Stargazers

You have lived your life beneath the stars waiting for the moment when you could meet a person to share the view with. Little did you realise that the cosmos would find themselves sitting beside you and not above you.

Corny I know but incredibly true. We all eventually end up meeting a person who becomes as important as the stars above us. They begin to fill a space in your life once left empty until before you realise it you have a shared future, or at least hope you do. You become addicted and cannot wait for your next hit.

When suddenly you are left to go cold turkey you find yourself suffering from such severe side effects from the withdrawal that you start questioning whether you can go on. You find yourself going through stages, each one worse than the one before, until eventually you realise that, to be colloquial, “you got it bad”.

Stage 1, Positivity: you are convinced that you can survive the withdrawal and come out stronger than when you started. You fill your mind with the idea that you were fine before so you will be fine after and that you do not need something to define you. At this point anyone who would meet you could hazard a guess that you are doing well and will clearly get by…

That is until Stage 2, Despair: you begin to realise that the positivity is all bullshit. There is no way to continue without that fix and you would willingly risk anything to get it, even do things you were previously against. Surviving seems impossible and trying to envision what your life was before seems close to impossible. All you can think of is your life with the addiction, everything before seems nothing more than a haze.

Stage 3, Aggression: despair ultimately culminates in anger. Your emotions know no other outlet and you find yourself lashing out at everyone and everything. You ignore people, pick fights, lose your temper, storm off and are just generally peeved. It seems the only logical way to cope with the ever growing frustration as a result of being apart and there is no way out.

Stage 4, Withdrawal: Eventually you become disgusted with your behaviour and ashamed of how you have treated those around you and so you withdraw into yourself. You lock yourself in your room and stare at the blank laptop screen fearing even surfing the internet as you might find some reminder there of the “good times”. So you choose to sleep, barely eat and just hope the time passes by. There really is no other way out of this.

Stage 5, Insomnia: eventually you find that you have slept so much that you cannot possibly sleep anymore. This time you fill your sleepless nights with all sorts of brain-wracking activities hoping to forget your pain, forget the gaping hole of darkness within your life that threatens to consume you. Keep busy, forget the pain, it may just eventually go away. The question you are left wondering is whether you do want it gone… insomnia leads to many and more questions that lead to the same answer: you would do anything for one more pull, one more sip, one more kiss….

What comes after stage 5 you may ask? I have no idea but in my sleeplessness I find myself gazing reverently at the stars hoping the cosmos above can give me the strength to overcome the loss of the star I found upon the Earth. Gazing at the stars above I cannot help but think how sad they look, they have lost all their lustre now that my gaze has fallen upon another far brighter star. 

Corny I know yet incredibly true...