Collateral Damage

They’re drifting away. It’s heartbreaking, really. When that inevitable end emerges, always much quicker than you would have liked or imagined. There’s no definitive reason why things are coming to an end. But you know they are. The signs are clear – the glazed-over eyes when you speak, them not remembering the little things the way they did before, them being just that little bit uninterested, not asking how you are and whether your life is going as you planned. It’s not an exercise in pointing fingers… Afterall, you’re exhibiting all the same behaviours to them as they are to you… Always subtly but surely growing that small gap that’s emerged between you two.

Life goes on, you move on, you change, they change, the situation changes. And then, without rhyme or reason, you fade from each other. The messages and calls become sparse, the conversations boring and strained… And without that final full stop that offers the closure and clean break you so desire, one day they will suddenly disappear. And that will be it. Over. In an instant.

What breaks your heart is that you’ve moved on too. You won’t feel the void, it won’t hurt you or sadden you as much as you once imagined it would. Life isn’t unbearable. It simply goes on. Because they are the collateral damage. The price of your evolution, that part of you that dissolves as soon as its purpose has been served. Onward you go.

Photo: This is the stage background at the beginning of the performance of ‘She Persisted’ – The English National Ballet at Sadlers Wells Theatre, London