Memories Don't Die

I’ve had many people tell me over the years to tell the story I have been going through, I wasn’t comfortable to tell anyone what I was going through. 

In April 2017 I was baptised, I had felt that at this point in my life I had gone through so much, I had been in situations where I couldn’t even deny that there was a God. Although my battle with the illnesses continued I put my life in God's hands and asked for forgiveness and to be reborn.

The baptism was the first time I opened up about the things I was going through, I had a lot of issues and I felt as if I had to release some of the troubles I was going through. It felt good as if a load lifted off of my shoulders, and from this point, I tried to be transparent as possible. 

But I still had difficulties in other parts of my life letting people know how I felt. The relationship I was I seemed perfect we had good days and bad like most couples but overall we were both happy. When Ulcerative Colitis (UC) was as its worst. I was very miserable and lost a lot of self-worth, trust between us was broken and I became very jealous and in some ways controlling. I hated the change in my behaviour and tried to work on separating my problems with the illness and projecting that onto others.

My Mum recommended that I should talk to someone about the things I was going through. I was hesitant, as I was still holding back on talking to people about everything. When I noticed the change in me was getting in the way of my relationship and things were at a breaking point. I decided to give counselling a try.

I had sessions once a week, and to begin with, it was weird, I didn’t know what to speak about and when I did speak I felt that I needed to be speaking for the whole session. Someone to talk to and they just listened. Usually, you go to someone who gives their opinion on what you should do in some situations, but the counsellor just listened and asked questions to make me think about how I should go about things, they would go over what we spoke about and kinda give an evaluation. 

I was getting bored of it and annoyed that the counsellor wouldn’t tell me what to do, but as the weeks went on I began to understand the process and embraced it. Counselling helped me to talk through things that weren’t necessarily on the forefront of my mind but were still a factor in why I did certain things and had the look on life that I did at that time.

I found it beneficial, it helped me as a young man, but I was able to take some of. The things I learnt back to my relationships with people. It led to a big shift in my relationship with my partner, I found that we argued less because I tried to understand things from her point of view, but also I wouldn’t jump in situations that weren’t really serious. We found that we were having more fun in our relationship and things seemed to had gone to a new level.

She was very caring and supportive my health was always important to her and she took care of me. Although appointments would always have the same conclusions she would always ask how things went and she sometimes would make the journey with me to hospital as well. It was great knowing that I could rely on her and trusted that if something was going on with the illness that she would be there to support me.

I had fallen hard for this girl, I wanted to marry her. I had told my closest friends and my Mum. We had conversations about it and seemed to be on the same page however we wanted to live together to kinda see how married life would be. I enjoyed spending time with her family it was different from what I grew up with. When I was with them there was a major culture enlightening She was from Mauritius. Learning new things whenever I was around them whether it be parts of their Language or their many different dishes. One of my best memories is me trying food and my ex insisting that there was no chilli in the dish. (Her mum loved to cook with spice) I bit into chilli and instantly knew it was over for me my mouth was burning eyes watering, it was definitely one of the funniest times I’ve had. 

Our first holiday together I travelled and met her in France where most of her Dads family is from. It was my 22nd birthday. But also a kinda right of passage, I hadn’t met this side of the family. I was nervous to meet them but I remained true to myself there was no need to change. I instantly felt the love from each member of the family I met, one of the aunties I had met in Paris even prayed for me and this meant a lot to me.

Coming back to London wanted to start making things official, I had in my mind that I wanted to marry her but I didn’t know how she completely felt about things, we were both quite young and maybe the idea of being tied to that one person may have been quite daunting. We had been together for now 3 close to 4 years and I didn’t want to be with anyone else we had been through a lot and each challenge we seemed to get stronger. 

In June 2019 we went on our first proper holiday together, we accompanied my Mum to Turkey. And it was one of the nicest places I had been to. And I could enjoy it because I had no problems with UC like I did in most of my previous holidays. We spent just under two weeks there and all three of us bonded. It was weird as I had never experienced it before but I enjoyed every bit of the holiday I still think it was one of my favourite holidays. 

When we came back from Turkey my mind was back on getting engaged. My head was down and I was just working all the shifts I possibly could to get the money to begin a future with her. Through June to late July, I worked nearly every single day. I started a new summer job mentoring young people who were aged 15/16. I met a great group of colleagues that are now friends that I am glad I met as they are all inspirational in different ways. 

In July my partner was travelling to France and back for her cousin's birthday. I had finished working with the first group of young people and was beginning another set. We were in the first phase which was outside of London in a type of dorms, we were there for a week and I was returning to London for a break on a Thursday. 

She had returned from France on a Monday, we hadn’t spoken as we were both busy, but she messaged me Thursday night and we were engaging in small talk but I could sense something was weird. She asked me when I returned and I replied: “Thursday, Why?” She explained she wanted to speak about something and that we would talk when I came back. I was already stressed when you hear “we need to talk” its never usually a good thing so I pressured her to tell me there and then. I wanted to know because I didn’t want to spend the rest of the week thinking about what she had to say and not being in the right set of mind whilst working with the young people. 

She was deciding to end the relationship we spoke a bit and cried, at the time I didn’t understand her reasoning. I spent most of the following day quite down, but I had an amazing group of young people with me who kept me up to beat most of the time. but mostly my colleagues. the guys I was working with really uplifted me and even planted the idea of blogging way back then, they are some great guys and helped me through that tough time. 

After I returned and we met to talk things through, I started to understand her decision, but it didn’t mean I was happy about it, I respected what she wanted but I was completely heartbroken, especially as in the midst of the break up I was going through things with the liver transplant. We tried to remain friends for a while but found that things weren’t moving forwards but we were going backwards and it wasn’t something that she wanted. 

I got caught up trying to please everyone, my mum advising me that I was only going to cause more problems for myself she could see that I was going into depression, there was just confusion everywhere even with her family as I was still going there all the time. I didn’t want to upset anyone.

Ultimately she was a big part of my life, she helped me become the person I am today, some of the lessons I learned from being with her and also skills I learned from her and the family. She stood by me in difficult moments and helped me through a lot. 

I still got a lot of love for her and the family, I sat on this post for ages I didn’t know whether I wanted to post it or not, I want to as it is still part of my journey and the growth that I have gone through. 

Love & Guidance 

Keiran x