Category: Love

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Bring me back to life – Part 1

On By aconstanttlearnerIn Ageing, Betrayal, Challenges, adversity, Character, Conscience, courage, Criticism, Death, Disappointment, Empathy, Grief, Hate, Healing, honesty, Human nature, introspection, Judgement', Karma, life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Old Age, Pain, parenthood, pride, Relationships, Sibling rivalry9 Comments

My regular readers must be wondering why I have taken so long to write again. The answer is unbearably painful in its simplicity and permanence: I lost both my parents over four months ago. My mum died on Christmas Day and my father less than 48 hours after. My father was eighty-seven and had various illnesses but was doing OK. He deteriorated rapidly on the last two weeks before his death. I am so grateful his frailest state was short-lived and that he only had to spend one week in a nursing home. I am even more grateful that he did not endure those achingly lonely moments without my mother for very long. In the foggy midst of his Alzheimer’s, we were blessed with endearing moments of lucidity, like the time when three of my four siblings had moved him to the nursing home and the next day, looking out of the window in his forebodingly spare and lifeless room, he said to my husband and I: ‘This is not such a bad place to live, is it?’. Even in his most vulnerable moment, he was father first and foremost, ensuring our pain was lessened by his make-believe reassurance. It was a sobering and humbling moment; one I will never forget. My father led by example until his last breath. He was far from perfect, but he never demanded or expected anything from us he had not practised himself first. He has set the bar really high for us, in life and in death. His unwavering sense of duty, responsibility, and leadership to his family lives now within me and I hope I can be to my kids half the inspirational figure he has been to me.

Entrenched on my memory like a knife to the heart is also that agonising moment when my siblings took him to the nursing home whilst I remained at home with my mum in readiness for her life-threatening surgery the next day to remove a malignant tumour in her liver. My siblings were so incredibly overwhelmed by the unbearable task at hand that in their haste to make my father’s transition from his home to the nursing home, they neglected to allow my mum to say goodbye to my dad. My heart teared further apart when I looked in my mother’s eyes and saw the unforgiving sadness as she realised that she might never see her lifetime companion of over 65 years again. As it turned out, the surgery was in vain; the tumour was inoperable and two days after surgery she developed a perforated intestine which killed her. She was 80 years old. My mum was fit and healthy until three months before her death when she began experiencing excruciating pain on her right-hand side, below her rib cage. Initially, after countless tests, the doctors told her that she had an infection in her gall bladder, but it gradually emerged that that was only the beginning of the end. Three days before her death, we all had hope that she would recover, and she would live on to tell the tale. Three days before her death, her and I laughed together, joked together, hoped together.

It all happened so fast, and it did not help matters that those three of my four siblings turned against me towards the very end like hyenas hunting as a merciless pack. They deeply resented me for living abroad and in their words ‘having abandoned my family’, which was all the more devastating to hear bearing in mind my husband and I took my parents with us on holidays all over the world around 17 times, which none of those three siblings ever did, not even once. Asides that, I am aware that it is primarily during those times when my family and I visited my hometown in Spain that the whole family gathered together for lunch or an outing. As far as I am aware, my parents never got taken  out by those three siblings all that much outside of those times when we were visiting. I will never recover from witnessing and suffering first-hand the monster within that can surface in people when they are undergoing immense pressure or pain. I became the punch bag for all three, specially one of them and the verbal and written punches did not stop coming until I was breathless, almost lifeless on the floor. The pain of losing the love, trust, and belief in my integrity of my three siblings was far greater at the time than the pain of losing both my parents unexpectedly in the space of 48 hours. That gives an idea of the intensity and shock, the hatred I was exposed to by those who should have been the most supportive at such a time, in such tragic circumstances. Even today, almost five months later, I cannot comprehend how love can turn into such hate in such a short space of time. The only explanation my mind entertains is that it was never love to begin with, and that realisation pierces me all the more, even today, probably forever.

