I never write here anymore in All Good Things

I don’t know why.
No, I do. It’s because I never write at all.

I’ve been struggling with very severe depression this year and it just doesn’t seem to go away. The good thing is that the anxiety that’s paralysed me for the past two and a half years seems to finally have dissipated, not entirely but mostly, certainly enough to function again and to work again, which is a relief, but I don’t know if this depression is preferable. It is so hard to be okay about being alive again, and I hate this. I spent so much of my life struggling with this and then I had so many wonderful people around me for the past two years that I was truly happy for the first time since being a child and it was…intoxicating. I’d forgotten what it felt like to feel alive and love it.

But it’s like it could only last for as long as Jon was there.

I’m back in Singapore at the moment, where I came straight after his death. I found myself the other night sitting on the same bridge where I sat while his funeral happened back in England and I couldn’t stop crying after months of feeling numb. I have so many memories of him here and they should be comforting but they’re not because he’s gone and his death seems to have taken everyone else with him.

It’s not true, not completely, but Annette’s sister has wrecked everything, she’s finally succeeded in taking everything away from me, after a year-long campaign (yes, which started exactly one year ago tonight). She’s won. I’ve lost. It’s over. I can’t be anywhere she is, and she’s there all. the. fucking. time.

I’ve never hated anybody the way I hate her.

And I give up. I fought so hard to recover, to be okay again, and she’s just ripped away from me everything that I gained.

Exactly ten years ago this month, Annette and I were here in Singapore together becoming best friends. We were each the first real best friend the other had ever had. I miss her unbearably. Yes, I have lots of new friends now and I love them all, but none of them replace her for me. And somehow she now despises me. I still have no understanding of why. Well, I have a few suspicions, but - really? REALLY? She’s let her insecurities and misunderstandings destroy a ten-year relationship that easily???

I’m trying to come to terms with everything that’s happened in the past two years but it’s overwhelming me.

I can’t believe it’s all over. I can’t believe that fucking witch wins.

I was home for just a week last month after spending most of the first part of the year in New Zealand and it was so traumatic and awful, all thanks to Annette and, more so, her sister. That’s why I’m here on the opposite side of the world again and why I’m not going home next weekend to join everyone in Cardiff like I was supposed to. It’s why I was in New Zealand instead of Liverpool and Bristol and Woking and Milton Keynes in February and March.

A year ago tonight the rollercoaster TCM tour began in London. I watched Jon star in the opening show and then celebrated afterwards in his arms. We had no idea that he’d die hours before the final show of the tour, that he had less than four months to live. Those were four of the most eventful months of my life. They changed everything. My life will forever be divided into before and after.

I’m seriously not enjoying the after.

I don’t want to be here. I just....don’t. I’m too tired. Weary. All my hope has gone.

I try to stay cheerful and optimistic with my friends, to laugh and joke and be supportive and helpful. I try to be professional at work (without the anxiety it’s a lot easier) and to be efficient and perform to my best. I still have friends. I still have a job. I still have people to love and be loved by. There’s no reason for me to feel like I’ve lost everything, because objectively that’s nowhere close to true.

But it’s hard to care about any of it. None of it feels real. Jon is dead and certain other people are lost to me or denied to me and every time I go back to the place where I feel happiest I encounter a witch who blazes hatred at me and actively tries to destroy me and take away everyone who so much as smiles at me. I’m tired of the fight. That was my happy place, my safe place. As long as Jon was there he kept her under control but without him I am defenceless, no one else is strong enough to stand up to her.

Even…

No, I can’t even think about him. I was supposed to be seeing him ten days from now and now I have no idea if I’ll ever see him again.

I’ve never had anybody hate me before. It’s a very strange experience. Awful, in every way. The things she’s done to me this year alone....are horrifying. I guess I’m lucky I can get away from her and I’m not trapped with her at school or work, like other people have to endure, unable to escape their vicious bullies. And I guess I can be lucky that this is the first time I’ve encountered such a thing.

This is why I don’t write. Because all I can write about is about what I’ve lost, about how much it hurts, and I have to try and not think about it because otherwise I can’t keep getting up every morning.

I’ve had a really nice two weeks at work, the nicest two weeks I’ve had in many years. Everyone was friendly, my editors were lovely as well as being excellent at their jobs, the hours were extremely easy and even the speakers were reasonable. I’m grateful for that. And I had a wonderful six weeks in New Zealand, organising my life by the direction of the wind, the swell of the tide, the times of sunset and sunrise, living between the mountains and the sea, turning brown in the summer sunshine and trying not to think about all that I was missing in England.

Maybe something new and nice is coming up ahead. I hope so.