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In recent years, I’d found myself craving the familiarity of home. The high streets I knew, with their high density of dentists, hairdressers and bookies, and total lack of independent coffee shops. The long walk from the station to my parents’ house. The women with matching long bobs, the balding men, the teenagers in hoodies. The absence of individualism; the peaceful acquiescence to mundanity.
I could pretend that my world was myopic and my choices meaningless and the possibilities that were ahead of me were wide open and boundless.
disappearance. He said he’d felt untethered in recent years—unsure of the sort of life that would make him happiest. He felt like he had to escape something, but he didn’t know what and he didn’t know where to go. I told him I thought that was the sensation commonly known as adulthood.
The sexiest, most exciting, romantic, explosive feeling in the world is a matter of a few centimetres of skin being stroked for the first time in a public place. The first confirmation of desire. The first indication of intimacy. You only get that feeling with a person once.
“I don’t think we ever really stop searching.” “Oh, stop it.” “It’s true. I don’t ever spend time with married people and think they’re significantly less restless than single people.” “Nina, I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to like hearing. And loads of people think it, but everyone’s too scared to say it. And it’s not about feminism, and it’s not about men and women, it’s just a fact about life. Loads of people aren’t happy until they’re in a relationship. Happiness, for them, is being in a partnership. I am sadly one of those people.” “How do you know if you’ve never
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(all tall people are smug, whether they know it or not).
“I’ve known I’ll be fine. It’s easier, being heartbroken in your thirties, because no matter how painful it is, you know it will pass. I don’t believe one other human has the power to ruin my life any more.”
