For all you were

I’m still trying to shake you. I’m still comparing what I have now to what I had then. It’s even at the point where songs I hate are becoming sentimental because they remind me of you.

It’s not like this is the first time. It’s happened a lot before. But no previous experience ever prepares you for the next one. Each is different in its own way. Although it was easier I suppose when I was younger - fewer preconceptions, less to lose. I keep trying to remind myself that I’m using rose-tinted glasses, it wasn’t as good as I remember. I try to remember the bad times, the times where I thought you had given me all you could.  Friends say they will keep in touch, and they do for a while, but soon it becomes too awkward, out of sight, out of mind.

But then I remember the times where I was spit out into the unexpected morning light by some sweaty nightclub and you were there to embrace me. You would swift me along my way as I stared at the floor, avoiding eye contact in case they see the evidence of the night before. But you never judged me. There are times when I may have felt rejected, but never unloved.

The last time I really had to start a new life I was 15. In that prepubescent stage, it was a very emotional time. I felt like my life, which had previously been in turmoil, was finally coming together. Then we moved and I left behind my best friends, my new boyfriend, and a life I had worked very hard to pull together. I remember waiting for the car to pull up, eating Burger King on my bedroom floor as all the furniture had been sold. My 2 friends waved me good bye and I could only just make them out through the haze of tears. I slept the whole way to the airport once I stopped crying. When we got to England I felt like someone had ripped my heart out. Physically, not just metaphorically – it felt shattered.

I don’t feel like that now. But I have a feeling it’s the adult equivalent. I’ve been told that the weather is crap and I’m not missing anything. But I’m missing my friends, my familiarity, my comfort, a whole support network made up of not just the people, but the place. All of my little knick knacks that moved around with me are not here. My pictures of old friends are not here. Part of me is not here. It’s back in Bristol. Don’t take this as regret – I’m on a new adventure and I wouldn’t change it, but it doesn’t mean that sometimes it’s not a struggle. It’s like missing having a boyfriend – I keep looking at friends meeting up in the park or for coffee or for a night out and thinking ‘I used to do that.’ It takes a while to settle into a place, but for now I want to pay homage to Bristol.

Bristol, I miss your:

Graffiti

Night clubs

Cider

Beer gardens

Dubstep

Raves

Crusty hippies

Coffee shops

Westonbirt arboretum

Parks, oh how I miss sitting in the park with friends

Friends

Hippy mentality

Ease of networking

Unrealistic ideologies

BCHF

Walking everywhere

Festivals

Intelligent humour

There’s more, but most of them are steeped in memories. I’ve come to a different place to have a different experience, but first I’ve got to let go. Stop comparing everything to Bristol and appreciate things in their own right. I suppose it’s just hard having a definitive line to mark the end of a particular part of your life. Even though my party animal side started to fade a while ago, this feels much more like the dawn of my adult life. I’m certainly not saying that I won’t be partying anymore, but not as often and not with the same sense of reckless abandon. I’ve always struggled to come to terms with the end of that part of my life, for whatever reason it made me feel special. I also think it was me having to embrace responsibility in some way. But it’s still hard to wave goodbye to a very fun time of life and I wouldn’t have had it any other way, warts and all. So goodbye Bristol, and Seattle, show me what you got!