The Freezer Aisle In Big Tesco

Listening to Vonnegut, seeking solitude in love and learning to ride the wave.

I get home from work after a long day of speaking to people I don’t particularly want to speak to, and when I collapse onto my bed with the window wide open, the sky is light pink.

I’m cognizant that the desire to peel off my skin has transformed into an internal restlessness, one I know well - one of those rare times when my extroverted self feels like being alone. It’s once-a-season type feeling, so I know I have to ride the wave. So I walk out the door, bag empty save for my notebook and one fancy pen. 

It’s one of those Galway evenings where it feels like anything could happen. Like Robert Sheehan could ask you for tobacco in the Blue Note (humble brag).

I highly recommend this random playlist I found

I’m walking up College Road, lost in thought, listening to a new playlist when I catch a glimpse of someone who looks like my most recent ex. I begin to think about what I would say to him if I ever spoke to him again, (extraordinarily low possibility). If you know, you know. 

As I get closer, I realize that it’s not the aforementioned ex, but a friend from college. My impending anger dissipates quickly, hackles lowering as a smile of recognition breaks out on both our faces. We hug, catch up, his arms laden with groceries. He offers me a banana, a pringle, a courgette. I decline, wishing he had offered me a cigarette instead. 

He’s on his way home, so our catch-up doesn't last long. We make loose plans to meet for a drink, and part ways with a wave. As I continue strolling, I take note of the weather.  Not so warm you want to swan dive into the canal, but just mild enough that I can leave my coat open. Hands by my sides, not buried in pockets, shrinking away from the cold. Perfect weather for someone with shitty circulation and even shittier ‘‘dress for the weather’’ skills.

I resume my walk and a song by The Wombats comes on next. I haven’t sought it out in years, so it feels coincidental. Nostalgia kicks in and a memory floats to the forefront of my mind. I showed this song to a guy I dated in college and he added it to his playlist of ‘’Good Songs’’, which was of course the highest honour I could imagine at 19. That guy is 31 now. 

As the sky begins to darken, I’m stopping only to take photos. The sunset over the hospital, a cherry blossom tree, a lost mary that perfectly matches the colour of my eyes. I jump a rickety gate to sit by the water. It feels almost juvenile at my big age. Almost. I’m passing houses with the lights on but it appears that nobody’s home. I spot countless Palestinian flags adorning window panes, street lamps, front gates. (Saoirse don Phalaistín). Donate here

After finally reaching civilization again, (the west end)I walk into a pub, ordering a Guinness. The final night of student exams, the place is packed. Somehow I manage to get a table to myself beside the fireplace. I wonder if this is indicative of my age. I hope not. 

The bar staff are so busy they forget to charge me for my drink. The music is live and loud. I sit and people watch  - and it’s fun. The melancholy that spent the first 26 years of my life sitting directly on my chest, making me heartsick when I was alone, has gotten smaller and smaller over the last year.

That could be because of my partner. It could be age-related. It could be due to my antidepressants. Most likely, it is a mix of all three. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel alone in a relationship. I don’t feel so desperate to be understood. I am completely and entirely myself.

Over half a decade of friendship is a pretty good basis for becoming housemates, and that’s an even better basis for love. Knowing someone very intimately before you get together means getting together becomes a choice - not something you just fall into because you want to fuck.

As I puncture my pages with a too-loose grip on my pen, I feel a certain kinship with the man at the bar wearing a top hat. He reminds me of another character in Galway, who I once drunkenly approached to ask if he was a ghost. I was the only one of my friends to ever see him around, and it was beginning to make me nervous. (He’s not - his name is Andy, he wears a lot of tweed jackets, and he’s very nice). 

On my way outside, I smile at the singer and he stutters into the mic. I stand alone in the smoking area, sucking down lungfuls of too-sweet unfresh air. I think about how vaping is a scourge on the once-chic nature of the smoking area, then concede that Rayne Fisher Quann said it first. I pass an arguing couple who look like they walked right out of the 1970s. On nights like these, I simply can’t imagine living anywhere else. 

Drunk on lust for life and shockingly sober, I walk home, passing a bunch of hippies in a drum circle. I stop to admire a beautiful stained-glass window. A calico housecat looks at me reproachfully when I interrupt his bathroom break. 

The sky is black and laden with clouds by the time I get home. My partner is surprised to see me come in the front door, because he thought I was in my bedroom this whole time. He asks me what I’ve been up to. I tell him to read this essay. 

“We are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different.’’

-Kurt Vonnegut

And fart around I did, Kurt. Fart around I did.