Thinking About People

What happens when you leave a person’s life? I always wonder because I’m never convinced that my reactions are the same as another's. I’m too sentimental, too quick to hold everyone on a pedestal, refusing to take them off because I’m obsessed with the romanticisation of life: they were beautiful then and they remain beautiful now. Indifference is the enemy of emotion and I’m in love with the richness. Obviously with time, things fade. They lose their colour, and that rarely seeps back in unless you see them again, or a certain scent or memory infiltrates your mind from that precious time.

There’s something truly flawless in the pain of separation, though, whether that be physical or mental. The strength of emotion that can twist and turn you, bring up surges of agony that make you retch and gasp and beg for mercy. The emotion that strangulates your guts; the coldness that spreads further up your chest and which first surrounds before secondly penetrating your heart. It’s a cold, dull ache at first but it can get painful, causing some unobservable pulmonary damage that makes you gasp for breath. The helplessness is awful, but there’s also such a gorgeous pureness to that suffering.

I wonder if I’ve ever made anyone else suffer, as much as they’ve made me? I wonder if I’ve ever been so heartless as to stare straight on at another human being and ignore their pain, unknowing and uncaring that I could be the one to stop it.

I always remember the private jokes, things whose connotations we shared and, even now, there are so many people and moments that remain fond in my memory and close to my heart. Even after those people tore up what we had; or even when it was me that tore it up for myself. Even after knowing I was never their number one, and even alongside the pain that second was the best I could hope for - if that. These people, they’ve all been a part of my human experience and, in the desperate hope that I won’t ruin this by verging on a side that is either too philosophical or clichéd, I do remember them. Each and every one. Rose-tinted in my mind, they’ve all added to the image of myself that exists today. When I’ve been let down, I’ve learned. When I’ve let others down, I’ve learned. Nothing is ever that repetitive, though, and so I find myself still constantly learning. But I remember them, and I treasure the memories. I treasure the emotions: the highs, lows, soaring euphoria and grave anxiety, and I know that I continue to evolve through all of that. And it makes me grateful. To regret is to deny a part of your own existence, and as much as I wish at times I had taken the alternative path, I know that the good things that followed the bad would also be different had that happened.

So, even when I become gripped with insecurity, or anxiety, or doubt, I think about this and the goodness I’ve had in my life, rays of gold in a whole spectrum of shades that coat my experience and that have kept me moving and evolving and learning. And just when another period of darkness threatens to keep me down for good, I feel safe in the faith that another ray will shine.