Might I have a bit of earth?

Dear Future Self,

It’s amazing what people will put up with when it happens over time. I’ve been talking a lot with Clarissa, and I feel like she’s put the whole last few years under new perspective. It’s strange to hear your life from another angle.

She said that at first she didn’t call or anything because she didn’t know what to say, which I understand. You can’t know, really, unless you’ve been there. But then later, she said she called sometimes, and messaged me. I remember that. But she stopped because I always said I was busy with M but maybe another time. She thought I was blowing her off. But I wasn’t! Not on purpose. I just always felt like I should be spending time with M. Once I started spending time with anyone, it always seemed to be with him.

So maybe that’s why I’ve lost touch with my uni friends. They felt like I didn’t want to see them anymore, which wasn’t true. Or maybe now it isn’t true. At the time I think I felt like if I saw them they’d expect me to go back to being who I was before. I was afraid of that, so I avoided them. But of course they didn’t. They’re my friends, they know what happened to me. My real friends didn’t blame me or talk badly about me.

I avoided them out of fear and I was afraid I’d lost them all. But Clarissa reaching out to me changed that. I’m so glad I have her. She’s so fun! I’d forgotten what it’s like to have girls in my life. Having brothers isn’t the same. She’s so good to me. She gave me the mobile numbers of a few of the other girls I was friends with in uni. I’ve resolved to reach out to them. I’ve made plans with Natalie, who lived down the hall. She lives in Chiswick now. She was always such fun as well.

It’s strange. If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said I was perfectly happy and had a good rounded life. But now when I look at it, I didn’t have any friends of my own. I had M’s friends, and thought of them as my friends. But they weren’t really. I haven’t heard from a single one of them since. C was the only person in my whole life who was mine. Not ours but mine. And maybe that’s why M was so mad about him always.

You should want your SO to have friends, shouldn’t you? You should want them to go out and be happy. But I don’t know that I was, really. And it’s so strange to think that what I thought was happy was just…. fine. It wasn’t bad. But what I think of as bad, really bad, isn’t what other people think of. So maybe I need to shift my thinking. Because being better than I was then doesn’t automatically make things good. How strange to realize that for years, I’ve been allowing “alright” to be my “wonderful.”

I’m going to find out what makes me happy, and I’m going to do it. Making mum’s recipes makes me happy. Drinking wine and yelling at the telly with Clarissa makes me happy. Making plans with old friends makes me happy. Getting a move right in yoga or Krav makes me happy. (I’ve started going to the gym to do weightlifting. The Krav instructor, Olly, suggested it. Lifting weights makes me happy. Who would have thought?) Talking on the phone with mum makes me happy. My work makes me happy.

More of this. More of this. Dear future self: more of this.