“My tea’s gone cold I’m wondering why I

Got out of bed at all?

The morning rain clouds up my window

And I can’t see at all.

And even if I could, it’d all be grey,

But your picture on my wall.

It reminds me that it’s not so bad

It’s not so bad.” – ‘Stan’ by Eminem ft. Dido

I stared at the myriad of pictures on my wall. The beautiful abstract blue and black wallpaper below the pictures was barely discernible. There was an odd occasional strip or black and blueness between two pictures that lay uncovered by a photo. I stared at them. Those pictures were memories. Memories that I wouldn’t swap for anything. Pictures that began right from my childhood, through to my humorously disturbing teenage years and all the way up to university.

There was one of me with hardly any clothes, sitting in a pool, smiling widely. One of a drunken university fancy dress themed night. I had an obnoxious pair of fluorescent pants on, on top of my plaid skirt. My friend, Marty, stood beside me in the picture, his Superman shirt covered in vomit. I smiled as I remembered what happened later that night. We ended up lying in front of the library, lost and unable to make it back to our rooms. There was another with my first day at high school. Memories zoomed back again. I recalled the ten minutes before I left for my first day to high school, my dad pulling out the camera, asking me to pose in front of the door, and I smiled irritably at the picture, more anxious about school than dad asking me for a picture. There was one of prom. Me in my beautiful blue dress, arm in arm with Alexis, who was wearing a shocking pink one. My smile didn’t last very long. Alexis and I lost touch. She moved to Manchester and now we didn’t speak ever. Another one of a high school concert made me laugh. I was dressed as a rock. I was painted grey all over and I remembered my only line in the entire play was “Just because I’m a rock, doesn’t mean I have a stony heart.” I laughed out loud to myself at the ridiculousness of the play. I saw another one, Ryan, Elise, Mike and I at a funeral. We’d lost our friend Lara to a car accident. Sadness crippled my heart as I saw another picture of the two of us going to the ‘Art Appreciation Club’ at university for a laugh even though the two of us abhorred art.