I spent 9 days with both my parents prior to my mum’s surgery. I would be with them from 8:30 am til 11:00 pm. I would then go to a nearby hotel to get some rest and fuel up the tank to be at my best for the next day. No point in staying each night with them, I figured, and be exhausted from the beginning of the day ending up having them look after me. It made absolute sense to me and yet that is one of the issues my siblings took up with me, even though every time they had stayed the night, they whined about how that position was unsustainable and how we needed to get extra paid help to look after my parents during the nights. What was not sustainable or acceptable for them to keep doing, soon became their choice of punishment for me for my intermittent absence of 32 years. They looked for any excuse to criticise me, bully me and badmouth me to my mother who was already dying. The viciousness of their insults grew all the more aggressive and unforgivable the day I finally left to go back to the UK. To this day, I am still devastated that three of my siblings with whom I have always had a great relationship; whom I loved unconditionally could throw me to the gallows at the first hurdle, no trial, no innocent til proven guilty; just pure hatred and pain projected onto me as if I was the cause of my parents’ illness and tragic end.

Living in a different country to that I grew up in til the age of twenty, has always been incredibly challenging for me, because I have no family here in the UK other than my husband and kids. I come from a large family in Spain, and so the last 33 years I have missed so many incredibly happy times back home, some sad, not many. The truth is, however, I have a full life in the UK; a life that makes me happy; I have a family, a business, a home. I know my parents wanted me to be happy, fulfilled, and at peace. I know they never resented me for not being there. If anything, I am convinced they have always been so incredibly proud that I was courageous enough to travel at a youthful age and brave enough to give up everything and everyone I knew to move to another country for love. Throughout those 33 years, I have tried to see them as much as I could; I have tried to keep the balance right between raising a family to the best of my ability thousands of miles away; nurturing a marriage which has been very challenging at times and helping make a business successful, but also keeping in touch with all my family back in Spain. It is a very delicate balance but, in my heart, I know with certainty and confidence that my parents would have wished for me to put my own family first, specially since I had four other siblings who lived so close to them. It is a much more complex issue than what I recount here but for the sake of brevity, I will leave it at that. I could write a book on this sorrow episode of my life and who knows, when the time is right, maybe I will.

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When our hearts become impenetrable

On By aconstanttlearnerIn Acceptance, Anxiety, Betrayal, Challenges, adversity, Character, Compassion, Corona Virus, Covid 19, Deception, dehumanization, Depression, Dignity, Disappointment, EGO, Empathy, Fear, friendship, Healing, Herd mentality, honesty, Human nature, humanity, humility, Integrity, introspection, Intuition, life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Mental Health, Mob Mentality, Morals, Narcissism, Negativity, Pain, Philosophy, pride, purpose, Relationships, Selfishness, Social Media, Tribalism, twitter18 Comments

The last few weeks have been nothing short of a psychological study for me on twitter. I did not set out to do one, but psychology found me, swept me up in this whirlwind of human need, and I simply could not just watch it all happen and ignore it.

Throughout this whole process, I have screamed, I have ached and cried inconsolably. I have laughed, felt overjoyed, been loved and rejected all at once within the same day. I have despaired and felt waves of stormy anger and frustration engulf me whole. I have been reminded by well-intended friends that social media is a tricky and ferocious animal to handle; that none of it is real and nothing is what it seems, and yet, this advice came at the hands of those who breathe in social media the moment they wake up and do not stop to exhale its poisonous, dubious air until their head hits that pillow. Any advice is rendered ineffective if those giving it conduct themselves in a way that disproves their own wisdom. Of course Social Media is real; a parallel reality it may be, but a reality nevertheless. Its deceitful, pantomime-like and bordering on sinister dark corners, often remind me of a Venetian Carnival where people hide behind the most alluring and exquisite of masks to reinvent themselves and step beyond the boundaries of what they would never contemplate doing or saying in real life. The mask however does not alter the person behind it, not really. It may appear so for a while, but eventually one can truly see the gaze behind the glamour and the glitter; the cracks seeping out past traumas, deep hurts and weakening fears that though deeply hidden, betray our newly found identity & automatically exclude us from the romanticism and Utopian mirage of the Masquerade Ball.

