Closure in Weird Places

{implied spoilers for last week's Casualty}

Something really important happened on Sunday evening.

I watched Casualty.

I watch Casualty every week. But this week was different.

-You know I have to do this... Let me let you go.

-If this is goodbye... 

-Not if. It hurts me when I hurt you. It hurts way too much. Please understand. 

We used to argue over them. I wanted them to work out. You didn't. Of course you didn't; you didn't see what I saw. You didn't ever see them the way I saw them, as a representation of us. Or maybe you did.

Even after we didn't, I wanted them to work out. I wanted them to work out because I am a closeted hopeless romantic, and because I get way too emotionally invested in fictional characters. I wanted to work them out because I wanted that little bit of hope. That knowledge, that it could work. Not for us. But for them.

Guess what?

I should have guessed, really, shouldn't I. I should have guessed.

I didn't. I kept watching, I kept hoping.

I watched the last episode in her arms, actually. Almost all of the last episode. We didn't have time to watch all of it, but I needed to know, so we skipped to the end. We saw the ending and how it worked out, but we missed the bit that mattered. 

the universe takes care of all its birds // Wonder, R. J. Palacio

I got home, and my mum said that the bit I'd missed had been a good bit. I went upstairs, and I tried to do work, and work didn't happen. So I watched the bit I'd missed, alone in my room, on the laptop, curled up at the desk. And then? And then I cried, a lot.

Somewhere, in those words, beneath what was said, beneath what happened- somewhere, I realised that I was blaming myself for things that had never, could never have been my fault.

Somewhere, in those words, beneath what was said, beneath what happened, beneath everything that someone else- someone, like you- might take from it, I took something very different. I don't know how or why I took that. I just know I did. In a tiny storyline from a BBC drama, I took something incredibly huge.

I took a deep breath. I took the chance to forgive myself, properly, for hating myself for everything that was never my fault. I took everything that happened, and I let it go, in a way I've been trying to do for so long.

The next day, it rained, and town was miserable, but I smiled to myself. I got the word fight tattooed on my wrist, and that was a coincidence, but it couldn't have been a better one. 

I was calm. I can't explain how I felt- how I'm still feeling- in any other words than that. It's not what anyone else would necessarily define as calm, but it's calm to me. It took me over a year and a half to find that calm. But now, I've got it back again. And yes, it's still going to be hard to hold onto sometimes. But at least I have it back again. 

I'm doing okay. I'm doing pretty damn well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWfKfM10g6g