it. Andrew offered me a seat and I took it graciously, my feet were killing me, and I enjoyed the attention he was lavishing me with. Andrew hovered protectively by my chair, his hand on the back, or resting on my upper thigh. He bought me a drink and I finished it quickly, too quickly perhaps, because he commented:
“You’ve been drinking like a fish since I met you.”
“I’m on a mission.” I told him, he smiled.
He finished his drink a while later and went up to the bar, returning with not two, but five drinks.
“Who are those for?” I asked.
“Us.” He smirked.
“You don’t need to get me drunk, you know.” I told him, Andrew shrugged.

This part’s a bit fuzzy, I remember drinking, and singing (at the table, not the mic, I wasn’t that drunk) I remember getting a phone call from a friend that I could barely hear over the music from the speakers. I remember being on the phone to J, ‘though I have no recollection of calling her, and telling her how I was about to “fuck this guy” when she told me she was busy and had to go.

I remember leaving the bar, briefly, all though I don’t know why I did. I remember standing in a doorway with Andrew, pressing my body against his and kissing him. I remember thinking he kissed too hard, and not like J did. I remember kissing him again anyway. We went back to the bar for a few more drinks, at some point another friend of theirs, Mariam, joined us. I remember slipping a condom from a “safe sex” leaflet in my pocket.

We were in a car park, I sat in the back with Andrew. Farai was driving and Mariam was in the front passenger seat. We drove to the beach. I couldn’t find my cigarettes, Farai give me some of his spliff instead. Andrew got a little more hands-on, I remember feeling indifferent to his touch and faced forward, thoughts of J pushing themselves to the front of my mind. He unzipped his fly and I felt him, he asked me if I wanted to fuck and I said yes. I felt in my pocket for the condom I’d picked up earlier but it wasn’t there, I asked if he had one, he didn’t.

I freaked the fuck out.

It was most probably the weed talking but I was suddenly convinced  that he wanted to kill me. He tried to calm me down, reassure me, but I was hysterical. I remember him convincing me to get back into the car, but then he took my shoes and I freaked out again. He didn’t want me to get out. I was beside myself. I wormed my way out of the car and ran. Farai came after me, saying that he had my shoes. I told him to stay where he was, drop my shoes, and leave. He complied.

So there I was, wandering the streets of Brighton at two o’ clock in the morning, high as a fucking kite. I called a friend and he attempted to direct me to the train station, before realising the last train was long gone. In desperation I thumbed down a taxi, told the man to take me to the nearest cash point so I could withdraw the money for a taxi back to the house. Ninety pounds. That’s the cost for an hour long journey in a Brighton taxi at two in the morning. And I was now officially into my overdraft.

I got back around three thirty, I remember making some toast and then laying down in bed to eat it, consequently dropping the toast on my face. I bid good night to my friend and that should’ve been the end of it really, I should’ve just woken up the next morning with a sore head and an interesting story to chalk up to experience. Did I go to sleep? Of course not.  I called J.

I called her mobile at first, she rejected my calls. Inspiration struck when I remembered she was working on a helpline, I googled the number and sure enough, there she was. I don’t know what I was hoping to happen. I suppose I wanted to share my night with her, I was scared and I wanted her to look after me (old  habits are hard to kick). It was stupid, I know. I was desperate. She told me she wasn’t interested, we needed to make a clean break, she said I reminded her of her mother. She hung up.

I went to bed with a heart as heavy as my head and dreamt of her again.

Leaving Surrey.

For two days I didn't do much, J was working and C was her usual social butterfly self. I had plenty of calls, texts, tweets and facebook notifications from friends checking up on me. I also had more visitors in those two days than I'd had in the past two years. People cared, they were sorry, they couldn't believe it either. I drank a lot, and ate nothing.
"Haven't eaten or slept today, but quite enjoying the feeling of numbness that comes with extreme fatigue."
On the Saturday, I think the situation sunk in just enough for me to realise that I needed to do... Something. I called the only family I have left. She agreed to take me in, I asked her to come Sunday as I had a few things to work out. I think I was just hoping J would change her mind.

Saturday night, J got home late, she told me she'd fallen asleep on the train. I worried she was working too hard. She said she was going to bed, I asked if I could stay with her. She told me it would make things worse.
"I just want one more night with you before I have to be angry with you." She relented, pity probably. She told me;
"Nothing's going to be different in the morning." I told her I knew. We went to bed. At some point in the night I woke up laying on my back, J's head on my shoulder, her arm over me and her hand in mine. She whimpered in her sleep and jumped. "Shh, it's okay." I whispered. J jerked awake and pulled away, rolling onto her side so her back was to me. Just for a second, I thought she'd changed her mind.

J's sister got in late that night, she'd been to a barbecue. I guess she noticed I wasn't in the spare room, she knocked on J's door, called my name, I ignored it. She opened the door and turned on the light, J and I pretended to be asleep. I don't know what she thought of the scene. It must've looked strange.

