Older, Earlier.

I look at my hands. Slightly callused from words, more words, scribbled in agony or happiness, outbursts or peace, but mostly soft, with pale clear skin stretched over knuckles and veins. My face, clear again, not lined or wrinkled, only dark circles marring the stretch of skin between and over features. Hair still dark and healthy.

Yet my mind aging, everyday sometimes adding years, till I'm old, till I'm ancient, till I talk like a Chinese wise man. Not yet two decades old yet feeling like a withered woman, an old soul who has been around for centuries.

And yet I haven't seen the world.

Slow, slow goodbyes.

"I guess we're drifting apart."

Those five words, so simple, summing up little cracks, aftermath. Or rather, like aftershock. Vibrations that weakened the threads keeping us together, after these strands withstood The Big One, the cataclysmic earthquake apparently designed with specifications to destroy the world.

It's amazing how, after these five words were said, or rather typed, resonated in my head in your voice, I had to sit down and think about it. I had difficulty accepting it how easily it had happened, no pain, no breakage, just letting go little by little until none of it mattered. All in the past while we live in futures we picked to be different. You have someone else and I'm still alone, both deciding differently, as we always have, except for the one time we agreed on what I see as a naive idea.

Drifting apart after we go through hell together, and not care to try to patch it up because we believe in the inevitable, in the lack of control, yet somehow we believe in writing our own destinies.

Maybe this is what we wanted all along - to leave and not hurt.

Somewhere I know I did, because it was pain, it was agony in the beginning, agony to learn to not care.

Now the pain has been left behind but apparently the pain was a lot of what held us together.

No one needs a dependence of suffering.

So let's put an end to it, slowly, slowly, like painstakingly removing a bandage rather than snuffing out a candle, quick, in a breath, because the sudden darkness scares us.

Gone.

I've noticed this about myself - I'm too wary of loss.

Oh here's the song that inspired the title etc.

There are people in my life who have changed big chunks of me. They have been rock solid yet transitory, predictable yet pulled the rug out from under my feet. They have been sweet and kind and they've torn me down. They are somehow the people that matter a lot to me, yet the people I'm least able to express it to.

These are usually the people I'm most afraid of losing.

These people - for I must dedicate something to them, even if it is just a blog post they probably won't read - I am eternally grateful for them. They're the change-makers, the ones that get up and tell you what you're doing wrong, tear you down so you can build yourself up right this time round. They don't mind hurting you if it means that later, you won't hurt yourself worse. They don't mind you hating them if it means you won't hate yourself later.

They're the people who'll stand up for you and fight for you, even if the person they're fighting is also you.

Sure the pain is something you'd want to avoid. They aren't gentle and delicate, they won't play with words to make it hurt as little as possible. They make the reality sink in, cold and hard; they'll make you chew the ice, not wait around for it to melt. They're coarse and harsh and smell like real life.

I may have lost one of them.

I suppose I would have lost both if the second one wasn't tethered to me by a lifelong role.

They are hard to keep.

Young eyes.

I stand here, my phone in my hand, the screen alight the familiar dark-blue-and-white of Facebook. Guitars sing in my ears, intermingled with the voice of a man heartbroken. My gaze flies from the window of the train to my screen to random people surrounding me in no particular rhythm or order.

My eyes randomly lock with a big curious pair of brown ones. They bore deeper into mine, innocent, unaware.

I look away.

I am certainly older now.

Uphill.

Flying isn't easy. You don't just need the wings, you need to trust in yourself and know that you won't fall. You need to stop being afraid of heights.

You need to take that leap of faith.

I'm hardly one to throw words like faith and belief around. I know that you don't just wake up one morning believing in yourself or with faith in God or whatever. They're things you build, like friendship.

You take it step by step. Get things right for once, make the harder choices.

You take some pain now so that you're not in pieces later.

You breathe in and know that beauty still exists and that you yet have years to live, that you can't always bury the past but you can at least try not to live in it.

You can look forward to a new day and make it new, make it worthwhile and make some more memories to cloud the ones you're trying to suppress.

I've found a new world. I'm still trying to understand it better, get more comfortable in it. Some pieces fit easily, some don't. I have to make it work.

As Mr Mraz says in his breathtaking voice here, I won't give up.

On Lykke Li, the New Year, and people who are missed.

And suddenly, I feel like the title says it all.

So Lykke Li has set up camp in my head, with her song Tonight. It is very pretty. Very very pretty.

Here's the Youtube link.

Also, I wasn't ever one to fall for astrological shizz, but APPARENTLY, Mr Neptune is going to be coming by for a long-term stay in Pisces, which is my sign.. And that is a good thing. Or so they say.

Now on to what's really bothering me.

Ever had someone who made you feel capable of being alone more than ever...someone who made you stronger so you didn't need them?

And then...felt like you've lost them?


Frankly, I've never been on the receiving end of romantic affection that I didn't return. And if I have I didn't notice, which is actually quite likely.
But to lose a friend along side being in a situation like that...

Why do I always end up losing friendship to romance?

But...I miss my friend. I miss him so much. Every time that semi-annoying semi-amusing song Kolaveri comes on TV (which happens all too often for my comfort) I miss him. It's not fair that I have to lose him to this, this damn unpredictable wrecking ball.

I check the calendar, see that there are 25 days left to the end of the month-long break he wants from me. I miss him and long for his company. I don't know if this hard for him. I've been in the one-sided boat and know how bad it sucks and wouldn't want to put anyone through it...and I also know what it's like to wish the person out of your life, to half-wish not to ever have met them.

But...I don't want to lie. I don't want to promise something I may not be able to actually give. I don't want to hurt anybody the way I've been hurt.

Then I wonder if I already have.

The core of me that's a scared little child wants to bury herself in a forest cave, in the damp sweet-smelling soil. To feel the rain through the mud but hide from the sun.

But I'm trying to be all grown up now, thanks to the selfsame person. I can't hide. If getting sun-burnt with loss is the only way through this, fine. So be it.

But...I miss him. I've never wished for any particular person to be a part of my readership before...but I wish he would see this and know how sorry I truly am.

Lykke Li's fairy-tale-like yet earthy voice fills the air.

Let me go, let me go
let me go, let me go.

Living.

Breathing isn't all I do nowadays.

There were some moments in the past that would have loved to make me believe that all I ever would be is them. That they would encompass everything beautiful I would ever feel, that they were all I had to live for.

Love.
It's not a lie but it's not everything. There's so much more.

So much more I could want, that I do want. So much more that wouldn't be so complicated to attain.
So much more I could do with my previously sorry existence.

There's nothing as immensely...satisfying...to the soul, I suppose, than feeling that way, yet I find myself rendered incapable of ever feeling that deeply again.

All those cracks that have finally filled up seem to have blocked the entrance to that corner of my heart that I fear, even after all the...fixing, will forever remain broken.

But there's the rest of me, not just that stupid aching beating organ, which can do so much more than pine over what is forever lost.

And even if it comes back to me, I could never take it back. I just...couldn't.

Maybe I've been rendered...romantically impotent. The good news is that I don't need this in my life.
Not in the here and now anyway.

I'm going to sweep these pieces under the rug and not enter this room any more. Leave it bleak and empty, wait for the dust to collect. Maybe when I turn the knob again after forever and push the creaking door open, these pieces would have also crumbled to fine nothingness.

And until then I'll have music and friends and...everything else I've simply neglected, when I was staying true to the hopeless romantic in me.

Let's dream again, and about things I can actually have.