it might be cold outside, but at least i’m warm inside.
on returning to sender, break ups (was it really a break up?!) and being ok with endings :”)
I can feel the spark slowly but surely work itself way through my bones and into my cheeks where my smile is slowly becoming brighter and more genuine. Stress is weird, it creeps up on you until you’re in the stockroom fighting back tears and trying to explain to those around you why you’ve been acting so different.
Every single day I’ve been returning back to myself. I never understood the concept of return to sender, until I lost myself in middle of October and just wished that the old me would be returned. Tied up in a little bow, a smile on her face, waiting at my front door, ready to be let in again.
One Christmas, my mum sent one of her childhood friends a card. A couple of weeks later it got sent back and it turns out her friend had moved away. I found it odd how her friend hadn’t said anything, but she replied with “sometimes people move out of your life and there isn’t really any reason as to why. distance grows and that’s okay.” I didn’t understand the idea of distance and growing out of people until I got to 22 and grew out of some of my friendships. That’s when it all started making sense, I often think about what the people who aren’t in my life anymore are doing.
If they feel as sentimental thinking about me, as I do them.
You moved out of my life as quickly as you had moved in. I think you’d only unpacked a couple of boxes, before you were taking the rest of your things and moving on.
I actually don’t feel that much towards it anymore, but you do keep appearing in my dreams. I tried to find the answer as to why in the dream interpretation book Mum gave to me when I was 17, but I didn’t find any answers about you in there. I tried journaling about it, but my journal is sick of your name so it didn’t offer up any answers either.
I have this feeling you’ll return, but am I the right sender? When we first ended, I believed we’d come back together. That you would get better, I’d grow a little more and we’d have this perfect meet cute somewhere in town, figure out our differences, say we missed each other and just carry on as we had been.
That hasn’t happened yet and I’m starting to think it won’t. And maybe that’s for the best?
I do wish you hadn’t have exploded into my life in the way that you did, because now I’m left here in the collapse and I’m still trying to figure out which parts are mine and which are yours. Your jumper is hidden under a pile of my jeans in the corner of my room, I’m starting to think I need to invest in some drawers because then at least I could shove you in a corner of a draw, close it and forget about you.
But, it’s hard to keep you there, hidden in corners and out of sight when my friends talk about you or you get asked about with people I haven’t spoken to in a while. I’m kind of tired of it actually. Not that I’m tired of you, I guess it’s my own fault. I bought you in a little too close, maybe I got too excited, I don’t know, but I wish I hadn’t.
Now I’m contemplating a hair cut, even though we didn’t really go through a break up. And I’m avoiding spaces I know you’ll be in and it all just feels weird. Off kilter. But it’s the way that things are panning out right now. I wonder if you think about me in the way I think about you? If you avoid spaces you’ll know I’ll be in because you don’t want to bump into me. If you hide things I gave you in a draw just so you don’t have to be reminded of me.
So, yeah. Return to sender. I’d like to return to you one day but I don’t think you’ll ever return to me and that’s something I’m still coming to terms with right now. But, I’m starting to feel okay about it. Okay about the fact that we might never speak again. Okay about the fact that I’m now destined to live a life finding little bits out about you from my best friend. Okay about the fact that actually maybe we were only ever meant to last for a little while. Okay about the fact that at least I can say I had you, at one point or another and that’s more than enough.
Sometimes it’s more than enough to say you had a piece of somebody rather than the whole picture.
Sometimes it’s okay to admit you miss someone and move on.
— And for today, at least I can say that it might well be cold outside, but at least I’m starting to feel warm inside again.
<3