#memoirsofasingle

Sometimes, life throws you situations that are so awful, that ”coping” isn’t enough. You need to shut down and shut off. 

In this ice cold existence, there is comfort and peace. No one can get close enough to make you feel anything bad. But, they also can’t get anywhere near you to make you feel anything good. 

It’s not that you don’t want to feel anything good anymore; you absolutely do. But it’s all about association. For me, anyway. The last time I felt something good, it ended in my own emotional hell. Therefore I associate feeling good with being closely followed by something terrible. 

When you've shut everything off, you can’t feel anything. And if you’ve been through something painful enough, the “nothing” is preferable. Almost like a holiday away from feelings. Like being wrapped in cotton wool. It’s all happy days until you encounter something that makes you want to feel the good stuff again. 

Ordinarily, it’s nice to just wander around with your cotton wool barrier, being able to take in the world from a new angle. A totally unbiased angle. An angle that is all for you, with no one else to dictate your decision or sway your opinion. Kind of like seeing everything in HD. 

But just sometimes, you encounter a person or an experience that tempts you into opening up for the good stuff. 

It’s a cycle of what has become your everyday emotionless bliss, followed by hopeful optimism, peppered with crippling fear. 

Isn’t the human mind a country of wonderment and confusion?

Honestly? You cross my thoughts so rarely now that to write about you is a tiresome task. 

You made a lot of promises and never kept them. 

You said you loved me when you didn’t anymore. 

You told me I’d be more attractive if I didn’t smoke and lost some weight, after saying I was the most beautiful girl in the world and staring into my eyes. 

You wouldn’t let me end it after you’d said these cruel things. You didn’t want it to end so it didn’t. It only ended when you were ready. You never let me end it when I was ready.

You made me feel insignificant. 

You made me feel like a waste of space.

You made me feel stupid. 

You made me feel insecure. 

You made me feel unsafe.

You made me feel unloved.

You ignored me for days on end without explanation or reason.

You got bored but didn’t have the courage to tell me.

You let me continue wondering what was going on, when I knew you didn’t love me or want me anymore. 

You let me book my flights to see you, when you’d already realised you didn’t want this anymore.

You initiated the break up conversation with “I don’t have any fucks left to give for this relationship.”

We act like strangers now. 

I remember the morning I collected D from the airport as if it was yesterday.

Every emotion I was capable of was coursing through me. I was terrified in case what we thought was there turned out of to be a silly holiday romance. I was delighted at the prospect of seeing him again. I was already sad to say goodbye to him, before he’d even arrived. 

I got to the terminal probably about half an hour before his flight was even due in. I couldn’t stand pacing around my house any more, so I’d set off early. 

I don’t remember much about being stood behind the barriers, waiting for him to appear. I just remember that every person I saw was him. I saw his eyes everywhere I looked. 

And then suddenly he was there. The real him. And we saw each other, in the flesh, in real life. And it was as if the airport froze and there was only us. I remember we walked towards each other, and slid into one another’s arms. All of the conversations over the past 6 weeks. All of the phone calls. All of the photos. All of the words, the promises. Everything. All in this one moment seemed to bleed into one, and it felt like I’d never not been holding him. I’d never not known him. We’d never not been in love. 

Side note: When I started writing the blog, I found it so helpful. It helped me order my own thoughts. It helped me explore my own theories and opinions. I’ve always enjoyed writing the blog, and looked forwards to writing about someone new every time I went on a new date. 

Writing about D, and putting order to these thoughts, and breathing life into it all, has been emotionally one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I have to write about it, I know that. But I can’t wait for the story to be over. When I come to write at the moment, it looms over me. Having to go back there. And revisit how I felt. How he made me feel. Feeling safe because he’d told me it was. I look back on it all now, in hindsight; the finest seat in the house, and it’s like a horrible film that keeps playing over and over. 

