Good Material

by Dolly Alderton

Never has there been a worse time for all of my algorithms to understand my interior life better than I do.

Bon Iver released a new single two days ago. I’ve been storing it up for my train journey back to London for maximum wallowing. I booked myself a window seat especially so I can listen to it on repeat while I stare out of the window, having flashbacks and realizations.

he’s such a girl ohmygod

You’ve just got to eat some really mouldy cheese really late at night and you get to have your dream reunion with your ex.

BAJFJKDKAKKS ?????

But I’m not a member of that club any more. No one is. It’s been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where do I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I’m no longer in a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird? Why do I find this so hard?

Because I am starting to think that talking about the sadness might be the same thing as processing the sadness. And if we’re not doing that, then we only have our thoughts for company, and our thoughts are unreliable and they invent things and they lie to us and give bad advice. Not talking about the sadness is what leads us into The Madness.

When someone says they don’t want to be with you, you feel the pain of every single one of those times in life where you felt like you weren’t good enough. You live through all of it again.”

“You don’t let go once. That’s your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime. You might not have thought about her for ten years, then you’ll hear a song or you’ll walk past somewhere you once went together—something will come to the surface that you’d totally forgotten about. And you say another goodbye. You have to be prepared to let go and let go and let go a thousand times.”

say goodbye. And it feels okay. I say all my goodbyes, ready to no doubt meet her again tomorrow to say goodbye all over again.

feeling so grateful that I have this person in my life who sees me more clearly than I can see myself.