Rebel Rebel |harry styles| - ongoing

THIRTY

Bread: Baby I'm-a Want You

Harry

Being at home for the better part of a year allows for a lot of thinking. Sometimes it was damaging and depressive, because my brain just ran the same clip of me singing to thousands of people on a loop. Other times it was insightful and offered a fair amount of introspection. I am now at a point in my life where I'm happy. Genuinely happy, with who I am and all I've been through. It wasn't an easy journey, and I'm quite sure it's still not over... because you learn for as long as you live, right?

What I aimed at most, whilst having coffee or a moment on my own, was what I had learned through experience. Being with Essie was like walking a familiar road but it looking completely new. So, as any person with a brain that never stops coming up with new thoughts, I thought about the course of my previous relationships. Some of them were short and sweet, fizzling out at just the right moment and others were longer and more impactful. All of them had one thing in common – they all ended at one point or another. Why was that? Was it their natural trajectory or was I the common denominator? Picking up on what Essie spent her entire life doing – making lists – I decided to create one of my own. What am I, and what am I not...?

I fall in love easily. I fall in love everywhere – on the tube, in interviews, stopped at a red light, during concerts, while I'm working and while I'm relaxing. It's a sensation that comes over me very easily. I almost never fall in love with looks, although I used to do that quite a lot when I was younger. I reckon it was the teenage rockstar stereotype that led me to such behaviours... I was it – young, popular, cool, attractive and everybody wanted to meet me and be around me. I'd escaped that self-prejudicial mindset, though, and I started falling in love with beings. When I first met Essie, I hadn't even seen her face and I'd already managed to fall a little in love with her. She stood in the middle of that huge set, fixing umbrella lights and dancing along to Bowie. I noticed her entire body moving subtly, along with the rhythm of 'Rebel Rebel', even her blonde curls boobed along as he sang. As the shoot moved along, I feel for her mannerisms, her way of being which was so bohemian but so stiff and firm at the same time. She released such small bits of information out into the universe that it was often hard to catch them.

Love intoxicates me. It always has. I think love is one of the most precious feelings life offers us. There is nothing like it, and it's completely different every time it happens, yet it always has the same undertones. It's bright, smiley, wonderful, intoxicating, infuriating, frustrating, fulfilling and has the power to make you or break you. Essie held that power in her hands from the second time we talked. The 12 hours we spent apart from me dropping her off to running into her the next morning, they were almost painful. Whatever I did, she somehow snuck her way into my thoughts, completely consuming them. What is she currently doing, does she drink coffee or tea, is she in love or has she ever been in love, does she have siblings and a big family, are her mornings always the same or does she break the routine? And, if I'm being honest, I felt like I was going crazy for a solid 12 hours. How was it possible that this human, one I'd only just met, moved into one of the drawers of my brain and just stayed?

I don't like to have sex with someone unless I know I'll be able to continue doing it. That's why I never have the infamous 'one-night-stands' my mates rave about. I don't get it, how can you share a piece of yourself with someone, knowing you won't do it again? Why would you allow a person to get that close to you if it were only for a night? This is exactly why I second guessed my decision to sleep with Essie that night, I knew I couldn't possibly taste her skin and then pack up and leave. I couldn't breathe and move in sync with her, knowing I'd be gone the next morning. Every time she touched my arm, left a soft kiss on my neck, or traced a finger over one of my tattoos – I was on the brink of inviting her to sleep in my bed every night.