Walking after you

Tonight I'm tangled in my blanket of clouds
Dreaming aloud

Things just won't do without you, matter of fact
...

If you'd accept surrender, I'll give up some more
Weren't you adored

I cannot be without you, matter of fact
Oh oh ooh
I'm on your back

If you walk out on me
I'm walking after you
If you walk out on me
I'm walking after you

Another heart is cracked in two
I'm on your back

I cannot…

[Foo Fighters, Walking After You]

All stories take place in a small little world.  No matter how grand, complex and unique the story seems, they boil down to a few characters living in a small little world. War and Peace takes place in a small little world.  It is a story of two interrelated Russian families, a handful of principal characters set against the backdrop of a Europe in turmoil.  Grand backdrop, granted, but that's not what interests us; its the interplay between the people, the conflict, the emotional journey that colours the picture, that sparks that desire to read on.  It's the universality of human interaction that really grips us.  Essentially, how are these characters like me, because that's the only thing that really makes me read on?

Well, you don't get more universal than death. Death and taxes.  Just under two years ago, I lost you, my baby sister, and I am only just beginning to get my bearings, to do any more than put one foot in front of the other.  The colour is just starting to come back to my picture.  And it's a picture within which I am intent on you remaining.  Death will not defeat us, my darling.  Just as an ocean, an age gap and puberty never did.  We're in this for the long-haul, you and me.  I have spent the best part of the last few years searching for you.  Constantly searching.  At the tea room you took me to for my birthday, at our favourite Ibizan beach, in our parents' living room, in the pages of your diary.  Even the sight of your writing, the emotions shaping your words, your scribbled thoughts, could not bring you back to me.  It's the dialogue, the interplay between us, your guidance that is missing. It's our relationship.  It's us, not just you, that I miss.  You are the other side of me, the heads to my tails, the Jiminy Cricket to my Pinocchio - not that I consider myself a liar (!) but perhaps a lost child trying to become my better self.  A self that you made better.  Who we are is irrelevant really; that you are you and that I am me, it's unimportant.  It's the emotions we experience, the way we interact, the devastation in the wake of you leaving, that's where the universality exists.  That's what people want to hear about.  And this universality exists in my small little world; the world of a thirty something mum of two, wife of one and recently-become only child.  A small little world with all the emotional journey and conflict one person can take, without having all the stuffing knocked out of one. 

Maybe I'm foolish
Maybe I'm blind
Thinking I can see through this
And see what's behind
Got no way to prove it
So maybe I'm blind
But I'm only human after all
I'm only human after all
Don't put your blame on me
Don't put your blame on me

[Rag'n'Bone Man, Human]