our last day

it’s a year since our last day in the village. I don’t know how this is meant to make me feel, though I’ve dreaded the thought of being so far from that precious time for a while now. I know the distance hasn’t changed since I arrived home last December, but the time seems to make the loss seem greater as it passes.

last night I spoke to Mat about everything. he tells me he finds it easier to not think about Lewes and the things he misses. I told him I wish I could do that sometimes, though so much of my life now seems to be my missing. Mat confessed to wishing for that time again, despite his unwillingness to dwell on everything we left behind in the village. I’m learning slowly that we all have different ways of grieving and moving through the losses we face.

a year ago today I had my final class on campus. I explored Brighton one last time wirh Emma and Jan. we all went to Lansdown for drinks, after which we had our final night in 53, laughing and drinking cups of tea with biscuits. today I saw some friends. we had a picnic in the sun. it was nice, and for a brief moment I forgot the sadness I woke up to upon realising a year had passed since my final full day in Lewes.

tomorrow will be a year to the day since we left the village. despite having had so much time to prepare for the anniversary of this loss, I feel so small before it now. my life since leaving has consisted completely of my missing. I long for my friends and the world that we shared in that funny old hotel. I don’t know what I’m meant to do with this longing. I hope it comes to make sense with time - the village and the crossing of our paths there - and that I might someday know the joy I knew there once again. << x

raining

it rained a lot today. the sun came and went every hour or so, slipping in and out of clouds and showers that lingered and never really left. we’re a week into summer now, and though I’ve grown to expect such bipolar weather on the island, today it made me think of Lewes and the perpetual storm clouds that must only be growing stronger by the day. I wondered if it was raining there too, as it had almost every night during my short time there.

I miss many things about the village and the life I found there. but it’s only recently that I’ve realised how much I miss the weather. it’s strange to greet summer with reluctance now. the days are warmer and I’m supposed to be happy about it. I find it hard to pretend I’m content with this constant passing of time, which only seems to make the distance between me and everything I miss seem greater. another summer shouldn’t be a big deal, and I know rain or winter wouldn’t make it all better. but at least the cold and the clouds make a little more sense to my fragile mind.

I’m another year older in a couple of weeks. I’ll graduate too, closing another chapter. even more bewildering is the fact that I’ll have been home for a whole year before then. I still catch myself struggling to believe it’s all over, that this coming home to my old life isn’t just a temporary thing prolonging our return to our shared life in the village. sometimes it feels as though I haven’t lived a day since coming back: that the time has just passed and I’ve watched it playing out before me from a distance. I don’t know what to make of these feelings or the path before me. sleep is the only thing that makes sense anymore. I miss and I miss and I wonder what I’m meant to do << x

November

it’s summer tomorrow. if I was in Lewes it would be winter tomorrow. I don’t know why the difference makes me sad, but it does. the months slip by so quickly now. it’s nearly a year since we left. sometimes I wish I could stop thinking of it all together: the missing is too much and I often think I’d be better off forgetting it all so as to allow my getting on with life. but I can’t forget, and I know I shouldn’t. I’m forever changed by the time and the people I shared it with. there’s so much to be grateful for, and though I still can’t make sense of the loss, I miss as I hope it might get easier with time. it’s all so far away now, further with every day. the distance is too much. I wish things were different. << x

new toothbrush

mum bought me a new toothbrush from the supermarket. I came home tonight and someone had thrown out my old one. it really shouldn’t matter, but that old toothbrush was the same one I’d used in Lewes, bought there about a month before returning home. maybe it’s disgusting that I was still using it. regardless of how I should judge myself for caring about the toothbrush, it feels strange to use the new one, almost like a betrayal of the past. so much of it stills sits with me, heavy on my mind like too much rain all at once. the toothbrush linked me back to that place and that time that I miss so much. it’s probably for the best that it’s gone. but I still mourn my loss as the new toothbrush greets my teeth unworn. I never thought it possible to feel so out of control of my own story. the pages turn and I fall through them. << x

