The Lights are On, and You are Home

My office is on the twelfth floor of a building in the city centre, my desk right beside the window. Whenever I sit there, I have a fantastic, unobstructed view of the city. The windows stretch from wall to wall, giving me a glimpse of Belfast that reaches out to Cave Hill, then all the way towards the West. In Winter, when the light begins to fade at four PM, I can watch the sun move slowly behind the hills. I can see the way the rays of light reach out, catching on the spire atop Saint Anne’s, refracting an incandescent orange glow across each building.

I can see the way everything in sight momentarily turns to gold.

I’ve had access to this view for the past year, yet still haven’t become accustomed to it. Instead, every time I see it, I want to press it into my heart, place it under my tongue, I want to let the feel of it linger on my fingertips long after the sun has finally set, and all that’s left is my own reflection looking back at me, in the too-bright glare of the office lights.

*

At eighteen, I was convinced I’d never come back to Belfast. I left the city for university with the idea that me and Belfast were completely over, the two of us had broken up. I was filled with the brash self-confidence you only have when you’re actually completely wrong about something. Back then, I associated Belfast with various trips to the hospital after friend’s failed suicide attempts. I associated Belfast with poor mental health, strained familial relationships and my own teenage, incomplete sense of self.

Now, from the twelfth floor, I look out at the messy sprawl of old buildings and industrial streets of terraced housing. The sight reminds me of the house my mum still lives in, where me and my siblings grew up, with its red brick façade and it’s view of the river Lagan. I think about the way in Summer, the bricks hold enough heat they remain warm to the touch late into evening.

Now, from the twelfth floor, I think about how I will go home tonight, and my flat will be a fifteen-minute walk from the street my best friends grew up in. I think about how, along the way, I could point at each patch of pavement and tell you a story about how one friend passed me a poorly rolled joint here, or another cried with laughter there.

I think about the way every street in this city holds a moment of my past, of myself.

My best friends and were made who we are, together, here. Belfast is where we went on every drunken night out and executed every shocking home hairstyle. Belfast is where we listened to each other’s terrible teenage opinions and frequently caused chaos for our parents.

I am not saying that everyone should remain friends with the people they knew when they were eleven, but I am saying there’s something uniquely freeing about remaining in contact with someone who’s watched you ping-pong yourself down a flight of stairs, rip your favourite shirt and then vomit on the floor.

I am not saying that everyone should remain friends with the people they knew when they were eleven, but I am saying that, throughout every awful moment of my life, my friends have been there too, offering me far more patience, stability and consistency than I probably deserved.

*

I moved back to Belfast in May 2021, six months after my sister Hazel took her own life here.

I left Belfast to avoid my history with trauma, and yet it is the biggest trauma that brought me home. I know how ridiculous that seems, to accept my love for my hometown only in the wake of the most horrendous moments of my life – but there’s no denying that it’s the people here that are the reason I was even able to make it through at all.

The outpouring of love, of support, of familiar faces when I walked down the street was the grounding to reality I so desperately needed during a time when reality seemed all too awful.

Now, when I think about Belfast I’m thinking about where my life is in this moment, in this present. I feel as though someone has finally lifted a veil, as though I can now see the city for what she is, and not what she used to be. I can hear her tidal heartbeat, feel the presence of the mountains that curve around every street like they’re leaning in to say hey, it’s been a while, we missed you while you were gone.

I have always carried the weight of this city with me, but now I’m acknowledging her. I’m coming to greet the history of her and the history of me as though the two are old friends. We’re learning to accept each other wholly, combined tragedies and all. This is my way of acknowledging that, yes, terrible things have happened here, but they are not the only things that happen here. This is my way of accepting that Belfast is the boiling pot, holding the homes for the majority of people I love most.

Now, when friends from England come to visit me and I show them around the city for the first time, what I’m really doing is proving that my veins will always end up forming the same shapes of the streets in Cathedral Quarter. What I’m really doing is pulling back the hinge on my ribcage and showing them the shape of my heart.

Now, when I think of Belfast, what I’m really doing is finalising this truth: I am built by the buildings I grew around.