26/03

Photo by Jan van der Wolf

Today would have been our third anniversary. Our third year together. But it’s actually 9 months – plus one day – since you left me. I tell people we were together for two and a half years because that’s easier to say and has more impact than ‘two years and three months’. Then I’d almost always tack on ‘but we first met ten/eleven/twelve years ago.’ I usually then got to tell people the story. I loved telling people the story. We were friends, he had a crush on me, I never knew (I did, I think), I would complain to him about all the guys I shagged and he’d be the supportive bestie who’d eat pizza and watch shows on Putlocker with me in my little box room, apparently when we first met he told his friends I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen… I felt slightly guilty not to have seen you that way, back then. 

–this is the point where I realise I’m writing this silly little piece as a letter directed to the actual person, when really I hope he never sees it here. I can’t explain why I have to write these things and publish them for anyone in the world to see in this neverending digital ether, surely I should just keep my dirty laundry to myself and not risk anyone seeing the unsightly stains and judging me. 

On this would-be anniversary, I went to the bank to pay the 15% deposit on my first home. My home, just mine – a few modest walls and a set of steps with a handrail and a garden that tumbles down a slope towards the park. I’m going through all the motions; making calls, reading and signing the stacks of A4 pages, thinking about how different this is to where I was a year ago, when I was looking at similar pages and filling in forms with someone else. 

I never worried about being judged or pitied when I told people ‘he left’. I wanted to say it that way, because that’s what happened. There was no break-up or split, because that would indicate that there was any kind of mutual understanding or even a conversation had, and neither happened. It was one-sided, selfish, cowardly, and just mean. And the person who did that is the one who should be judged, and pitied. 

It was always my dream to live alone. My parents would say I was independent from a very young age, determined to travel places and have my own spaces. I had many plans and none of them involved a partner, a spouse, kids – any optional attachments. I was taught at school and socially that that’s what I needed, the new build with the meal plan and chalkboards and white gold and school runs… but it never quite stuck. 

I’m excited to move in soon. I’m also mourning losses of romance and innocence, some such comfort and ideals. I think of those terrible motivational quote social media posts ‘don’t look back, you’re not going that way’. But I ask you this, Instagram – if you don’t look back, even once in a while, how will you see how far you’ve come? I haven’t tempted myself with the ‘if you a year ago could see you now’ trick; I’m pleased to say it didn’t cross my mind as I signed the bank slip on the 26th. Onwards.

Thanks for reading.

G. x