There is much that remains a mystery to me about human behaviour, but I have been able to draw some conclusions from my interaction with a number of people on twitter. Most of all, I have been able to find truth as we often do, by simply stepping away and like a fly on a wall, watch it all unfold; letting individuals show their true character and betray their own perceived integrity when they thought no one was really paying any attention.

I have learnt that at an age when we have all the gadgets and the gizmos, when we can be on the other side of the world on the same day and social media dominates and dictates the lives of so very many, never has our need to feel included and loved been greater. There is an impossibly achy loneliness abounding in the secret chambers of the virtual world. Society, even pre-Covid, has been bleeding out and failing to live up to its definition, because the social element has been abducted from right under our feet and a poor substitute has made islands of each and everyone of us trying to find ourselves and each other. The most alarming element of this phenomenon is the fact that most of us have loving families around us and a network of friends or support of one kind or another and yet, we are the lost faces in a multitudinous crowd crying out for acknowledgement, begging to be heard and understood. There is a desperate need to matter at a time when circumstances have made us finally acknowledge that in the scale of things, between the now and the beyond, we truly matter very, very little, and so we gasp desperately trying to hold on to some sort of significance. The more we realise we are but a grain of sand on the beach, the more egotistical and self-centered we become; the more we veer towards mob mentality instead of accepting each person on their own merit and essence. And of course, the power of social media is boundless and so trends that dominate on the virtual world, irremediably feed into our daily lives, our homes, and ultimately our surroundings. Before we know it, we are turning our society into the most inhospitable place there ever was; an Eden made into a hell, and it is all of our own making.

I have also learnt that at a time when we have more resources than ever; when we are potentially more powerful than ever; we are the weakest beings we have ever been. We lack backbone and deeply rooted convictions. We would rather be a Judas than a Peter; we need to be all things to all people in order to find worth, instead of remembering that it is our uniqueness and not our tribal ancestry that defines us and sets us aside to pursue our own purpose; to make that small difference that no one else can make. We have become cowards that hide behind the group instead of standing on our own two feet when we see injustice, lies and witch-hunts. Our morality and creed blow whichever way the wind takes them. We are chameleons that change colour depending on who is watching. We take a side in an argument with our words but then our actions discredit the very point we have just made. We are in essence regressing to a herd mentality where the blind is leading the blind; where leadership stems from popularity as opposed to integrity tested in the furnace of adversity and going it alone.

I have learnt, and this is the one that has broken me the most, that there are individuals who are indeed beyond rescue. I had two uncles who committed suicide, but I have always believed that what led them to such an unthinkable tragic end was probably a lack of a supportive network or adverse circumstances. Well, I have encountered on twitter individuals who by their own admission are rotten apples, messed up and broken; they hurt others because they simply do not know how to be any other way; they carry deep scars from the past and open wounds that are beyond healing. They look up to people who are no longer around, and they live their lives through their eyes instead of their own. I have learnt that no matter how much light you see still shining within that person; no matter how clear you see the path that they need to follow, nothing will change until they make a decision themselves to break loose from their ghosts and their demons. I have learnt that being rejected by such individuals is not a reflection of my inability to be loved or accepted by them but rather their dismal failure to love, accept and forgive themselves.

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When sex is no longer sexy

On By aconstanttlearnerIn Attraction, Chemistry, consumerism, dehumanization, Dignity, EGO, Freedom, humanity, humility, Instinct, Kindred Spirits, Love, Morals, Relationships, Sex, Sexuality, Sexy, Soul Mates, Spirituality, Vanity18 Comments

I would sure like to have a crystal ball that gives me insight into people’s brains, into our dreams, my dreams. Wouldn’t it save us tons of money on doctors, therapists, and meds if we could understand earlier on in the journey who we are and what makes us tick?

What is it with recurrent dreams? What is the point of rehearsing in our head a chapter of our lives that will forever remain inconclusive no matter how many endings we dream to that old story? It is not like we can change its outcome by our subconscious playing out different scenarios on different nights. And yet, the brain regurgitates that same chain of events over and over. To what end? There has to be a point to so much time of our lives consumed by an alternate reality where things pan out differently to what actually took place; where we are offered a glimmer of hope that those chapters of our lives we resent, do not define us, because there is still a chance to act differently, to explore new choices.

