Don’t You Forget About Me

by Mhairi McFarlane

I realised: Lucas wasn’t quiet because he was dull. He watched and listened instead. He was like opening a plain wooden box and finding a stash of valuables inside.

I didn’t know yet that small moments can be incredibly large.

I didn’t know what falling love felt like, I’d never done it before. I discovered you recognise it easily when it arrives.

But I’ve learned it’s better to have unrealistic expectations than none at all.

The word loss had a new meaning, or its meaning became clear: a person who loved me, in a completely unique and irreplaceable way, had vanished and took with him our relationship.

‘There are always those worse off than you. Your problems are not invalid as a result, or needing to be measured against an internationally recognised pain scale before we decide if your condition is severe enough to treat.’)

There’s what you think being in love is when you’re nineteen or twenty and then what it actually is when you’re a grown-up, and these are two different things. But some of us keep looking for the first version long after we should’ve let it go,’

Being “in love” is a contented kind of bored with each other. You’re not going to find someone who sets you on fire and is also a good idea and you know why? Because being on fire isn’t a good idea. It’s destructive. When anyone describes love nowadays they usually mean lust.’

‘Nope, there’s no such thing as karma and people don’t get what they deserve. It’s a comforting myth to reconcile us to the savage randomness of the universe and wrongs inflicted upon us.’

Here’s what life has taught me so far: don’t worry about that thing you’re worrying about. Chances are, it’ll be obliterated by something you didn’t anticipate that’s a million times worse.

Your real problems are never the things you fret most about. This has an upside – sometimes you’ve fretted without cause.

‘No one else is going to fix you. The only person who can fix you, is you.’ So Coldplay lied.

‘Sometimes because the people we wanted to care for us, didn’t care for us, we live with a deliberate lack of care for ourselves. A way of getting back at them, through self-neglect.’

Well, beloved: you’re the constant here.

When you realise you’re the reason for all your problems lmao

‘Yearning and pining for more, or what the kids call FOMO, fear of missing out, is the curse of the modern age,’

‘I don’t go around keeping everything to hook-ups because I am, you know “incapable of falling in love”,’ she does inverted comma finger and grimaces. ‘I do it because I am all too capable and I know it’d end me.