Sometimes it starts playing first thing in the morning before I know anything. Sometimes it gets me when I’m halfway through an email in work. And it feels like my blood has turned to ice. Because I feel the flutter of happiness at the thought of how I felt in the beginning, how astounded I was at my own luck. I remember feeling so lucky. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that I’d found him, and that he’d found me. All because of how he made me “feel”. We were both so sure. We were both so adamant. This was it. We’d found one another, as we were meant to. The happiness I remember feeling was so golden, so pure and true, that sometimes the fear that I’ll never experience it again takes my breath away. 

But I recently realised, that I don’t want to feel it again. Because the happiness in the beginning that made me glow wasn’t true. It wasn’t based on lies exactly, but it wasn’t based on truth either. 

I digress. 

His visit was everything I expected and hoped it would be. That night he met my friends. My best friends. We went for dinner and drinks and then played pool. When we got back to our hotel he asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes. 

We enjoyed the finer details of being in one another's company. Asking if the other wanted a cup of coffee and being able to make it. Watching TV with my head in his lap, him stroking my hair. 

A few days into my trip I brought him into my family home. He met everyone. That night, in my bedroom, he told me he loved me. In person. For the first time. I said it back, meaning every word with everything I knew and felt. I knew in that moment that he would never leave me or hurt me. That I would marry this man. We were meant to meet that night in San Francisco. 

I may write more entries on various moments from the trip; I don’t think it can be dissected in it’s entirety in one evening. But all I can say is the trip was perfect. He met every single person in my life, much by accident, we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. 

We went to Amsterdam together for a few days, and it was the most normal thing in the world. With him, I felt at home. When it came to the night before his flight. We lay next to one another in my room crying. We eventually fell asleep, and woke to an early alarm. Time to go. 

Before we left, my mum said good bye to him, and she was crying too. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive that. Not her. Not him. Me. That I brought someone into our home that made her cry at the thought of him leaving. Because she believed it too. She believed the love story. And it broke her heart too. I want to scream at him now when I think of it. Trick me. Lie to me. But my mother?  My family? My friends? 

My mother is a woman who doesn’t trust or believe at the drop of a hat. And she believed him. It breaks my heart into pieces. 

I drove him to the airport. It’s so odd to think this was actually the last time I saw him. We cried some more. We kissed and hugged. I drove home, but felt calm and okay. Because I knew we’d be fine. I knew we were going to make it work. So I wasn’t worried. He kept me updated on his journey, and it was like normal. Hearing from him often. He was texting me telling me he loved me, that he missed me already, that he didn’t plan on leaving my mind any time soon. All of the things he’d said before. It still felt amazing to hear them. 

Like I say, at the time, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. It puzzled me every morning as soon as I opened my eyes, but I wasn’t complaining. 

I look back now, and it breaks me to see how weak I became over time. How pathetic it turned. How his words changed, but more importantly, how they changed me. 

I think the saddest thing in all of this for me, is how often this happens. It will happen every second of every day on this earth. People everywhere, having their trust and love crumpled into nothing. It’s an everyday occurrence, and I don’t feel like we acknowledge the damage it can cause. 

D and I met very much by accident. At the time, we kidded ourselves and romanticised the whole thing. “It was meant to be”, “We were meant to meet each other” “It was fate”. It felt magical and accidental. 

In reality, it was just coincidence. It’s just how events happened to unfold that night. Like any other meeting of any other person in my life. 

I was never going to go out on that final night in San Fran. I was very much dragged out by my hostel pals, but hadn’t wanted to leave. I wanted to stay in and pack, ready to fly home the next day. 

I ended up in a Beer Olympics bar. Oh, America. Organised drinking games. D was put on my team. We began talking. I was very drunk. It was my last night in America and I did not give a fuck what happened that night. He was cute and seemed familiar. He was true and honest. Raw. I liked that. Better the devil you know. 

I’d decided I was going to sleep with him. In my head, I worked out “I’ll never see him again. It doesn’t matter”. Did I mention I was very drunk? 

This particular section of the story doesn’t require all that much explaining. Looking back now, after everything that has happened, it’s probably the nicest, easiest to understand and most normal part of our encounter. 

