Blast from the past....

29th June 2016

As I was cleaning up tonight, I found a memory stick with some old files on it.  I hasten to add very old files. 

When I moved to London in 2006, it had all been a whirlwind, for those who don't know I met my husband when he was on the TV, he was in a documentary with a guy I knew from cadets and he set us up.  We were engaged within weeks, and after 6 months we were quickly married, and I had sold up, quit my job, divorced my Paula, kissed my family goodbye and moved to London.  I was young and impulsive and I truly believed I had found the one.

We had moved to a 13th Floor Flat in Knightsbridge, it had a lovely view out towards Hyde Park.  We'd been living together for a few weeks and one day I was just standing staring out of the window, marvelling at how impossibly happy I was feeling, and he came and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, snuggled his face into my neck and told me he loved me and how lucky he was to have me. 

I'd had my heart broken before, I'd been with someone for 5 years, we were engaged, we'd bought a house, we seemed perfect for each other, until I wanted to travel and he wanted double glazing!  We became less and less perfect for one another, and it became messy and ugly towards the end, and I suspect he had moved on before we were over. 

In the moment with ******* arms around me, I wanted to open the window and scream out loud, to tell everyone who would listen how sometimes heartbreak can knock you down, make you feel worthless, but it really does get better... Sometimes you do get your happy ending.

So I started to write it down, from the beginning of what I thought my journey was at that time, and this is what I found on the memory stick last night... 

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December 29th 2003....

I remember the feeling... emptiness, lonliness, like someone had punched through my chest, taken a vice like grip and ripped out my heart.  I was a limp shell that had to find the strength to get out of bed, and when I dragged the covers away fom my legs and settled my feet onto the carpet I couldn't breathe for crying.  The tears kept coming, a relentless torrent of emotion pouring from my eyes, making the corners itchy and sore.  Tissues soiled with grief littered the room. I sank down to the floor in agony, I remember thinking that I'd never known such pain and I began to imagine that the pain would never stop.

The anger and resolve that had flooded my body to make the my decision the previous night was now gone, and had been replaced with a dull ache.  My house seemed very empty, his clothes still folded neatly on the blanket box started a fresh bout of gut wrenching sobs. I crawled with blurred vision to the bathroom and dragged myself up to splash water on my already sodden face, anything to try and wash away the pain, but there was nothing I could do but grieve. 

When he came to move himself out of my house and life, I stayed in my room, I forced myself to believe I was being strong.  I tried to make myself smile as I pretended we'd stay friends, keep things amicable. It was inevitable that things wouldn't work out that way, we'd been too deep in love to pretend that we could somehow salvage a friendship from the ashes. And when I heard him say to **** "thats the last of it" and closed the door behind him I sank onto the bedroom floor crying for hours, not noticing the time, the phone ring, the day change into night...

December 30th 2003....

Missed Calls: 63 - I don't have the energy to talk to anyone....

 

December 31st 2003....

I stretched out as the days light came streaming in past the curtains I didn't have the energy to close, illuminating the dust that had begun to settle on every surface, I sobbed quietly but I didn't have to drag myself out of bed this time. I stripped down to bare skin and surveyed myself in the bathroom mirror, my hair was lank and greasy, my eyes swollen and sore, my cheeks pale, my mouth downturned, crease lines on my skin from the bed covers, and a hollow empty far off look in my eyes. I stepped into the shower and turned it on full letting the water wash over me, hoping it had some healing powers but knowing nothing can cure the hurt you inflict on yourself by simply remembering small things, like how he smelt, how he felt to hold, I soaped up, scrubbing days of misery from my skin, washing days of grief from my hair, and I can close my eyes now and still smell that cheap fruity apple shampoo.

I stepped onto the carpet not caring that I was dripping wet and leaving wet footprints around the room, there was no-one to complain about it but me. I picked a fluffy peach towel from the shelf and wrapped myself up in it. The clean softness on my skin felt comforting and I knew I had a choice, I could either climb back into the bed that I had barely moved from for days, or I could get dressed and act like a human being again.  And thats what I did, I dried off, moisturised my body and face, scraped my hair back in a pony tail and pulled on some tracksuit bottoms and a vest.

I stripped the bed, I'd wanted to stay in our bed sheets as long as possible to hold onto the smell of him on the pillows, to wrap myself up in the covers we'd curled up in, but I was beginning to feel a little stronger and I knew it had to be done. I held the pillow to my face for a long time, breathing in his scent, letting memories wash over me and then I stripped everything off and took it straight to the washing machine. 

I grabbed the polish, duster, glass cleaner and hoover and for the next 3 hours cleaned every trace of him away from the bedroom, I opened the window letting in the first bit of fresh air I'd experienced in a few days. The cool air hit me and froze the tears on my cheeks, as strong an act as cleaning him away was, I still cried through every moment of it. I put fresh covers on the bed and instantly the room became brighter even though at this time the sun was beginning to set.

I went downstairs to scavenge for food in the kitchen, the bread had gone hard and the milk was out of date, we'd not been shopping in a while and my choice of food was somewhat limited. I boiled some soup and sat on the sofa sipping it and staring into space.  The phone rang and i ignored it, I heard my mobile trill upstairs and ignored that too. I didn't have the words for anyone. I heard the message tone beep but still I didn't move. And I must have fallen asleep where I was sat.

The next thing I woke to was someone gently saying my name and stroking my hair. It was him, for a moment I thought it may have all been a dream, but I could still feel the dull ache in my stomach and knew it was true. He'd come back to collect something, he saw my swollen eyes and devastated look, but he stayed strong, I almost wish he'd cried to let me know he could feel even some small part of what I was feeling but he didn't, he was almost businesslike. 

I do remember that before he left he held me for a very long time, he held me close, he breathed in my scent, maybe this was his real life version of my pillow moment.... but even then I could feel the newly imposed distance between us and it scared me. He was really saying goodbye.... I was truly on my own now....

And I had a shift to work... paint on a happy face... it was New Years Eve....

 

  

So maybe despite what I said earlier it feels like I'm bringing you in at the end of the story, maybe you feel like you've missed what all the fuss is really about, but as strange as it sounds, this point is where the story I'm going to tell you, the story of my life, my happy ending, this is where it truly began.....

 

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Back to present day 2016, I had to blink away a few tears reading that last night because blimey did parts of that resonate with September 2015 and even this years Valentines day massacre!!

But, what it did make me realise is life is not about happy endings, that moment in our Flat in Knightsbridge where I felt loved and happy and safe, and like I wanted to tell the world that despite shit times happy ones will come, that was just a part of the tapestry of my life.  Part of what makes me the person I am.  I have had lows, I have had highs, and I have had some fairly mediocre days in between.  

 

I no longer believe in happy endings, I believe the path is long, winding and bumpy, and if you're lucky, you meet people who burst your world into technicolour, and they make you forget the times that you wandered alone in the darkness.  I'm happy because I am surrounded by people who almost every day manage to make me feel special because they care.

 

I feel like now I do know love, I know its bright shiny moments and it's blunt sharp edges, I know that one day someone might make me feel happy and safe again, and maybe even the biggest love of my life is yet to come.