She called me Betty

I made a new friend recently. She came into my life like a whirlwind, sat at the desk next to mine, and seemed to know exactly what I was thinking at all times. It's nice to have such an easy friendship where you don't have to explain or apologise for anything. We were going through all the same stuff at the time, and it's like she was sent to me. Suddenly I started looking forward to going to work. It was lovely, and we made fun of the bad times.

Then one morning she announced she'd got a job in Argentina and was leaving at the end of the week. We went out for dinner twice and the day she left I took the afternoon off so I didn't have to say goodbye. The following Monday I came in and her desk was cleared, but she'd left flowers on my desk with a post-it note that read "For Betty". I had a lump in my throat.

It's funny how you can know someone years and never really know them, but meet another person for a few weeks and totally get each other.

I miss that girl.

Journeys and destinations

It's funny how you can forget a whole evening out but remember one important moment from it, something someone said and the way it made you feel, a telling look in someone's eye, a secret shared, a great plan that was formulated and the music that was playing at the time. The brain edits out all the unimportant stuff about how you got to that point and what happened afterwards. It decides which bits will become your memories, the bits you would stick in a photo album, the bits that guide you and move you to the next place in your life.

But it's the journeys from place to place where you (or I, anyway) do a lot of thinking and processing and decision-making. These are the times when your feet are carrying you along and they know where to take you, so your mind is free to wander. I guess that must be why I've been walking everywhere lately - there's been a lot to think about. I've been underestimating the power of walking and cold air and being alone with my thoughts. When you try to work things through by talking to people, they often get warped by questions and watering down of information and wrong advice, and some of the time the people you talk to are only trying to extract gossip.

Thinking while walking puts things right into perspective. Once you've made a decision on your own and you have the confidence to go with it and you don't listen to anyone else, you can make anything happen. It's been that sort of week. And today I breezed into town and walked myself into a few places I would never have gone until recently, but I needn't have worried at all, and my life is much better off for it.

Never mind therapy, just follow your feet.

Remember this feeling

You've thought about it for ages, and it's niggled at you, and you have times when you feel lucky just to have someone nice, and others when you feel like you're just kidding yourself. You convince yourself that you just need to make more effort and try harder, but pretty soon you realise you're lying to yourself, them, and everyone around you, and finally you make a decision. Then you worry that you're not strong enough to go through with it, so you tell a friend and seek their support and once you've poured your heart out and your friend tells you you're doing the right thing, you've forced yourself into it and can't go back, because they would know you were living a lie. You tell your friend your plans, and they offer a sofa should you need one.

You know you still love them, but you know it's not that kind of love. You never want to hurt the people you love though, so this is the hardest thing of all to get your head around.

The day comes, and you still haven't worked out what to say, so you just wait for a moment together and come straight out with it. It could go two ways - they're really upset, or they've been thinking the same thing and you've beat them to it, but that doesn't make any difference to how you'll feel later.

The first few days you will laugh and cry and reminisce and joke about dividing up your stuff. You tell your friends and relatives, and you get messages from people you haven't spoken to for years. You assure everyone you're OK because you think you are, and you don't want to bother them.

You start wanting to go out and see people and start your new life before you've even moved out, so you go out with people you really shouldn't be with, to places you wouldn't normally go, because you want to get out of the house and forget and show everyone how okay you are. But most of all, you want to be the one who is moving on the quickest. But then, all you'll want to do is go and tell them about it, because they've now become your best friend, but you can't because it's too weird. Your friends tell you to get someone to fuck as soon as possible. 

You drink. A lot. You stop eating, and when you do eat you can't swallow and you feel sick. You lose weight and people comment and you like it because it's one positive thing to come out of it all. You're drinking on an empty stomach and you can't get anything practical done because you're always pissed. You're useless at work. You say stupid things to people and act like a right twat, all the time thinking you're fooling people that you're fine. But they've been there too.

You move out. The new place is empty and quiet and smells funny and you don't know where the strange noises are coming from. You weren't ready for being alone tonight. You sack off unpacking and go out for a walk. You buy wine and take it home and head straight for facebook to tell everyone how ace everything is. You avoid your bed because it's not yours, and it's empty. You feel excited one minute and think about the possibilities now ahead of you, and the next minute you have your head in your hands. All the songs that come on are sad ones and they ALL apply to you. The Field Mice are a fucking nightmare. You go out for another walk and wish you could bump into someone you know. You have places you could go but you look and feel a mess. You wish you weren't alone. You wish you could feel something, anything, but this. You put up posters to make the place your own, but it still feels like an intrusion on someone else's property. It seems like EVERYONE is out tonight having fun and you are going to be forgotten. It's Saturday night, and you are desperate to find someone else who is at home on a computer, but there's nobody.

You know you've done this to yourself. You're responsible for all of it. It won't sink in. You have gone. You're on your own now. You want a hug and to cry in someone's arms, but you also know you have to do this on your own. And you don't feel like you deserve it anyway because you are the one who finished it. Then the tears come, and they won't stop and it feels like you'll cry forever. You can't breathe and you're shaking and you want to run away but where? You catch sight of your reflection and you look like Kiss and it makes you laugh and then you cry even more because you have nobody to laugh with. You are terrified of nobody ever wanting you. You want to know you can make someone feel good, but not just anyone.

You're on your own now, and it feels most horrible late at night.

Just click send.

Sometimes you have to put an end to stuff before you get in too deep. I guess I realised what felt right for me in the moment isn't right for the people I care about, and some things you have to let go. Or maybe it's just a case of right place, wrong time. Well, whatever, it's done now.

The London nobody knows

I went to a dark place last night. It was Bronze, and it was Lost Highway, it was a bad neighbourhood of LA and the dirty depths of London, it was filthy jazz and seedy surf, it was flickers of light and strobes and moments here and moments there and silhouettes and secrets. It was warm and sticky and abstract and anything could happen and anything probably did happen and time didn't matter, so much so that I forgot to check it and went home late. It felt like a dream, but this place exists alright.

Back here in the normal world, where work must be done, my colleague and I counsel each other through our extreme tiredness and explode into tears of laughter over absolutely nothing.