Waving, But Not Drowning with The Beatles By Holly Searle

When I was seventeen I fell in love for the very first time. However, this did not arrive without its own issues as I can quite clearly recall with heartbreaking clarity how the object of my affection was sent away by his parents for educational purposes pretty early on in the Paltrow coupling stages of our fledging relationship, leaving me devastated and alone.

Those were tough times.

I mooned away the endless stretches of this infinite time by listening to The Beatles album A Hard Day's Night. Its thick black vinyl must have rotated a hundred times on the turntable during those few weeks with John, Paul, George and Ringo lamenting the narrative of my emotional state of being until my love returned.

If I Fell, And I love Her, I'll Cry Instead and The Things We Said Today all underlined the pitiful predicament I found myself in.

I still have that album stored away in the loft at mine. And just like all of the other items that I have squirrelled away over the years like a magpie intent of feathering its nest with precious trinkets, I shall never part with it as it will always remind me of that summer, and my first love.

Safe to say, the actuality of the situation, the unfolding romance of my mind palace, in the end came to nothing with the resonating words of John and Paul's request rhetorically haunting me forever more.

Cause I couldn't stand the pain
And I
Would be sad
If our new love was in vain

I am away now, and find myself in the same situation, minus the album or a turntable on which to play it.

It is hard to leave the foundation of something that you have just set in motion behind, whilst you are on another personal journey and a much needed break from your day-to-day life at home.

This all puts me in mind of Tom Hardy in the wonderful film Locke in which he worries endlessly about the cement that is going to be poured into the foundations of a project without him being there to watch over it, because he has to attend to something else.

That's me, trying to manage it all, whilst trying to manage it all.

I am no longer seventeen. I am a grown woman who has been given a gift. I have been blessed with you, and all that will be. And I know, hand on heart that the cement that I have already poured will set to our satisfaction.

Of this, I have no doubt.

But women are different from men. Apparently in the arena of love, our emotions act like waves, building to a crescendo and then crashing as we feel insecure within its hands. Exposed by our own vulnerabilities of the heart.

I am aware of these peaks and troughs, and as such, and because I am away, I will keep riding the crest of the wave rather than drown in my own misgivings.

I never want to do that again.

You see I am more in tune with the woman I am now, rather than the girl I once was. I know me very well. I no longer moon, as I prefer to plan ahead, and to write the story of what we will be with my own mindfulness one step at a time.

And if I could choose an appropriate Beatles tune as our soundtrack to these unfolding events, it would have to The Long And Winding Road.


The long and winding road that leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before it always leads me here
Leads me to your door