The Second Swim

The Second Swim

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The Second Swim
The Second Swim
Falling Out of Love
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Falling Out of Love

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Iona Italia
May 03, 2023
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The Second Swim
The Second Swim
Falling Out of Love
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Bombay, 2018. My photo.

After ten weeks of persistent daydreams, painful memories and unrequited longings, I am finally, slowly, beginning to fall out of love. The fantasies have lost their traction. I no longer walk through Epping Forest without seeing the budding trees, my imagination still in an evergreen Queensland. I’m no longer tempted by my mental vision of a low-key Brisbane wedding, in which I stroll hand in hand with him to the registry office in a sundress and flipflops and down a few beers with half a dozen friends afterwards, both of us displaying the delicious insouciance of people who have been married before.

I’m no longer waking in the night, tearfully bereft, feeling like that hapless security guard forced to look the other way as Marlo brazenly pockets two lollipops, wanting things to be one way, when they’re the other way.


It always takes me a long time to accept a disappointment—especially in love. But finally, I no longer feel as if I am crossing a foamy river on moss-covered stepping stones, trying to stay present in my current reality, trying—and mostly failing—to focus on work and real-life friends, while, at every moment, in danger of slipping off and being swept away by the waters of reminiscence and fantasy. I’m on the broad, dry path of real life once again. It feels almost a little disappointing.

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