I’ve spent the last few weeks clearing out my house in preparation to move, unearthing all sorts of crumbs. Crumbs, that hint at the many paths I have already traversed in my short time on this very earth. Amongst these mementoes of times bygone, I’ve found multiple almost finished disposable cameras, which I’ve been bringing out into the world with me every day so that I can take the last few snaps necessary to finally get them developed after all this time. Week to week, I’ve been dropping these miscellaneous rolls off at the lab, with a sense of unease, as if I’m playing a game of Russian roulette with my very own memories. Will they be laden with things I want to remember, or things I want to forget?
Three years ago, at Easter, I borrowed the holiday usually reserved to honour the resurrection of Jesus Christ to instead celebrate my very own personal ‘resurrection’. I was freshly out of the most whirlwind roller-coaster car crash of a relationship that at the time felt like it had almost killed me. This celebration to me, was an act of determination, a way of setting a strong intention, that I might not be okay right now, but I am damn well trying to turn this ship around. I spent the week leading up to my ‘resurrection’, cleaning every crevice of my house with saltwater and throwing away any physical evidence, the clothes, the photos, anything that reminded me of that time. Then I put on a brand-new cute outfit and did what I did best, I cooked and hosted the shit out of my own ‘resurrection’. Doing the most has at times definitely been my coping mechanism of choice, which meant I had shopped for days, prepared over 25 different dishes and made a dozen different pastel-toned flower arrangements. My sweet friends came supplied with big hugs, big sighs of relief and hopeful words of loving encouragement, I smiled and tried to laugh through the tears. I remember finally being forced to sit down to eat with them, but I could barely manage to swallow a mouthful.
I found a journal entry from that day, it was just a single line that read, “tomorrow is a new day”. Even though I so wanted it to be true, in reality, the recovery process, was exactly that, a process. One that at times felt like was never going to end, as if the sadness would never leave my body. I tried to lean into it, feel it and move through it in every way I could. Then came the pandemic, which meant I spent more time alone than ever. As the world shifted and changed forever, so did I. With each new day, I built myself back up, this time with a stronger foundation, patched together old bricks with new ones. I learned to care for myself as if I was my own child. It was as if the break-up gave me the courage to just go for everything and anything I ever feared and my skin started to fit me as it had never fit before.
As predicted, the rolls came back with photos from that period of my life. I could make out the outlines of his face through the negatives and froze, there he was, there we were. But I was surprised that instead of feeling like they were things I wanted to forget, I realised I wanted to remember. Looking back, there were parts of me that did die when that relationship ended. The part of me that felt more ‘valued’ with someone else, the part of me that cared about how a relationship ‘looked’, the part of me that when someone alerted me to all the ways in which I wasn’t ‘good enough’, believed them. The parts of me that betrayed myself, that gave my own power away, they died then and there and for that, I am so grateful.
That experience taught me how to not only fight for myself but bask in myself, to love myself as I am today and by seeing his face now, I truly know that the spell has been broken. What a beautiful thing to know that the things that break us truly make us. That relationships, ideas, and parts of us can die, only to be born again, better than ever.
With love, care and tenderness,
naomi xxxxxxx
Thank you, as always, for sharing-- Naomi❤️❤️❤️