My most recurrent dream is one where I enter into a sexually charged relationship with an ex-boyfriend with whom I never even held hands or kissed. We were extremely attracted to each other. That is what brought us together in the first place. The chemistry was tangible, but we were a couple of very shy and inexperienced youngsters, not ready to handle what would have unfolded, had we let our passions run free. Unfortunately, we lived in different cities during the winter, and so our only form of contact was the occasional meet up and frequent letters, which did not help matters. Eventually, our determination to make it work dimmed and what initially was countless promising sparks between us grew into dynamite threatening to explode with every exchange. Frustrated and heartbroken I broke it off in the end, because I could not bear him flirting with other girls in front of me in an attempt to ignite my desire so I would be the one to take that first step. He went on to meet another older more experienced woman who clearly initiated him into the wonders of sex within a loving committed relationship. Indeed, he married her and lived happily ever after or so I hear. I am not saying sex cannot be fantastic outside a relationship. I am just saying personally, I reach worthier heights when the connection is both spiritual and physical, when the souls as well as the bodies are harmoniously intertwined. Sex for the sake of sex is as exciting to me as drinking water when I am thirsty, frankly. We met up many years later and though we were both married with kids by then, one brief but intense interlocking of our eyes is all it took for me to know he wondered as much as I did what if we had both behaved differently. I deeply believe in spiritual connection and I am no clairvoyant, but I am pretty certain I appear in his dreams as often as he in mine.

That was back in the 80s when sex was still a ‘sacred thing’ a special ritual that happened between people who felt an inexplicable bond, an unstoppable urge to fuse into one; to be one and the same, if only for a few exceptional moments. These days, sex is all around us, is forced upon us; trading in sex has even become a widely accepted profession for so many. It is no longer a case of I resort to prostitution because I cannot make ends meet any other way, because I cannot sustain myself and those dependent on me any other way. Sex sells and it is easy to shop for it and make considerable money from it pretty effortlessly and quickly. Unfortunately though, it is not just pushed on to those who want to consume it or buy it, but forced on us wherever we look, wherever we are. This is particularly apparent in the entertainment industry and social media. It is not longer a question of personal choice but of forcefulness, of manipulating the herd into certain behavioural patterns and morals or lack of; normalizing even amongst our youngest what should be something special and wonderful in its uniqueness.

I missed the ‘sanctity’ that used to go hand in hand with the process of meeting someone and falling in love, or maybe just discovering each other emotionally, intellectually, and physically. Now it is all so void of any romance, any mystery, any longevity, in essence of any meaning. We trade partners like we change socks and values like trust, respect, humility, gentleness, kindness, honesty have all become dinosaurs too frightened to rear their heads in a world moving so fast, consuming it all so fast, even each other, that one wonders what humanity will do next to satisfy its ravenous appetite for indulgence and self satisfaction.

Is there anything sacred any more?
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Leaping into the unknown

On By aconstanttlearnerIn Character, Compassion, Empathy, encouragement, friendship, Heart, humility, Integrity, Kindred Spirits, Loss, Love, Soul Mates, Spirituality, The Supernatural, The Unknown12 Comments

My heart leaps at the unmistakable sound of your presence in my inbox. I stare at my phone screen in perpetual disappointment as I realise it is just another email about one more Amazon purchase by the kids. I take the dog for a walk and let the gentle chords of my ‘Hot Acoustic’ playlist transport my mind out of my hopeless impatience, but the phone is playing games with my head once again. I hear the little sound, the eagerly awaited sound that enthuses my spirit at the thought of it being you, letting me know that you remember I exist; that you care and fear for the precipice I find myself standing on the edge of; that you are grateful for my words, my thoughts, my prayers at the news of your own precipice; that you are fully conscious of the fact that thousands of miles cannot keep us apart because I now carry you in my heart and you walk with mine.