The next morning J got up at 6 for work. We said goodbye. She was still adamant we could be friends in the future. She was wrong. I laid in bed until I heard the front door slam. I watched her cross the garden, pause at the gate and look back and up at me. And that was the last time I saw her.

A few hours later my friend turned up to help me pack, we were nowhere near ready when my lift arrived. I remember shoving binbags full of clothes into the boot, the passenger seat, any space I could find. I had a fish tank with fish inside a cooler bag and a very confused dog. I said goodbye to my friend, he said he'd see me soon. I got my last look at the house as the car pulled out into the road. It was a poignant moment and I felt my chest ache as the house disappeared out of sight and we turned.

J text me saying; "Did it go well?" I ignored it, taking to twitter instead:

"A new start. Don't know that I'm ready for it, but here we go."

 

New beginnings.

First, a back story. J and I got together on a drunken night in October 2010. We were both fairly reserved as people go and given the choice we would've taken it slower. Not because we were trying to be sensible, just because we were both scared. 

Two weeks into our relationship, however, we were thrown in at the deep end. I was kicked out of my home. J, being a longtime friend (and recently, partner) of mine no doubt felt it her duty to "take care of me". She let me stay at hers that night, along with a binbag full of clothes and a stinky dog (something that put her previously rampant OCD in check pretty quickly), she helped me find a house to rent with a mutual friend of ours. I think we were both very aware how much of a strain the situation could put on such a fresh, new relationship such as ours. But she came through for me.

I "lived" with my friend for 5 short months, but J and I were infatuated, we'd see each other everyday, she stayed at mine most weeknights, I'd come to hers of a weekend. She told me that that things were hard now, but they would get better. As long as the two of us made the effort, we'd be okay.

I officially moved in in May of 2011, although I'd given up on the rented place months before that. It was crazy, how well it worked. J had proposed the month before and it was fun to "play house" with her, she cooked, I cleaned. We were awesome together.

A year went by without any real incident, sometimes we argued, but that's to be expected, isn't it? Two headstrong, opinionated people, sometimes you're going to butt heads. The making up was my favourite. We took care of one another, she'd comfort me when I woke up in a cold sweat, remembering things that were best forgotten. I'd stay up with her all night whilst she finished the uni essay that was due in in six hours. Even though I had to be up in 5.

I don't know what happened. We were engaged, meant to be moving, saving for a mortgage. It just went wrong. The arguments became more frequent, the sex less. I became tearful and depressed. She wasn't connecting. My work sucked. She had a new job that caused her to be out at all hours of the day and night. I wasn't as supportive as I could've been. Neither was she.

The last week ('though I didn't know it would be at the time) was the hardest. She was working a late shift, a night shift, a late shift. I was doing 40+ hours that week. When she was home, I was out, and vice versa. We argued 3 times in as many days. She told me she needed space. I was hurt, we'd hardly seen each other. She wanted to be able to go out with friends, she was feeling more sociable. I said I didn't mind (I did a little bit), but what about seeing me? She said I needed to work on it. I said I would. She told me next week would be better. Things would be calmer, we'd have quality time. I told her I'd been feeling down, she suggested I make a doctors appointment. I refused.

Thursday 24th May. I knew something was wrong when I called her, I told her work were letting me go early so I could visit my GP, to talk about how I was feeling. She sounded distant. I told her I loved her. Nothing - a clipped "bye" and she was gone. Walking back from my doctors appointment I tried to be optimistic, the week was almost done. She said the next would be better. I was excited to see her, with our conflicting schedules, I hadn't seen her in days. I eagerly awaited her return at home. I felt juddery and couldn't sit still. I somehow ended up watching videos about a talking gorilla on youtube. I made a note to show J - it was pretty interesting stuff.

Something was off. She got back around 10. I continued watching my youtube video, suddenly nervous. She walked to the foot of the stairs and began unlacing her shoes. I stared resolutely at the screen. He sister, C, who lived with us bustled in and out of the kitchen making toast, then tea, then fussing over the dog. J didn't say a word. I swiveled in the computer chair so that the sofa she was on was directly opposite me. She met my eyes for a second, then dropped her gaze to the floor. After what seemed like an agonizingly long time to take making toast, C left. 

"What's wrong?" I asked. She sighed. I knew.

"I can't do this anymore."

I'm not going to write the whole speech, it hurts to hear the words in my head every day, let alone see them.

I cried, a lot. Tried to tell her she was wrong, we could try. I surrendered every last shred of my dignity. Dignity meant nothing without her. I thought maybe she was testing me - seeing whether I'd fight to keep her. 

I fought, but I'd already lost her.

And that is where this blog begins. It has been one week today since she broke up with me. In the last week I've lost so much. Her, my job, my home, my friends.

I feel like I've regressed about four years. I could give up now, I've got an okay set up. I won't go cold or hungry here. Or I could work on rebuilding my life, use this as an opportunity to make changes. I don't know which way I'm going yet, but I thought it might be interesting to chronicle it.

Heart-break in real time.