So Gone (Ed Sheeran)

Epilogue

I think it's wonderful what Christmas day can do. Please, note the sarcasm. People you haven't heard of for months (or years) suddenly decide they haven't forgotten about you. You receive texts, which are supposed to make you feel happy. But sometimes they don't feel right.

For instance, if you receive a text from someone who used to mean the world to you, wishing you a merry Christmas and then going on with a conversation about how you're doing now, it just brings all the pain back. It reminds you that somewhere along the way, they decided you weren't good enough for them.

It had been nine months since I last talked to Flora. But she send me that universal "Have yourself a merry Christmas! xx". However, that wasn't the worst. What hurt the most was when she answered back by asking if things were alright for me.

She acted as if she hadn't crushed me, and with a stupid excuse. If she considered herself lonely, she should've seen me. I had absolutely no one.

It hurt. Bad. It also made me feel worthless. And trust me, it wasn't the best thing when I was already spending the end of the year all by myself, in a shitty bar, wondering if the next drink would make me pass out.

I had spent weeks trying to get used to her absence. I had tried to convince myself that it was okay if I missed her, and then that I didn't miss her anymore.

I won't lie and say I hadn't cried. I admit that, at night, it got really bad at the beginning. I went for walks and purposely forgot to watch both ways before crossing the road. I felt lost and vulnerable because, once again, someone had abandoned me.

That night, after re-reading her texts, I felt the sudden urge to hear her voice. I fought against myself for hours just not to call her. I also put my brain and body at war not to tell Flora that I missed her.

If I was allowed to know this, she wasn't. I didn't want to give her any satisfaction. And my corrupted mind wasn't willing to let me have false hope again.

I know not all breakups are like this one, but the memory was so present in my head that I couldn't accept the fact that other people didn't dream about their loved one and woke up not understanding why they were alone in their bed. Not only did I dream during the night, but also during the day. Which resulted in people getting sick of me again. Except for Mike, but we didn't talk so much anymore.

Even though I'm definitely the living example of loneliness, I could not use that excuse to push someone away. Not since Flora forced it on me. I didn't know exactly why I refused to simply state the truth, because it could've spared me a lot a trouble.

I won't say I had a lot of success with the ladies, but some clearly showed their interest in me. And sometimes, I couldn't find a decent way to tell them I was fine by myself.

Which I wasn't, by the way.

Her voice haunted my life, and I couldn't help but be startled when someone put their hand on my shoulder, still hoping Flora had come back. I still saw the colour of her eyes each time I closed mine, and still felt her gentle hand on my cheeks when I started shaking after my eighth cigarette of the day. In fact, there were so many things about her still in my life that I sometimes doubted she had even left.

Yet, here I was, sat alone, cursing at myself for letting her get to me again.

I had all sorts of questions running through my head. Was she alone? Was Ryan still bothering her? Did I ever cross her mind?

The sky was dark and glittering, the city lights too weak to prevent the stars from shining. The universe finally had its hour of glory, comforting lonely souls : bigger things are always coming, the trick is holding on long enough to live them.

Sometimes, meteors go out of their orbits and we say that they are lost. However, they make it back to their original trajectory afterwards. Truth is, meteors are never lost. When they go out of orbit, they're actually found. For, if they had stayed in orbit, never would we have seen them.

I often think about this and try to apply this to my life. And I think most people can agree when I say that it's when we feel the most lost that we find ourselves. But what's all the more true is that nothing new comes without pain. And God did it hurt to find myself.

I think what was the hardest to accept was that I was selfish and absolutely not reliable. I've always imposed my choices and my ways of living to everybody and then complained that they all eventually left.

In all relationships, there is a limit where someone decides to break it off if the other's part isn't accomplished. The efforts put in making it work should be at least equal to what is given back. And I've come to realise I've expected a lot to be given to me when I barely made any effort.

But it's hard to do anything when you think you're not worth the same. I know I never really understood what my exes saw in me. I didn't question that all the time, but it did get to me after our fights or when I was simply wishing no one would bother with me.

One beautiful thing about life is that one's experiences will determine one's personality. What's also tragic is that life can be quite unfair and sometimes is too hard on someone, making them lonely and self-conscious. I'm not saying people can't choose to let something get to them or not, I just want to point out that it's not always that easy.

I get that people have it worse than me. And that was one of the things I repeated to myself when I was tired of feeling down. But it never made it easier to bear her absence.

It is true what they say. You keep on missing someone until the day you wake up and suddenly you think about drinking a coffee before realising that the other half of the bed is empty. Your habits change just like they did when your person entered your life. But this time, it resets your life. It makes it ready for someone else to come. Or for no one.

I guess what I learned thanks to the last few years of my life, is that a life doesn't have to be built around love. You can be just fine even if you don't have a lover. Life is about adventures, and even if love may be one, there are others. Some as beautiful, or even more.

"Good evening The Scala! Thank you for having me at this sold out show and I hope you'll all have a great time tonight."