Tough Love

Sometimes parting sounds louder than meeting. Especially if it happens on a train, where every stranger suddenly seems nicer than the one waiting on the platform. There is a strange relief in this - as if a knot that had been quietly suffocating you all this time has finally been untied. A few sips of freedom, a little irony, a touch of bitterness - and onwards to new people, bars by the river, and honest conversations without curtsies.

In your twenties, a simple realisation dawns: you don't have to put up with it, you don't have to save anyone, you don't have to be convenient. You can just take off - to Boston, to yourself, anywhere - and not look back. Because true ‘difficult love’ is not for someone else, but for yourself, when you finally choose peace over drama.