This is fucking loveless

Okay, well I like the title, but it's just a line from a song I've had in my head all day!

I have a lot of thinking to do now, as seven years is a long time to spend with someone and not change. And looking back at me as a 21 year old, I have changed and I've done a lot. When I met Erika I was living in my parents house and enjoying it. Having moved into a flat of my own, in a new city, I adjusted to those responsibilities and enjoyed myself. When we later moved country and lived together officially, I've had to again adjust, this time to another new place and a new job, in a country that I wasn't quite sure of. And the job sucked. But it's not something I'v given much thought to until now, when I'm trying to adjust my mindset to being single again, to thinking in the singular, to having to think about things rather than defer them to decide with my partner. To realising that I'm actually single and that I don't even remember how to be single! Take the past four years in Belfast, and everything I've done, I've done it with Erika. Seen her every day, been in constant contact, going to work and then spending the evenings together, cooking together, sleeping together, doing chores together (okay, she'll tell you she did more than me!), paying bills together, making decisions together. I've come to think of myself as a boyfriend rather than a person, part of a team. And suddenly not only are those things my own responsibility - and of course I know Erika is in the same position, don't think I'm not aware of that - but I have a whole host of options available to me. I plan on staying in Belfast as I like it here, but I don't have to, I can move home or to Edinburgh where my friend Brian is, back to Hull which I enjoyed, or somewhere completely new. I could do anything. Suddenly I'm aware that perhaps I should be more concerned about my interaction with people because the cushion is no longer there to the same extent. I'd always know that I'm going home to Erika and that's all that matters. But perhaps now I should make more of an effort to make friends with people. I like being a friend, and I like trying to be a good friend. Maybe I should give people a chance rather than blocking them out. Maybe I should actually use this free time to do something constructive, maybe I should start saving money for something good. I don't know. But I need to start looking at myself as I now feel like the spotlight is suddenly on me and I have nothing to offer the audience; no ideas, opinions, preferences. No real beliefs. Ask me to describe myself and I'd struggle. I'm just a vague mess of nothingness. All I know is that we've done the right thing, but I need to look at who I am, what I feel and what I want. Fun stuff.