Mr serotonin man, lend me a gram?

Annie said maybe the lesson here is not to go turning over old rocks. And she’s not not wrong.

Bored on a Monday night, looking for something a little salty to thicken the plot of my life, I did what all toxic exes do and tried to reignite a flame, doing it for the plot so I was. And well let’s just say I got my fingers burnt.

I did the thing that we eye roll about in the groups, aghast we gasp, it’s just so see through we say, they’re just bored and lonely and looking for a little warmth to feel good about themselves. All the ghosts of boys I loved before, that live in my dusty archive can attest, whilst they still wait patiently for my response.

This one though, he created too much noise and not enough racket. Having slept on my sweet baby Angel little hello, you up? in came a fuming raging fuck you response at 7 am. And not least because I can’t fathom waking up that angry, forever the chill girl, but it’s just early doors innit? for that level of rage, and so I lost count of the amount of times my eyes rolled back in my head before I rubbed them awake and sent the screen shot around, well, that backfired.

Back at the start though and for a very long time after I was in love with this man. 3 years or so, if not more. (More) It overlapped and intertwined itself in everything else that happened, everyone else who came couldn’t really compete, we pulled at the rubber band between us, constantly. even when there were other people in our beds. It was the inexplicable unexplainable palpable vibe of life.

I vividly remember and swimming laps of the ponds with Lucy, golden hour turning our faces to starlight, ends of our hair swimming out behind us in glossy wet strands, smiling at each other, there is a man, I said, and he is being everything I could wish for and the vibe is palpable and I can still taste the croissants, filled, to this day, with the best scrambled eggs I have ever ever eaten, cooked topless by him, in frankly gorgeous copper pan. And if you haven’t guessed my own particular niche fantasy, well that’s it babe.

We messaged endlessly, constantly, incessantly. When we weren’t at each others houses we were messaging or calling or face timing, we spoke about everything and turned over each others rocks and at some point when you’re in the thick of it you don’t always notice when the milk of life has gone sour.

And then for a time the endlessly constantly incessantly was a sea of never ending waves crashing into arguments I didn’t really understand. My kindness parachute with empath embroidered on every sheet of a4 page response, well it couldn’t catch our fall from grace, just didn’t cut it. Infact it got cut up into shreds, and I spent hours days years patching it up again.

This man once told me he had deep routed rage and it was my fault I brought it out in him. My kindness made him mad, and you know what? it’s not for the first time that my personal brand of lean back and let them unravel and piece them back together, well it has fucked me over. He once said that I wasn’t emphatic or a compassionate person (lol). Then when his heating broke, I amazon primed hot water bottles to his house. So he could be warm yknow? So he could feel my warmth. I painted him pictures of sunflowers, turn towards the sun written in French because he is French and don’t you just know it. The picture, framed, lives front and centre, still on his wall, in the living room I helped decorate. Now he tells me I left him out in the mud just like everyone else, because I didn’t respond to a picture, when I had a boyfriend and said, probs best we don’t do this now, let’s give these other people a chance for the love of god shall we?

For a time we joked I was the creative director of his house Reno, and now I am an actual creative director, and not in orchestrating men to just be better, so how about that. I soothed his ego when he got made redundant, when bravado turned to tears. I stroked his cat and I stroked him and I made that goddamn 2 bed south london house a home. I soothed and I cooed and I said that’s okay babe, little stroke of his cheek, when he couldn’t get it up, and knew when to leave him to the rage, and went to check on the roast potatoes we’d left in the oven. Didn’t even flinch, when he came back to tell me it was back on, whispering in my ear, see it’s not you. And it was never me. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t my roast potatoes.

Writing by the side of the pool I wrote from his perspective, in a slip stream of memories, trying to understand why after a year and a bit this person who I only ever loved is really, very angry at me. The problem here is my tolerance has lowered dramatically in the same year that we’d gathered dust and the emotional manipulation screams from the page to me now. I can’t be held responsible for being triggered by you messaging he said, and, well, I can’t be held responsible for the texts I send when I’m ovulating then.

Someone once said I was 90% wholesome and 10% wild, and they’re not wrong really. And on Tuesday a Canadian guy said hey, you’re a real cutie you know? So here we are, one persons cutie pie, another persons asshole.

We’re complex beings, some more than most and without going into our shared personal history there is a double yellow line of similar trauma and we’re walking through it on two sides of two very different tracks. Sarah said she was kind of thrilled he showed his true colours in that response and I didn’t get sucked into the orbit again, but I can’t help but feel, eyes lowered, a bit sad. Because I don’t want to be hated? Cause I don’t want people out there fuming at me? Obviously. It doesn’t do well for the karma I keep asking for from the universe, in abundance, does it.

yes I got scorned and yes I probably should’ve known better and yet I am still endlessly frustrated and plain flavour sad that we couldn’t, shoulda woulda coulda our way into the something new. Couldn’t turn over that leaf and grow together on a new page. Too much was said in the byline. It turns out we are not Jeff and Rhi. And I will have to make peace with the fact that that beautiful blue eyed boy is angry at me for leaving,even when I tried to come back, even if it was for all the wrong reasons, the line in the sand had been drawn, and sorry wasn’t going to cut it. And the crux is this, can you be sorry and also steadfast that the decision you made at the time was the right one? If you believe it was the right thing, can you be sorry? Yes and?

So, we were a moment and the moment has passed. So, don’t go kicking over rocks kids, so don’t fall in love with a moment, and think you’re in love with the guy x