11 months

it’s over 11 months since I’ve been home now. nearly a whole year has passed since we said goodbye to Lewes and each other before returning to the homes we knew before. the thought saddens me and though the feelings are so strong there’s little I can do with them. I wish time would slow down, though I have no excuses and feel foolish to still be so lost in these memories and my missing.

in a month’s time I’ll be 22. I’ve never liked birthdays, and I’ve wished for a long time that I wouldn’t have to face this one. so much of my time is spent wishing time would stop, and worrying about what it’s passing means for me and my world. I’m older now than I was in Lewes, and I’ll continue to grow so until the end of my days. in growing older I grow further from the person I was and the people I loved there. already they seem so far away, and I can’t bear the thought of being pulled further. some nights I worry I’ll never see them again, and that even if I do, no brief encounter could ever hope to fill the emptiness I’ve found in their absence. I’m left thinking this might have been easier had I never been lucky enough to meet them at all.
I lose drive and I miss. a lot of the time I question whether my missing means anything. I worry I’m alone in wishing I could go back and live in those precious months forever. and though I know how hopeless it is to wish for something so impossible, I keep dreaming of the village and my friends and the life we shared together. nothing makes sense, and though this was still the case for me in Lewes, at least I enjoyed the distraction of my friends and the wonderful world we found. even now words overwhelm and I’m left feeling an absolute mess. I wonder if it will ever change. << x

I should sleep now

it’s not a little hard to understand. it’s very difficult. I’ve tried making sense of it all for so long and I wonder if there’s no end to the missing or wishing things were different. that time were kinder. that distance was shorter. am I bound to this forever now?

I don’t know where we’re meant to go. I’m guessing that we’re meant to forget and move on. but I doubt I’d ever have it in me. maybe I’ll never move. I know that some things never change, despite how much we might try to make them. is this unchangeable? am I destined to spend my life missing?

I don’t think any answers exist now. I used to think I was looking in the wrong places, though at this point I doubt any explanation would satisfy. my world is far away and quiet. some days I think I mightn’t ever find a home again. I wish things were different and that I could make some kind of sense. maybe this wish is too much to ask for. << x

bonfire night 2020

it’s the fifth of November, meaning it’s the day of Lewes bonfire night. I’m in bed listening to the ticking of the clock mum and dad bought me for my twenty first birthday upon returning home from my adventure. it’s late and I’m thinking of this day a year ago, the word in which I lived and the people I shared it with.

bonfire night was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. a parade of thousands of torches down our high street, which on any other night would be completely silent and still. stacks the height of apartment buildings taking flame on the village outskirts under a sky of fireworks that ran on and on. the streets a mess of smoke from firecrackers thrown as soon as the cops disappeared at midnight. I wonder if my friends will think of what we saw that night sometime today. sometimes I think they’ve managed to leave it all behind, and I’d be happy for them if it’s the case. sometimes missing them and our lives there is too much to bear.

the thought of that time as the best of all I’ll ever know is woeful, though it only makes Lewes and those people so much more precious. perhaps one day I’ll know again the thrill and joy I shared with those people then and there, though these things can never be guaranteed. I don’t even know if bonfire night is being celebrated this year, with everything strange going on in the world at the moment. I’d like to think nothing could stop the historic tradition, though I know in time everything is taken away and inevitably disappears.

Eliu called me today, and for the first time in months we chatted for hours. she misses everything too, and it’s a relief to feel understood by her, to know I’m not alone in feeling unable to move on from Lewes and what we found there. the sound of her voice is a blessing, though hearing her laugh makes me wish we could be neighbours again. I’m still writing, trying not to lose the memories as time passes. I’ve almost written up to our leaving each other, the end of our time together. part of me worries my words won’t be worthy of honouring that time, with how sacred it seems to me now. I hope they can at least keep some of it alive when time takes away whatever precious memories I still replay over and over in my mind.

I said goodbye to a friend yesterday, the first time since leaving Lewes. it was difficult, and I wished I could’ve had the chance to refuse the farewell, to hold onto the person. but she left and we now have to try to make sense of it. I hope to see her again someday. like Lewes, I miss her deeply already. << x