Mirth and crumbly cheese

There’s something really powerful in recognising when you need to change direction. It feels very similar to the night she left — when I walked into the Best Room, my colourful Wonderland sanctuary. A place of solace. A place of calm. I looked to the left — the antique sideboard, covered in spirits and wines and exotic liquors from different corners of the world. Then I looked to the right — where the 130-year-old piano, kindly gifted by a friend, stood silently proud, willing its kinship in that moment. Realistically, though, anything more ambitious than a scale with these currently unpractised fingers would’ve ended in an orthopaedic catastrophe. Disco Granny attempting the Macarena after 15 sherries. I looked back to the left, thinking, this would make this shit disappear for a bit… But I realised I’m past needing things to disappear now. I have to feel every atom of this if I’m going to heal. You need to be sober to feel. Rational brain kicks in: Do you really want beer...

So, I’ve been sitting with my thoughts a lot lately—questioning my views, my values, and the core philosophy I carried through that entire relationship, and what it all really meant. I was asked recently, at what point do you feel like it’s time to take the ring off? And that question has sat heavy, thoughts whirling, refusing to settle. So I started asking myself, what will it actually take for me to take off this ring? Because it’s really about what this ring actually means to me. And the ring… well, the story starts way before the ring. It starts with a conversation where I was looking at her mum and saying, "I know that one day I’m going to marry your daughter".  And at that point, really, to be fair—hands on hips, staring me down—I should have realised that I was stepping into uncharted territory, sailing the black seas rather than riding the wave. I was never going to 'win'. I reflect on a moment when we both said that if we ever split u...

I wake up cold and panicked, tits tingling.  The familiar nail dragging sensation only ever comparable to the oxytocin-induced equivalent of the  "not my daughter, you bitch"  gut-punch feeling of seeing your kid been punched in the face by an unnamed Shitbag at a kid's party, her Everything imploding with the resounding and soul crumbling thud- an autonomic readiness to wager the war you "never signed up for". ------ To be factual, I neither found myself walking towards the underpass, Ginnel... (Gin-uhl, jenn-ell, debate it like Yorkshire 'picky tea' on the night you perused Casualty Corner before food shop day)..... -between two Northern terraces, nor did I actually  find and/or rescue a 35 week preemie newborn swaddled in stained towels within a nook of a semi-crumbled wall alongside and leading to said 'ginnel'. Now, I wouldn't describe myself as Mother Theresa, far from it, but waking up panicking about the potential demise o...