I place my phone back in my pocket, disheartened, disillusioned at my own naivety for thinking that I would rate that high on your list of priorities; rank that privileged a position in your affections.  Did I read your words right or was it wishful thinking? Did our souls supernaturally connect and instantly fuse like timber and flame? Did you sense it too, that familiarity of total strangers as if we had shared a lifetime in a different life?

Words are like missiles that perforate the heart irreparably, beyond recognition. The moment they hit you, everything changes and no matter how one tries to retain the old self, it is not there. The metamorphosis has taken place. It is impossible to pick up where you left off because that person has vanished, gone up in the smoke of impact between two souls that though foreign to each other, have entered a perfect dance of seamless intuition, empathy and telepathy. The harmony is such; the comfort in each other’s presence so undeniable, it proves impossible to let go even when the music stops playing. I hang on for dear life, because I know this encounter is extraordinary, perhaps unique. If I cannot hold on to you, let me at least hold on to the memory of you; to your spirit which is more present within me than the words you wrote to me.

I am struggling to get on with my daily grind because I am addicted to that dance; that harmonious exchange of non-judgemental, undiluted goodness and understanding. It is so rare to find a person today with enough humility that all they see is the good in you; they only see the intention, never the mistake. There is such purity, such integrity in a heart like that, hardly seen these dark days of social media frenzy and perpetual witch-hunts. Is it possible to trust someone you barely know more fully than someone you have known most of your life? What is there in that dimension we do not see that can feel so much more real than the things and the people we can hear, see and touch? Is it an illusion of the needy mind or a golden snippet of what we are capable of when we believe there is more to life than this?

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Love is a losing game

On By aconstanttlearnerIn Acceptance, Amy Winehouse, Healing, Heart, joy, life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Music, Musings, Pain, Philosophy, ramblings, Rebecca Ferguson2 Comments

It is pouring down outside. Autumn is properly on its way and I feel the exuberance and zest of summer-living gently easing off and giving way to melancholy, days of endless reflection and dampness in the air; lazy afternoons of cosy cuddling up to myself in front of a warm fire binge watching my favourite series of the moment. I love the contrast in the seasons. Spring is without a doubt my favourite season, but I also love and nurture the symbolic meaning which transpires into our daily living carried by each of the other seasons too. I love how the smell of the air we breathe changes as we move from one time of the year to another; I welcome with anticipation how my soul is predisposed to feel differently as the sun no longer dominates the days, and heavy downpours and windy days take its place. Today is the perfect day to listen to one of my favourite artists: Amy Winehouse and one of my favourite songs of hers: ‘Love is a losing game’. Here are the lyrics:

For you I was the flame
Love is a losing game
Five story fire as you came
Love is losing game

One I wished, I never played
Oh, what a mess we made
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game

Played out by the band
Love is a losing hand
More than I could stand
Love is a losing hand

Self-professed profound
Till the chips were down
Know you’re a gambling man
Love is a losing hand

Though I battled blind
Love is a fate resigned
Memories mar my mind
Love is a fate resigned

Over futile odds
And laughed at by the gods
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game

Every time I hear the first chords of this song, I have to stop whatever I am doing. It’s like a familiar, gratifying voice; like an alter ego or an older me counselling my inexperienced self, a blessed invisible friend gently whispering: ‘I told you so’. I have often wondered what it is about this particular piece that touches me so. Love certainly is the most complex of emotions, and yet the one we crave the most, like manna in the desert. I guess I relate on a very deep level with the honesty in the song; the candid message; the acceptance of inevitability as we embark on a relationship; the inevitability of disappointment, unimaginable hurt and emptiness. And yet, and even though we know the odds and how much we stand to lose; how acute the pain can feel, we still choose the losing hand time and time and time again. Why? Oh why?

Well, I clearly don’t have the answer but I think the message in the lyrics of another one of my favourite songs by Rebecca Ferguson ‘Nothing’s Real but love’ may have something to do with it.

