Summertime Sadness.

Everything always looks better in neon.

Lana sings about it so beautifully and today, well I am having a little of it. Summertime sadness.

It may seem strange to those in the Northern hemisphere that someone who has only really ever known summer to be hot and muggy and surrounded by beaches is somewhat sad. Things like eggnog are replaced with a cold beer and the only fire that I have ever sat around at this time of the year, is a BBQ, and that can hardly be called a fire. I digress.

Many times over the last couple of months I have thought about packing it all in and calling it a day. That it was, and is too hard and the prospect of another month of uncertainties of all manner, is just not how I envisaged living my life. Yet, here I still am. I have said it before and I'll say it again, I never truly understood what the phrase "the struggle is real" meant, until I moved to Brazil a year ago.

That "struggle" is something that I seem to share with around 200 million or so people, so I am in good company. Those people for the better part, seem to have a never ending capacity to see the positives in everyday life, something that I truly admire, respect and love. In reality though, being in a foreign country and with little to no support network that you can truly rely on, can sometimes make it difficult to see those "positives". But... when in Rome...

I guess that although I am not such a big believer in "New years resolutions" (Why wait for something when you can start now), the end of a year and beginning of another can bring with them a myriad of reflections on what, where, when, how and why, both past and for the future. Reflection is good, not to dwell, but for the most part, I think it's good.

The Summertime sadness part is really just a state of season (Wintertime sadness just doesn't have the same ring) and I guess a state of mind, now that I have written out loud and reflected. Being happy is so easy for many, but happiness is something entirely different to me. It goes deeper than the smiled mask that so many feel they need to maintain, happiness cuts to the core, it's what makes you love what you do and do what you love. It's pure, real and always honest.

Summertime sadness? I'll leave it entirely up to Lana, she seems to do it so much better.

Heart. Broken.

Only YOU can fix it.

I came across this little piece I wrote over a year ago after the breakdown of my relationship. I wanted to post it as an ode to how therapeutic writing can be and that like all things, time heals all wounds...

There really is nothing that one can say to you when someone tells you that they don’t love you anymore. Nothing.

You sit there shifting from tears and blubbering mess to questioning yourself with what “you” did wrong. All the while being told “it’s not you, it’s me”, by the person that you love. The very person that you have trusted with the most vulnerable of things, your heart. You tell those that you love and trust and they constantly remind you of a relationship they had that ended in a “similar” way, letting you know that “it does get better”. Meh. What gets better is what I would like to know? The hurt? The broken heart or the fact that your trust has been broken in the most awful of ways. I would like to know the answer. Please.

I guess that there is no answer. If there was, no one would be upset, deceitful, lie or ever hurt again. What a world that would be, honesty and love with no hurt. I wish I lived in that place right now. I have only experienced pain like this once before in my life and that was the morning I found my previous partner dead, hung over the toilet. I think in the last 24 hours I have cried so much that I have burst little blood vessels all around my eyes. Great, as if I am not already feeling über confident at the moment with everything else, I now look like I have contracted some jungle virus!

I feel sick, really sick. I have a headache and my eyes are stinging, the kind of stinging that you get from swimming in salt water without goggles. I know that the physical aspects will all subside in time, they always do. Humans are good like that. It’s the heart that is broken. The heart, the memories and the love that I don’t think I will ever be able to get over. I did it once, it took a while but I had no choice but to “get over it”, he died. This is a bit different. I am not loved “like that” anymore. I don’t have a choice this time.

My friends, what do I tell them? My family, his family, his friends, what the hell do I say? We all make mistakes, we all do things that we regret, or maybe we don’t regret. Who knows? I think it’s easier for the other person, they have already decided on what they will do, whether it is in their mind or by their actions, or in some cases, both. What the hell do I say?

I am lost, more lost than I have ever been in my life and scared, boy am I scared. I am trying to work out what is scaring me so much and I just can’t find the answer. Maybe I have been to dependant, I never used to be. Maybe it is the fear of being out there, alone, facing things without my best friend by my side, my best friend who has picked me up when I have fallen, picked me up so many times over the last nine and a half years that I just don’t know what I will do without him. Oh shit, here come those fucking tears again! Damn they sting. I know I don’t have a say in this, that is one of the hardest things for me, I just don’t have a say this time.

It’s good to write or talk things out, isn’t it? He is such a good person and I have been so lucky to have had him in my life. The luckiest person in this world actually. It’s kind of selfish of me to think that only I should experience this, maybe that old adage really is true:

If you love something, Set it free… If it comes back, it’s yours, If it doesn’t, it was never truly yours to begin with….

Me.

Just, me.

Many have told me that I need to be...

Cooler.
Hotter.
Younger.
Older.
Tougher.
Softer.
Passionate.
Sexier.
Slimmer.
Musclier.
Smarter.
Funnier.
Quieter.
Focused.
Relaxed.
Happier.
Sadder.

Luckily for them, I know just what I need to be...

Me.