Nobody Belongs To Us

The people in my lost and found.

There are some people we expect to follow us like shadows. They come into our lives one day and we forget there was a time they were never there. We etch them into our futures, scratching the pencils so fiercely onto the paper that the markings dig through every page.

I often think the most painful goodbyes are the ones that never actually happen. We don’t say it, because we never assume it will be necessary, until the time stretches by long enough for us to notice that was the last time, and we didn’t even know it.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the people who have disappeared from my life. They appear in my dreams like ghosts, and for a moment I consider a life that almost was. If that person were still in my life, would I have made the same choices? Would I be living in the same place? Would I have taken a different career path? Would I laugh at the same things? I am always happier in the dream, frolicking in a meadow of temporary fulfilment until I wake up, half-sad, and remember it wasn’t a meadow - it was a dead-end cul-de-sac.

Truthfully, we can get lost in a spiral of what-ifs all we like, but the old phrase ‘for a reason or for a season’ is going to prove its point every single time. Convincing ourselves that someone has been designed especially for us is one of the cruelest tricks we play on ourselves. What’s that line from Breakfast at Tiffany’s? “We belong to nobody and nobody belongs to us.” I think Holly Golightly took this mantra a little too close to heart. It left her reluctant to connect with anyone, cold and isolated. Knowing that people might not be forever doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep them close while we can. It also doesn’t mean that nobody will stick around. Just not everyone. Then again, a long-running TV show gets boring if they don’t introduce new characters every so often.

Most people don’t abandon us out of cruelty, it’s just that their sat-nav takes them on a different route. We prefer to meander around country lanes, but we must accept that some are made for motorways.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

I mark the chapters of my life by the people I spent them with. Most I look back on with fondness, sending them love with each recollection of a memory. Others spark my curiosity and I scour every edge of Google to find what they’re up to now. Families, red carpets, new countries: lives I no longer recognise. Some make me force my eyes shut, pursing my lips together until I manage to shun the past from my present.

These people, to me, are missing. They’ve disappeared from my life without a trace. Without malice, without explanation. I still smirk at our inside jokes and think of them when their favourite song comes on the radio. I protect them behind glass in frames. So while they’re absent, they’re not gone.

It’s easy to reflect on our relationships with people and paint them in all our favourite colours. The further away we stray from our moments with them, the easier it becomes to forget the reality. Sometimes old friends might deserve to be painted in a vibrant spectrum and adorned with glitter glue, but others are better in a pencil sketch, with an eraser kept close by.

When my dreams send me to a world of ‘what-ifs’, I panic that I have made the wrong decisions. That I loosened my grip when I should have held on tighter. It’s only when I return back to full consciousness that I can accept my life for what it is now, and while it’s bittersweet to remember those who have slipped away, sometimes it’s enough to know that it was nice while it lasted.

I am yet to learn who will stick with me. I am so happy you are here.

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