Standing in a line
Wonder why it don’t move
Tryna get a hand
Watching people break the rules
And maybe the man in charge
Doesn’t like my face
But then this world’s not always good

And nothing’s real but love
Nothing’s real but love
No money, no house, no car,
Can beat love

They watch us open-mouthed
As we joke around like fools
See who can be the worst
Watch what I can do
But then the door gets slammed,
Slammed right in my face
And I guess this world’s not always good

And nothing’s real but love
Nothing’s real but love
No house, no car, no job
Can beat love

It won’t fill you up
No money, no house, no car
Is like loveLa la la la la la la la
YeaaahI put it all away
Holding it back for a rainy day
But what if that day don’t come
I need loveNo money, no house, no car
Is like love

It don’t fill you up
It won’t build you up
It won’t fill you up
It’s not love!And nothing’s real but love
No money, no house, no car
Is like love

Nothing’s real but love

No money, no house, no car
Is like love

As I continue to try and figure out why to love and wanting to be loved is hands down a human’s deepest need and at the core of our being even though it is also the emotion that can destroy us from the inside out; it is the one experience that makes us feel so real, so complete, but also so broken and defeated, I hold on for dear life to what I know for sure: I love my dog and my dog loves me, and that’s good enough for now.

My double-edged sword!

On By aconstanttlearnerIn Colour, Confinement, Corona Virus, Covid 19, Fear, Freedom, God, Heart, joy, Loss, Love, Nature, Oppression, Pain, Pandemics, ramblings, ramblings, thoughts, introspection,, Revelation, Sacrifice, self-discovery, Spirit, truth, Vision4 Comments

My heart is so full tonight! On the one hand it aches with guilt at the thought of so many exceptionally selfless, brave and committed individuals who are giving their all to keep us all alive, fed, and content. I am at home looking after the ones I have been entrusted with. Yes, I will be the first one to complain that it is no easy task to always think of other’s needs before one’s own, but my kindness is being extended to those closest to me whom I love and care so much about. It is quite a different challenge to give your all to complete strangers, specially when circumstances dictate that those close to you will in turn go without. Saving the lives of complete strangers; seeing to their every need whilst being torn away from those whose needs you feel compelled to meet even before they feel the need themselves. Such is a mother’s nurturing instinct and double-edged all-consuming gift.

Yet, even though the guilt tugs at my heart like a yoke round a cow’s neck, I feel my heart is bursting at the moment with the sheer joy of being alive one day at a time. They say we cannot see the light without the darkness; we cannot know good unless there is evil or joy unless there is sadness. Such is the ugliness, the horror, the chaos, the inferno that is burning in most hospitals and nursing homes around the country, I feel like as the fire intensifies, so have my senses been re-tuned and enhanced. The bigger the hooded claw reveals itself to the world, the more uplifted I feel by the supernatural around me. As the darkness around us has grown, so has the light within me.

The colours of the flowers in my garden are so much deeper and pure. Their hypnotic scent impregnates the whole of my being and lifts me into a kind of Eden where there is no pain or hurt, no death or loss, no fear, just hope and exhilaration at the thought of taking in another breath of treasured, infinitely sought-after air.

The birds are evermore present and synchronised, and I am treated to a new symphony of sheer acoustic delight and perfection every evening, as I catch the last rays of the incandescent zenith that proudly stares intently at me throughout the day, jealous, capricious, resenting its isolation; longing to be down here enjoying with me the myriad of inexplicable equations of nature that makes for a heaven and a hell simultaneously coexisting in perfect harmony.

Even the Poplars just the other side of my garden, which always stand so haughty and aloof, have thrown caution to the wind and dare to waltz in my presence, reminding me with their soothing sway that I will once again be at one with the ocean. The ocean, like me, toils tirelessly back and forth under the guise of freedom. And yet, its repetitive motion in the confines of habit reveals a soul that is enslaved and far too entrenched in its own familiar rhythm to ever brave the unknown.

Poplars waltzing!
A robin nesting outside my kitchen door. His eyes speaking right at me the words he is unable to utter!

