Prepare for Loss

All our lives we are told
You must prepare for loss.
You must prepare for the day
when your world crumbles,
when friends leave, when summer ends
and the leaves turn brown
then to dust.

You must prepare yourself, they say
for the day your Great Love goes silent
when the cat is no longer there to be stroked
when the world is just you.
All our lives we are told
We must prepare for loss.

But we are not told to prepare
for all the Other Days.
The days our love lies next to us in bed
still and breathing heavy
All those car journeys and endless days
When the cat is here to be held,
we don't prepare for that

And even when the leaves are brown, we don't notice
that golden amber hue, the lingering magic
Perhaps not on the trees, but still
right beneath our feet
in front of our noses
As we press our hands and eyes against the glass
Breathing in on a world we are preparing to lose
But never preparing
to lose ourselves to

5.30am Surfing

Today it is my birthday, and I leave behind my 25th year.

I think I'll always remember 25 as the year I finally stopped wading in the shallow waters - the year I learned to surf!

I'll remember 25 as the year I met the most spectacular man, who captivated and fascinated me like never before. The year I learned what a healthy, kind, loving relationship looked and felt like, so that I never settle for anything less. Learning what mattered wasn't trying to balance on the same board together, but being able to catch our own waves out on a shared sea - and afterwards, to run to each other on the shore, gasping, sparkly-eyed and salty, shouting "Did you see it, did you see it!? Wasn't that something!?"

I'll remember 25 as the year I learned how to lose things - completely and ungraciously. Some pain and suffering in life is unnecessary, but some deserves to be felt in every inch of your being. At 25 I learned that actually, I couldn't withstand the heartbreak that came with losing him. That everything I knew could still be shattered into a thousand shards of flesh and heart, but that even in my most vulnerable and childlike moments of grief, this world has still not ceased to bring me awe and wonder.

And at 26, I'm making a promise to myself to catch as many waves I can. Especially the big, foaming, crashing waves under trembling, brumous skies - regardless of the predators that might lurk beneath, regardless of whether I'm going to be knocked unconscious with a surfboard to the face. Because at 25, I learned that I'll always emerge from the sea - bloody and bruised perhaps, but always awake, always alive, always eyes sparkling. And I'll always run into his arms, shouting "Did you see it!? Did you see it!? Wasn't that something!!!"