Endnotes

Life without death would be unbearable. Death puts everything into context. It allows us to forgive

ourselves of our inevitable mistakes, freeing us from the yoke of self-inflicted perfectionism as we

remind ourselves for the thousandth time that none of this matters because one day we will be

dead. Imagine, if you will, a life without death. Yes, our death anxiety would be alleviated – no more

fear of ‘that day’ coming: of being involved in some freak aircraft disaster, or simply never waking up

one morning. But consider the terror of an everlasting life. An unbearable heaviness knowing that

there is no relief, no salvation – that the suffering in this life could well last forever. Life’s context is

gone. Consider Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal return – life simply repeats itself as we once

experienced it, both the pain and the pleasure, for ever and ever. As Milan Kundera wrote: “the idea

of the eternal return implies a perspective from which things appear other than as we know them:

they appear without the mitigating circumstance of their transitory nature”.

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It must have been around early March when she called me and told me the news. I got up from my

seat in the middle of the carriage, sauntering in irregular movements as my body matched the

motions of the swaying train. Half not wanting to disturb the passengers around me and half

wanting to dispel the self-consciousness that comes with having a personal phone conversation in

public, I made my way to the end of the carriage which provided relative levels of privacy.

“Fred”, she said. “I got it. I got accepted.”

She sounded somewhat restrained. Delighted but restrained. It took a moment or two to bring to

mind what she was talking about. But then – as the mind does when it scrambles for recall – the

pieces came together. University. Studying abroad. Application. ‘I got it’. Paris. Next year.

Termination of relationship.

We had discussed the prospect of her getting accepted to study in Paris back in December. We sat

over a coffee on a strangely mild day in Edinburgh – miraculously able to sit outside the reasonably

priced fry up joint on Buccleuch Street. As we exchanged presents and said our goodbyes before the

Christmas break, it became apparent that we had to discuss the very real possibility that come the

following year we would no longer be living in the same city– nor even the same country. So when I

received that call on that March morning moving very quickly somewhere in Northern England I

wasn’t quite sure how to react.

When a relationship ends mutually it is rather difficult to pinpoint the bounds of intention and

disappointment. This is true both for the other party and within yourself. Unlike a dumping – which

is generally a one-sided affair – there is nowhere for one to direct the blame, there is no guilt clause.

A mutual breakup is a far more confusing, uncertain affair. There are no ‘fuck yous’, no ‘I never liked

you anyways’ or ‘you know you’re actually quite fat’. Much seems to be left unsaid – a mixture of

vulnerability and restraint.

I sat there over my espresso, my right leg jumping up and down as it so often does. A gust of icy

wind reminded me that I was sat outside in Edinburgh in the deep-mid winter. I explained how I felt

about the whole situation, hoping she would understand. Indeed she did. By this point I knew that

long-distance relationships were not my forte. Past attempts had ended in failure and an underlying

degree of mutual resentment. I did not want this to happen between her and I. I had too much

respect for her. I mean she was moving to Paris for fuck’s sake, the city of love. This is all well and

good, apart from the fact that I wouldn’t be there. I imagined mistimed phone calls between the two

of us: my phone would go just as I began tucking into my fifth pint of fizzy Scottish lager, whereas

hers would as she was preparing to go out to some trendy bar with Antoine or Jean-Pierre or Alain or

whatever the fuck he would be called. A prospect that no amount of convincing nor reassurance

would settle my frustrated, cynical, Francophobic mind.

As with life and death, I have been given context, and I take comfort in this reality. The last few

months of our relationship have undoubtably been the best. I feared initially that it would come to

resemble the latter stages of a leader’s rule: an overseeing of the inevitable decline, watching the

clock tick down with a sense of carelessness and hatred for those ousting him. Far from it. The

inevitable end – the finitude of our situation – gave me the certainty that I could make our last days

together the best they could be. The standard procedure of a relationship dictates that it will last as

long as you are up to the challenge. This was a thought that only intimated me. I was too self-aware

of my shortcomings and flaws. I did not trust myself to maintain the perfection that I was led to

believe a relationship required. In short, I felt I was simply not up to the job.

But for the last few months I was attended by a firm sense of an ending. I could put all my flaws to

one side for the moment and for the only time in my life I could put my heart into it. In miniature,

life and death had been accelerated and impressed upon me with tangible force, and living had been

made all the more real for it.