He kissed me in the second bar we went in to. I asked him if he’d like to leave with me. He called us a cab and we left. We got back to my hostel. We had sex. The sex was good. But what drunk sex isn’t? In my mind, I was already over it though. I knew I was leaving. I knew I’d never see this guy again. He’s American. He’s from America. It was a pretty perfect situation to be honest - I didn’t need to care, because there was no possibility of any other outcome. Clean cut. Simple. Perfect end to a perfect trip. 

However. We lay together in my bottom bunk. And we started talking. NOT part of the plan. I felt a connection. I felt part of myself being emitted out of him back at me as we spoke. I’d never felt anything like it with someone before. I felt total equality. It felt like I’d always known him. I had to stop myself from saying “where have you been?”, because of the overwhelming sense that we’d met before. We’d been friends before, and now we’d reconnected in.. well.. whatever this was. Lovers? Drinkers? Who knows. 

We laughed some more. He eventually left. I was falling asleep, but I remember him asking persistently for confirmation of the spelling of my surname. At the time, it meant nothing to me. And I sleepily told him my full name. You guessed it - I woke up to a friend request from him on Facebook. 

I thought it was polite, but a little unnecessary. We surely don’t have anything to speak about? And really, the cynical part of my thought “What’s the point?”, when there’s no chance we could stay friends, and certainly for anything more to happen, I just didn’t get it. But I accepted the friend request, so as not to be a dick. Oh, if only I’d known. 

We started talking straight away. He said how great it had been to meet me. He was fascinated the fact I was British, living in Britain, Britain in general, etc etc etc. And honestly? I was fascinated by him. Originally from Texas. Living in Missouri. I wanted to know all about small town America, and more importantly all about him. This person I felt sure I was destined to know. 

It continued after I’d returned home. I thought it was a little odd. A guy I’d had a one night stand with in San Francisco was attempting to pursue me. No. 

I tried to palm him off politely a few times. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him, but the situation seemed like a cul-de-sac. There is nowhere this can go. We realised, through talking further, and eventually talking on the phone, that we liked each other an incredible amount. We connected on so many levels. We had a frightening amount in common. It was soon apparent that we connected on a romantic level, and we started speaking every day, throughout the day. He would wake up in the middle of the night, his time, to tell me to have a good day at work. I’d stay up late on the phone to him. We talked about everything. We shared our hearts openly and honestly. He made me feel things I’d never felt before. I can’t really put them into words, even now. I suppose it was just the sensation of meeting the person you’re supposed to spend your life with. Or so I thought at the time. But it felt so incredibly intense, and so unmistakably like we were meant to be, I didn’t know where to go with it. 

He seemed to have a lot going on in his life, and one night, I bluntly said it was probably best that we stopped whatever this was that we were doing, because of his personal circumstances, along with the distance, was surely only a recipe for disaster. And honestly? I didn’t want to meet anyone. I’d found mental freedom finally, and I didn’t want to give it up. He had other plans. 

He literally did not let me exit his life. He said that he already couldn’t imagine his life without me in it. Ever. That he had to get to know me. That he believed we were equals, and that we’d been brought together for a reason. 

We continued to speak every day. On the phone. On Skype. Texting. We couldn’t get enough of each other, and it felt safe to entertain that. We found things in one another that we’d searched long and hard for in others, but never managed to find. It was as if we’d finally met, after waiting all these years, knowing the other was waiting, somewhere. 

I could feel myself falling in love with him. Hard and fast. I could feel that he felt the same. I didn’t want this to happen. I voiced my concerns. He soothed them every time. Made out that I didn’t need to worry about anything at all. 

He asked me more than once to be his. For us to be together. I declined each time. I said if it was ever to happen we’d need to spend more time together. And also, hello? Distance? What the fuck? He batted away my concerns. He said we’d find a way. He wasn’t concerned with the how, he just wanted to be with me. He talked about what he wanted out of his future, and that he wanted to see if that could be with me. He even talked about the fact that he was open to moving over here, if that’s what it took. It all felt so blissfully easy, happy and magical. I got swept away, bit by bit, with his persuasion. 

He knew all about my previous heartbreaks and how they’d gone down. Another topic we’d torn apart, in depth. He promised he would never hurt me like they did. He’d never just up and leave my life like they did. I was still so wary, but after much persuasion and constant reassurance, we agreed for him to book a flight and visit me for 2 weeks, in a months time. 

