ankle deep in yearning

The ankle scene in the latest “Wuthering Heights” stirred an unexpected sadness in me. I didn’t understand why until I pulled it apart.

It’s during Catherine’s fever spiral. She’s lovesick in bed, the room blurring as time folds in on itself. In her delirium, the boy Heathcliff appears; then his hand reaches from under the bed and holds her ankle. The moment strikes like memory in muscle. She doesn’t look down, but her skin recognises him, as if childhood has returned to comfort her.

Under his grip, her body unclenches: I’m here. I’ve always been here. The film carries their history without words. The past arrives through contact, and it grabs hold. Their story runs on yearning: the hunger to belong, to be seen by the person who knew you before you outgrew yourself. Beneath the romance, there’s protection, too: the memory of him shielding her from her father’s violence. The gesture becomes shelter: Stay with me. I’ve got you. As she slips away, her mind reaches for the first safe place it ever learned to trust.

That’s when it hit me. I know that yearning. At seventeen, I was infatuated with a former boyfriend. I replayed our conversations like a broken record, trying to track down the part where he stopped wanting me. I told myself it was love, because what else do you call a feeling that consumes your whole body?

One day I was still in his world. The next he blocked me, erasing us with a click. The silence left blank space instead of closure. I kept pining for him the way a tongue keeps checking a missing tooth, resisting the clean finality of absence.

So when Catherine reacts to that hand on her ankle, I notice the cycle: the brain clings to what once felt good and keeps wondering, Where did you go? The wound stays open, so the search continues.

That’s the heartbreak: a hand around an ankle. As her body begins to give way, the film strips their tether back to instinct: reflex, nerve, something older than choice. Attachment refuses to let go. It keeps asking for the answer it never got.

match my freque

The “Opalite” music video by Taylor Swift is about meeting someone who resonates with your frequency, letting you be yourself unapologetically. It’s a magical connection where your quirks are celebrated rather than tolerated.

My story with Dave began in the opposite way. He felt like my ideal man, and I was convinced he was out of my league. I tucked parts of myself away, packing the colourful, messy pieces of my personality into boxes and shoving them into a closet. I tried to become someone who matched him, terrified I’d scare him off.

A few months in, I couldn’t keep the facade. I got a little unhinged, the boxes cracked open, and the real me spilled out. And to my shock, he didn’t flinch. He opened each hidden box, oddly amused by the opals inside.

That was the pivot. I stopped bracing for rejection. His calm met my chaos, and he stayed, accepting me exactly as I am.

I admired his character from the moment we met, and I tried to meet him there. Nineteen Valentine’s Days later, the twist is that he’s changed too. He’s tuned into my energy: cheeky, playful, and gloriously goofy. He jokes that I must have “dropped and broke him,” and that scenario still makes me laugh. I picture him as a pristine piece of china that fell into a kaleidoscope. Now he’s the one sparkling in my colours, matching my frequency.

relief without grief

It’s been over six months since I ended a thirty-year friendship, and I don’t miss her. No regret, no curiosity. Her absence is a relief. Good riddance.

But the anger stayed.

It’s sharp and active. I’ll be walking the dogs, doing laundry, getting a manicure, and a memory cuts in. A sour moment I once shrugged off now reads like evidence: the way I’d give her an inch and she’d act entitled to a mile.

The real injury is self-betrayal. That’s what rattles me. I expected grief, but it never came. I got a clean exit and leftover rage. The right outcome, the wrong aftertaste.

My mind keeps running inventory: every time I ignored my instincts, swallowed a cheap shot, and rationalised behaviour I didn’t respect. Each flashback lights the match again.

Embarrassment sits under the fury. Shame is the splinter, and anger is my body trying to yank it out.

She started as background noise in my life, and I assumed she’d fade out on her own. She trailed my circle, and we couldn’t ditch her. I adjusted instead of drawing a boundary. People warned me, but I didn’t listen, defending her instead. I pride myself on being inclusive, and sympathy traps me, so I let her in.

Onlookers called me loyal, but they meant blind. I knew it and kept going. The embarrassing truth is the real gamble was my ego. I doubled down, stubbornly backing a lame horse. I didn’t want to lose face after I’d vouched for her, but instead I lost time, energy, and self-respect.

In dating, I leave at the first red flag. I protect my peace. I didn’t apply that same discipline to friendship, and that inconsistency is what stings.

When I think of my high school best friends, CP & LN, I’m flooded with warm nostalgia. We had that rare kind of closeness that made ordinary days unforgettable, ridiculous laughter and spontaneous adventures that turned into favourite stories I still tell my children.

With her, it was just habit. Nothing heartfelt. No memories that make me smile.

That contrast hurts. It shows me what genuine connection looks like, and how long I confused tolerance with sisterhood.

mad blood

I hate how difficult it is to get over it. Once I cut someone off, they’re gone for good. No being cordial. No “but people change.” Jenny in 7th grade was my first proof: I wrote her off, and she turned out to be an awful person. That’s why I trust my judgment, and why part of me thinks this vendetta is justified.

My mind keeps replaying what they did, stirring the same anger over and over. Imagining them laughing and unbothered only adds fuel. I wish I could erase it, or at least stop giving it so much power. They’re out there sleeping just fine, probably not thinking about it, while I’m stuck carrying resentment and wishing them harm.

Sometimes the rage hits so hard I want to fire off a mean text just to relieve it. Texting feels therapeutic because it tells my nervous system, “That was real. That mattered. There should be a consequence.” What makes it worse is knowing it only hurts me. There are a few parasites I’m embarrassed I ever let close, who still irritate me every time I remember them, like a mosquito I can hear but can’t swat. I want to be the kind of person who chooses peace over bitterness. But sometimes spite smothers logic, and letting go is letting them win.

I admire how easily my eldest daughter can brush things off, just like her dad. I’m glad she didn’t inherit my petty genes. She’s already over last year’s friendship squabbles, while I’m still holding a grudge against a couple of teenagers.