Getting over it

It's a typical British summer holiday. I'm trying to eat a fish cake with one of those wooden forks before the seagulls notice what I've got, and watching the grey sky blend seamlessly into the grey sea. People are huddled on the beach wrapped in multi-coloured towels and ponies trudge up and down the sand. It's nearly 20 years since my family came here for the first time and there are memories everywhere. Up the sea front is the Sea Life Centre where Middle Brother would stare at the seals for hours and we'd eat jelly snakes. To my right is the funfair with the wiggly slides which we used to visit for a treat in the evening. I remember fondly the first time I publicly humiliated myself, going down them in a dress which I was convinced made me look very grown up, only for my skirt to blow up exposing my underwear to all and causing the man taking the money to exclaim loudly in case anyone had failed to notice, "Look, she's showing her frillies!" I remember the game my father used to set for us, to see who could spot the most tattoos on people walking along the front. One point for an inked arm, five for a neck. I have my own now and god knows how many points that's lost me in his eyes. And I can see Littlest Brother, now 19 and six foot, standing on the beach aged four trying to get his mouth round a gobstopper bigger than his head.

I'm losing myself in these memories, digging deeper and deeper. The first meal I ever had here was fish shapes, chips, and beans. The first grumpy pony I rode along the beach was called Minnie. The first time we came we made a scrapbook, my mother painstakingly helping me to stick shells into it every evening before we ate, Middle Brother doing detailed scribbles on the blank pages. I'm losing myself on purpose so I won't have to think about the most recent time I've visited. The time in freezing, windy January when the fish and chip stands were boarded up and the front was empty save for a few birdwatchers huddled in the only tea room open out of season. The time when I was so desperate that I packed up and ran away fom Cambridge on the spur of the moment. I was stuck in a labyrinth of unfinished work, depression, failed potential, and panic. Some psychiatrists say that 'home' is reliving your childhood and so perhaps unconsciously I sought safety in the place of my childhood holidays. At a time in my life when I could have felt so utterly alone he came with me.

I don't know how long you're allowed to feel heartbroken for before it becomes horribly self-indulgent. I suspect at nearly a year since he dropped his bombshell I'm pushing the bounds of sympathy when I get maudlin like this. It's not the searing pain of the first weeks, pain that I was too terrified to look straight at in case I couldn't take it. It's just an ache that nags me occasionally. He came with me and we ate chips in the cold and he was sober then but he sat patiently and watched me drink it all away and we giggled in the prissy guest house and stared at penguins in the Sea Life Centre. And even though the sun almost came out earlier and I'm on my way to getting my life back on track, it hurts that I'll never have that with him again.

We went to a film the other day, I say we, he brought his new partner with him, and as I was saying goodbye, he dropped another bombshell. He's going away for six weeks and by the time he gets back I'll be in London starting college. As I walked home I wondered if this wasn't for the best. Detach yourself! I mentally yelled. Later, at the goth night I organised a goodbye coffee for the next day. An old song came on and I walked to the dance floor and danced alone, hair in my face, balanced on my 6" heels. I saw him across the floor and lifted my head to sing the chorus. "I take back my trust in you." I wanted it to be an exorcism, I spat the words trying to forget the times we danced together to songs he now pulls his boyfriend onto the dance floor for. And the next day I was calm. We talked about nothing and politely caught up on each other's lives. We hugged goodbye and he said he'd come to visit in London and I nodded knowing that if he did it wouldn't be for me and nor should it be, I suppose. And then we went our separate ways and that was it. Not with a bang but a whimper, I thought. And just maybe I'm slowly getting over it.