By the time he’d booked his flights, I knew I loved him. I knew he loved me. I knew this was massive. I knew I wanted to be with him, and I knew I wanted to spend as much of my life with him as I could.

We hadn’t said the words. Neither of us wanted to say it if it wasn’t in person. But we knew it was there. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I couldn’t believe he’d been there all along, I’d just had to find him. We settled into one another’s lives so easily. Well, as easily as we could with the distance and the time difference. After all of his beautiful words and romanticisms, I could feel that my doubts were easing. My heart softening. Becoming more open. It felt safe. It felt real and true. Falling in love with him was the easiest thing in the world. He made sure of that.

It’s 10:31pm. I don’t wonder what he’s doing tonight. I don’t care any more. I used to care. I used to care with all of my being. I would have cared until the very end. Which, at one point, he said he would too. He said it without me asking. Which was the majority of a lot of the things he said to me in the beginning: never asked for. 

I didn’t need him to make the promises he made. I didn’t need the overly sweet and romantic lines he fed me. I just wanted love and truth - that is, if I was going to want romantic involvement at all. He fed lines of love and pieces of his heart to me until finally I actually needed them from him. Because they’d become the norm. And they felt so out of this world to hear and receive. I remember some of the things he said now, and, in hindsight, they feel like bad champagne. The right intent, and an attempt at something brilliant. But never quite as good as the proper stuff. Some of the things we said were in person. Lying in the dark in my bedroom at my parents house, listening to one another breathing, thankful to be able to hear it. Some were over the phone before and after his visit. Feeling hollow because we were so far apart, wishing the other was there.

“I’ve never been able to picture myself marrying someone so clearly as I do with you.”

“I want someone to love until the very end.”

“When I look into your eyes, it’s like seeing home.”

Cynical me from a few months back would have vomited. The me that he was training me to be, lapped it up, blushed, couldn’t believe such a guy existed. 

I just deleted our entire Facebook conversation. All of it from day one, to the sorry dregs that were left by the end. I didn’t recognise the two people in it, or the words they exchanged. 

I remember us laughing about the thousands of messages we’d swapped in a matter of a week or so, and how shocked we were at the ease of our conversation, how simple it was to invite one another into our respective lives. As if they’d belonged there all along. 

Isn’t it funny how your hobbies, interests and aspirations just become background noise when you fall in love? 

It’s not that they don’t matter anymore; they just don’t matter as much. They’re not as clear and in focus. You see it all the time when people fall in love with someone new. They stop seeing friends as often, they let certain things go because they’re focus is elsewhere. It’s not funny at all actually, when you think about it. It’s kind of sad. When I think about it now, in my case, it’s almost like I can see parts of myself evaporating out of my skin into the air. Pieces of me fading away, bit by bit. It isn’t like that for everyone. But it was for me. Love completely consumed me. Before chewing me up and spitting me back out. 

Some of you who know me, may know that I fell in love very recently. Those of you who don’t know me, probably guessed it from the silence of The Single Blog. I tried to keep it up even when I’d met D. But the honest truth was, that our relationship as it was (with 4,500 miles between us), required so much time and energy, it became one more thing that went onto the “later” list. 

For that, I can only apologise. The blog was one more thing that my encounter with D took away from me. That along with many others. Which I will get on to.

I don’t think it would be fair to only write about the dates that were either amusing, or mildly inconvenient but left me otherwise unscathed. I want to tell you about the ones that knock the air out of me too. I mean, I’m human. Very much to my dismay at times. And also, if in some miraculous way, hearing about my heartbreak could possibly help someone else... well. That would be one good thing to come out of it all, for sure. So I suppose I have a lot to tell you. I realise there are some ends I’ve left loose. These will be tied up in time, worry not. But for now, let me begin to tell you about D. 

I look back on my time with him, and I don’t recognise myself. I’m now happily settling back into the life I know. Me. Myself. I. My beautiful loft bedroom at my mum and dads. My dog who is always ecstatic to see me. My family who, to me, are perfect. My friends who love me and tell me I’m beautiful. My routines. My ways. It all sunk into the background when he entered my life. Some for good reasons. Some for bad. 