Brexit day has come and gone but the betrayal for Europeans in UK will forever remain a ‘thorn in our flesh’

On By aconstanttlearnerIn Betrayal, Brexit, Brexit Day, Europe, European Union, Europeand in UK, Love, Nationalism, ramblings, thoughts, introspection,, Sacrifice, settled status, Tribalism, UK, Uncategorized4 Comments

A thorn in our flesh

So the UK has finally left the European Union; Brexit day has come and gone and as my sister whatsapped me the other day: ‘The world has not come to an end, has it?’. Easy for her to say, though! She has not spent the last 28 years of her life giving her all to a country that’s not hers, a people with whom she does not share a culture, a history, a ‘DNA’. I am that person who has given the second half of her life to another nation. I don’t do things in halves, so when I say ‘given’ I mean that. I came over to the UK from Spain in the early 90s as an Erasmus student, married a Brit, had two children who now have double nationality; I have studied, served in the community, worked and paid taxes, and continue to do so after almost 30 years. Many don’t seem to get the outrage of so many Europeans like myself who have lived in the UK for more than half a life, and have suddenly become the family member who has overstayed their welcome at the party or rather, discovered they were never considered part of the family in the first place and must now be granted permission for such privilege.

So for those who still don’t get our shock and outrage, let me make it a bit more relatable for you. Just imagine being in a romantic relationship to which you have committed fully and sacrificed everything for, and after 30 years, finding out that in order to be allowed to remain in that relationship, you need to be granted a permit or else you are out, just like that! It is not what you have done. It is not the punishment to a crime you have committed or your partner seeking justice for an offence you’ve caused him/her. It is not because of what you have done, but rather because of who you are. A bit like someone saying to you after 30 years: ‘Thank you for all the years and everything you have given me, but I no longer love or want you, so if you want to remain in our relationship you need to beg me to let you stay. If you do, you can stay but only if you continue providing for me, sacrificing for me and always understanding that our relationship was never based on mutual love and appreciation, but self-gain on my part. It was your foolish mistake to believe otherwise!’.

All that love, all that sacrifice, the commitment, the loyalty, the investment, the faith, all thrown back at you as meaningless, worthless, non-existent. If you have ever been at the receiving end of betrayal or unfaithfulness, you will know the pain, gut-wrenching agony, anxiety and damage that being treated like that causes. It is a wound that never heals. Life as you have always known it, robbed from right under your feet. Your only mistake: to have put your unconditional love and trust, your whole being into a person/country that did not deserve it in the first place.

Let me tell you. I fully respect the reasons behind the majority of people who voted for Brexit. I truly do. I get it. What I don’t get is why all Europeans who have been living and working here for so many years have not been automatically granted settled status without having to go through the undignified process of being treated like an ‘alien’, a persona non grata, a leech; in essence, overnight we have been turned into targets of hate and abuse. Yes, Brexit day has come and gone, but the effects of what this process has done and will do to individuals like myself is only just beginning.

I am worried for the UK. I truly am! When I first came to this country, it was love at first sight. The openness, the cosmopolitan feel of the place, the tolerance, the freedom, the eagerness to learn and benefit from other cultures, the contagious positive forward-looking energy, the hunger for equality, progress, unity amongst akin nations to collaborate and face global problems as a unit rather than alone. In my eyes and in my heart, there was no other country on earth as beautiful inside and out and well put together as the UK. Despite the heartache of leaving all my family behind, my homeland, my culture, everything I knew to that point, I could fathom no other place I would rather live in than the UK.

That has all changed now! If you are a Brit and you are sitting there in judgement of my attitude, please put yourself in my shoes and imagine being at the receiving end of such betrayal. My love has turned sour. Unrequited love has never been an attractive prospect for anyone. I can understand that not everyone you love can or has to love you back, but what I will not put up with is the ‘we will love you and look after you so long as you continue to put money in the pot, to be profitable for us’. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to ‘love’ relationships, I like the ‘not having to pay for it’ kind of love. In essence, for me, being allowed to stay in the UK should have flown naturally and seamlessly after Brexit, after half a life of sacrifice and devotion. When mutual love has a price, it ceases to be love and becomes a business transaction. Thanks but no thanks!