I used to yo-yo break up with my ex-ex. Number eight. The guy I met at university and loved for many years (whose dark dark eyes and devious filth you can read about in my first book if you’re interested). We had our problems, but we also had our passion. Long, tortured silences in the middle of arguments that would stretch on for what felt like hours, while each of us rummaged in our equally-wordy minds for the perfect phrase that would lift the blanket of sadness. But words can’t always do the work: sometimes, most times, the physical yearning would beat our mouths to the punch, and one of us would reach out to touch the other. That touch would set us both on fire, then we’d fuck like the fucking would fix it.

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“I still read the blog sometimes,” my ex told me, then added in a quieter voice “you’ve been so kind.” I’m taken aback. I can’t quite work out what to say except ‘of course’, and then ‘you should probably stop reading soon.’ In that moment I think the greatest kindness I can do is warn him not to read tomorrow. I have no idea if this is appropriate, and later I’ll wonder if that was actually the worst thing I could do – like telling someone not to open a box, torturing their curiosity and making it inevitable that they’ll crack and look inside. This stuff is hard after a break-up. I have no idea what’s right. I have no idea what to say or where my words are or why my mouth is glue and sawdust. I still love him.

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The first time my heart was broken – and I say this with a fairly solid definition of what heartbreak feels like for me, and how it’s different to a simple, everyday hurt – it felt like the world was going to end. There was too much emotion to hold inside my fragile body, and it stayed for so long that I couldn’t conceive of the possibility that one day it wouldn’t be there any more. This heartbreak – puny and pathetic now I come to think about it – was caused by the wandering, horny eye of an eighteen-year-old boy.

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I’m having a lot of nightmares at the moment. Don’t feel sorry for me, if I were to write posts purely to gain sympathy I’d find far more interesting things to pin them on. I think the nightmares – like clockwork, at 4am, unless I take a sleeping tablet – are a way of processing a lot of break-up sadness so that during the day I can get on with being my proactive, practical self. They are horrible, but they’re also good in a way because when I wake up I realise that the world holds far more promise and possibility than my dreaming brain would have me believe. I also reckon I’m not the only one who has struggled with some of this after a break up so I thought I’d get some decent content out of ranking them from best to worst. Here are my top 4 break-up nightmares.

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Alone, I am no one and nothing. Anxious and vulnerable and desperate for love. Insecure and needy and truly, truly foolish. Left to my own devices I would probably never make difficult decisions. Let’s face it, I might not be capable of getting out of bed. But I can do even the hardest things because I have great people beside me. My people give me superpowers: you give me superpowers.

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