The Stones In Your Head: how to handle an irrepressible sadness

We all have memories that bubble up to the surface. But you aren’t doomed to think of them forever

I was out for lunch today in Marylebone. The sky was a cerulean blue and the deep burgundy brick burnt into the midday skies. My negroni was sharp with citrus and vermouth as my client talked excitedly about his latest venture. I was happy, privileged, alive. And then, like a golf club to the skull, the thought swung into my brain. My ex boyfriend cheated on me and isn’t sorry.

I winced and pushed it back. I am here, I told myself, I am at this table by the roaring open fire and the sky is blue and raw with March. He is gone, what he did to me has gone, it has passed, and I want to move on. I must- move on. But it stuck with a ringing sadness and clouded moments of my day- roads we had walked, tubes we had taken, conversations I wanted to have. Hours later, I opened my phone and angrily scrawled an email I had no intention of sending him.

Fuck you. How could you do this to me? Me? The girl you spoke to every day? When I loved and trusted you so completely? When I was nothing but supportive and kind and faithful to you? Fuck you. Fuck her. But mostly you. I hope her distrust and jealousy becomes unbearable and you end up…