I suppose the logical place to start would be the beginning. But that’s so difficult; the beginning felt wonderful at the time. Now it feels like a movie I might have enjoyed in my younger years. I can still remember the reasons I loved it, but in my later years realised it was all fake and, well, just that: A Movie. 

As you all know, I spent a month in America. It was life changing. Which I know is the thing that everybody says. But honestly? It was. It changed me for the better. And I can’t honestly remember the me before I’d gone. 

My second to last night in the US, I was in San Fran, sat with my friend at Fisherman’s Wharf. We were looking out over the water, and I was telling him about the great love that had started this blog. He knew the one who had started it all. He’d worked with us at the time. I’ll never forget, he looked at me, in the big brother way he does, and said “It’s done now, mush. You gotta let it go.” 

And I did. For the first time since it all happened. I felt it leave my heart. I really felt free. I don’t for a second believe it was because of him saying those words then and there. I think it was a culmination of the trip, the experiences I’d had, the people I’d met, the truly soul changing time it had been. Either way, I finally felt it leave. All of it. 

The next 24 hours were surreal. I felt like I’d been carrying a brick around, and I’d finally set it down. I felt light, everything felt easier. It was amazing.

My last day in America, I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, and spent the afternoon looking around a Giant Redwood forest. The sun was hot, a cool breeze every so often kissing my skin. I was excited to return home to see family and friends, but more than anything, I couldn’t wait to introduce this new person into my life at home. That new person was me. The person I’d found was in there all along. 

Writing this is the first time I’ve let myself think back to that day since D left my life. It hurts. It feels heavy and raw. If I had to give it a colour, it’s gunmetal grey. The edges of it are hard and cold. 

Because, you see, I never got to see that person again after that day. I had no idea at the time, walking around trees the size of houses, blinking into the sun and laughing freely with my friend. But 12 hours later I was going to meet someone. The kind of someone that makes you question everything you know. The kind of someone that makes you feel like a stranger in this world, because they change the way everything in your life feels. The kind of someone that you know you’ve met before, somewhere. Maybe not in this life. But you know them. You look into their eyes and it feels like home. Their smile makes you feel warm, and their laugh is your favourite song. Their smell is the only thing you want to breathe again. They make you forget every ounce of hurt you’ve ever felt, because their love completely swallows it and hungrily asks for me. 

The love I fell into made me cry with laughter, and cry so hard I ended up laughing. It made me see what I thought was to be my future more clearly than I ever have. I’ve never felt more loved. More desired. Like I said earlier in this post, it completely consumed me. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before. 

I’m not going to be able to finish this story tonight. For starters, it’s not a story that I feel can be told in a single post. But also it’s eating me more than I thought it would. Going back to that final day, and remembering what his love felt like, feels like flames starting to flicker around my ankles. You’ll of course get the full story, my lovely readers. All in good time. 

It’s 8pm. I no longer calculate what time it is where he is (time difference). We used to have to. To be able to catch each other at suitable times. But now all I’m concerned with is what time it is in my world, and what I’m doing. However this evening I’m suddenly painfully aware that he still exists. He’s somewhere in this world, going about his day. I wonder if he ever thinks of me. I wonder if he thinks about his words that tore strips out of me, or his actions that left me bruised. I don’t suppose it matters if he does. It doesn’t change anything. 

I don’t often think of him now. I’m finding true peace and happiness in my own heart again, which feels beautiful. But every so often, I mull it all over. I think about the sadness of it all. It doesn’t last long, but it does still rear it’s head every now and then. 

You must have gathered by now that I met somebody on my last night in America. We’re going to refer to him as D. I can’t write his real name, but I can’t give him a fake one either. Although a fake one would be rather appropriate, given that the whole thing ended up being exactly that. 

I promise, I will relay the whole, ridiculous tale to you. But where would the fun be if I gave it all away in one? Surprises and mystery are, after all, what keeps life interesting. And what knocked me for six and pulled the rug out from under me when I least expected it.