I can hear the fireworks outside. They remind me that I’m alone, not with friends, not putting myself out there trying to make new friends, or even just going out to enjoy for the sake of enjoying them.
I miss my friends, I miss by family, I miss feeling loved and I miss loving others. Don’t get me wrong I’ve found myself caring quite deeply about some of the people I’ve met here, and I’m glad about that. I’m glad I’ve found people worth caring about, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have none of the relationships I had only a few months ago. Of course I still think about them the same way but it’s very strange going from seeing them every day and hearing the ins and outs of their lives and talking absolute nonsense just because that’s what comes into my head and they roll with it and join in and we burst into laughter within only a few seconds, but they are beautiful seconds. Seconds of pure joy and happiness that no one can take away from us no matter how shit the world might be or how tough our lives might be at the time. That is what I miss, I miss not caring what people think. I miss being able to do and say what I want knowing that I won’t be judged or thought of as weird, I miss the mentality of ‘I’m just being me and that’s who they’ve chosen to love so that’s who I’ll be’. Now I find myself over thinking everything I say, before I say it, whilst saying it, and after I’ve said it. ‘Would this be a weird thing to say? Is this how most people would phrase this?’ ‘Crap I’m talking too fast and waffling and repeating myself and this isn’t going anywhere and now I’ve lost my train of thought shit shit shit’ ‘Well I buggered that one up didn’t I? That wasn’t good, they weren’t engaged, they didn’t care, they just wanted it to be over so that they could say their thing, shit they’re saying their thing, listen, damn now thing of a response, quick’ And the cycle continues. I want to go home, I want my life to be how it was, I might have hated school and never wanted to get up in the morning and feared the university application process and deal with Lizzie’s antics and pretend I didn’t hate Mr Thompson with my entire being every time we had a lesson with him, but I had Hannah and Alex and Eleanor and Morgan and Florence, and there was no tension between anyone. Eleanor would reply to Alex’s texts, we’d make plans to go out together, we would fanny about it the common room, we’d chat, drink tea with hot water stolen from the kitchen next to the conference room, laugh at the embarrassing things I’d done. But I don’t have that anymore.
And these are the things that the fireworks tell me.
