Isn't it strange?
on heartbreak and healing
We are finally in July. It feels surreal after a dark and depressing start to the year navigating a break up, new place and a job loss that I wasn’t expecting.
July. The peak of the summer here in England. The sun is shining, the pub gardens are full and Oasis is finally starting their long awaited reunion tour that set the nation into a frenzy when the tickets went live last year.
July. It’s also my ex’s birthday. He will be 33 years old this year. I can’t quite believe its been seven months since I packed up my stuff and said goodbye to him at the doorway to the block of flat’s we’d once shared a home in.
On that day, we both stood together teary eyed at the door.
“I guess this is it then” one of us exclaimed.
A pause. Our eyes both searching the other’s face for something to say. There was almost a pleading look on his face. I’m certain we were both thinking ‘Have we made the right decision?’ - but neither of us said it out loud.
Then a bald headed man arrived home squeezing past us in the corridor.
“Sorry.” he mumbled with an awkward nod, sensing he’d walked in on something.
I was jolted awkwardly out of whatever sort of moment we were having.
“Right, I better go.” I said.
Nothing came out of his mouth at first, then came a choked up “Ok”.
There really was nothing left to say. I turned and crossed the road clutching the final bag of stuff. And just like that it was done.
That was seven months ago now. Seven months since I’ve heard his voice or saw his cheeky grin. Seven months of quiet distance and seven months of two best friends stuck like glue, peeling away from each other in different directions.
Seven months of two twin flames slowly dying out till there is nothing left to burn.
We are in July now, and what’s left of us is a pile of embers. The rubble of what once was. In it’s place something different is growing. The seeds that I started to sow through the tears of early January are slowly pushing up from the soot.
The seeds of my new life. I am rebuilding my life from the ground up, brick by brick. And this time it’s all for me. I am falling out of love with him and so deeply in love with myself.
It’s his birthday in July and after much deliberation I’ve decided I won’t text him a Happy Birthday text. I will be thinking of him on that day, but I will keep the distance between us that has weighed so heavily over the last months like a dense fog, blurring him out of my vision.
I woke up today and remembered that he never brought me flowers, and he made me split the bill on my birthday meal. Small gestures that could have meant something. Then I was reminded of the one time, where I was violently sick all night in the bathroom next to our bedroom and he didn’t get up to check on me once. Even after his alarm went off at 7.30am in the morning and I still hadn’t made it back to our bed, too weak from the sick bug I’d caught.
He just pressed snooze.
It’s July, his birthday month and I’m healing. I won’t text him.
After all, we’re almost strangers now.
Isn't it strange?
I am still me, you are still you
In the same place
Isn't it strange?
How people can change
From strangers to friends
Friends into lovers
And strangers again
This year, I’m growing my own flowers and that’s all on healing from heartbreak.
Lots of love.
X