Eight Perfect Hours

Big things, I hope, might happen someday, but it’s the little things that are important, isn’t it? They keep us grounded. The little things are the things we miss the most when normality is turned on its head.

My life has started. I’m in it. It’s not something I’m waiting for any more. I’m here. And whatever I wanted for my life, was it this?’ Was it this?

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place and circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle. But it will never break.

The only way to live forever is to leave part of yourself behind. And that's what this is. A part of me.

And I don't have a corner sofa or a sweater-wearing husband. But I am here. The Noelle of right now, is right here.

No," she says. "No, I can't. How can I? I've started seeing someone." My heart stops. "A counselor," she adds, and it starts beating again, relieved. Of course. Of course she wouldn't have a bloody affair. "Once a week. I go during work time so Theo doesn't know." So that's where she's neem going, and probably why she wasn't in the shop, and where she was driving to the other day. "But he'll want me to go to the GP and I'm- I'm worried they'll put me on meds and the meds will numb me. I already feel so numb, Noelle. And I'm scared. Of being that mother who needs pills to get through what's supposed to be one of the best things that ever happened to her. I'm a shit mother.

I spoke to this woman in the supermaket," Charlie barges in again, "and I said I was tired and finding it hard, and she said, 'Ah, you wouldn't change it thoug, would you?' and I had to of course say no. But I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say, 'Actually, Brenda, I would.' I want to go back sometimes. And I do, Noelle. I don't want to be Charlie of then." Charlie bursts into sobs.

The little things are what we miss the most when normalities turned on its head

I have missed him. I have missed this security, the life we had – the life we almost had. And isn’t it something we all want, from time to time, to turn back the clock?

There’s that old, snuggly cardigan, my arms slipping straight in. How many times in my life have I heard that sentence?

There’s some sort of law, isn’t there, that when you break up with someone, they’re forever remembered and defined by their behaviour when you broke up, and anything after. Everything they did before that is null and void. Even the happy memories. Even all the love you gave each other.

but it’s the little things that are important, isn’t it? They keep us grounded. The little things are the things we miss the most when normality is turned on its head.