What Bob Marley told me

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you feel like the universe is speaking directly to you? I just did, today. I was sitting in a coffee shop and I looked up as someone came in, and got that feeling you do when you miss the step in the dark. I thought for a horrible second it was my ex boyfriend who I was horribly in love with then horribly heartbroken by. (I might have mentioned him, just once or twice). It wasn't him, but there was something about this man's face that really reminded me of him.

His bigness and the way his eyes always looked sad. I thought about what I would have done if it had been him. He promised we would stay friends after I forgave him for the horrible heartbreaking break up and then I never heard from him again. It's not like I'm still in love with him, I'm not. I do feel sad about the potential we had and how it ended, how what he did seemed to make a huge mockery of all the beautiful moments we had together. But there is something about a face isn't there? That makes you temporarily insane and brings back every emotion you ever attached to that face.

I remembered how after my only other major adult relationship with a man I worked with, which had ended in an oddly similar way, I had to see his face all the time. At first it was like experiencing the break up all over again every day, but then obviously I began to associate him with how life was now and it changed.

Anyway so when I'd finished my cup of tea and walked out, it was bucketing down with rain and I stood in it for a second thinking. It was like, I knew it was time to move on. I had already decided after the disastrous end to last year to move away, start afresh and have some new adventures, but this just cemented it. It's time, the rain said. Enough now. Enough. And, I realise this sounds both unlikely and corny, but, at that very second, a busker's words floated through puddles and umbrellas.

"In this bright future you can forget your past, so dry your tears I say, everything's gonna be alright."