RIP 14.03.2025
Hello Rebecca.
Before anything else — don't panic.
I'm not asking you for anything.
You don't need to reply. You don't need to do anything at all.
This is simply my side of things, finally said out loud.
This is me... why now?
Because life has a habit of reminding you what's important.
Because my mum died.
Because her last words to me were:
"Live your life son. You only get one." "Chase your dreams." "Tell them."
So I am.
And because I've spent two years carrying something that never really had anywhere to go.
Before I tell you any of this, I probably need to explain me.
One thing I've learned over the last two years is that two people can live through the same moments and carry away completely different stories.
This is mine.
Not the truth.
Not your truth.
Just my truth.
The way I saw it.
The way I felt it.
The way I remember it.
So if some of this feels familiar, and some of it doesn't, that's okay.
This is simply what happened from where I was standing.
I have ADHD.
Not the version people manage and medicate and apologise for.
Not the "oh I think I might have it" version.
Let's face it, these days everyone thinks they have ADHD because they forgot where they left their car keys.
The diagnosed kind.
The real one.
The one that's been driving this circus since the beginning and explains everything and nothing at the same time.
The one I've never medicated.
Partly because I was frightened of losing the gift.
Partly because I was exhausted by the curse.
Turns out they're the same thing.
Bonkers.
Brilliant.
A handful.
People think ADHD means I can't focus.
Trust me.
That's not the problem.
The problem is I can.
I can focus so hard that the rest of the world disappears.
An idea.
A business.
A dream.
Your blue eyes.
Some things just stay with me.
The gift is intensity.
The curse is intensity.
Same engine.
Different destinations.
My brain doesn't really do "off".
It does light-speed pattern recognition, intensity and the occasional terrible idea.
Usually all at once.
It's seeing connections before other people even know there are dots to join.
It's why I can walk into a room and spot something that doesn't fit.
Why I can look at a problem and see three possible solutions before most people have finished describing it.
It's why I've spent most of my life building things.
Businesses.
Ideas.
Adventures.
Occasionally trouble.
That's the same bit of me that treats Blaze like a competitive sport despite absolutely nobody else knowing they're competing.
It's exhausting.
For everyone.
Especially me.
The gift built something worth millions.
The curse has been not being able to let go of you.
Same engine.
Different destinations.
That's probably the shortest explanation of this entire website.
It's why I taught myself to code on a phone.
It's why every door that closed made me go looking for another one.
The one that thinks faster than it can speak.
That sees patterns before anyone else sees the picture.
That builds things at 3am because the idea won't wait until morning.
That feels everything so deeply it has to go somewhere.
That loves so hard it becomes its own weather system.
Strong willed.
Creative.
Completely incapable of doing anything by half.
And the one that feels energy.
Not mystically.
Just honestly.
Some people walk into a room and light it up.
Some people drain it.
Most people are somewhere in between.
I feel it immediately.
Always have.
Yours stopped me in my tracks.
I walked into Pump two years ago and I saw you and something hit me. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know you. I just felt something I'd never felt before. My brain locked on and it never let go.
Not because you're fit.
Not because you're pretty.
Because I've met fit.
I've met pretty.
I'd never met you.
Because something deeper was coming off you that I couldn't explain.
I saw something in you that first day that I couldn't stop thinking about. Not just who you are in a room. Something underneath that.
Something quieter.
Something real.
Something most people never stay still long enough to notice.
The woman who chats to everyone and the woman who goes quiet when she thinks no one's looking.
I saw both.
I think that's when I got into trouble.
And I wanted the one underneath. The real one. The quiet one. You.
Your eyes give you away every time. There's something behind them that the rest of you is trying to keep quiet. I see it. I've always seen it.
And I kept seeing it. Even after you'd closed the door.
You cut every route. Meta. Myzone. Everything.
And honestly? I understand why.
I came on strong. Too strong.
Too much, too fast, too intense — the exact thing I've just spent this whole page describing.
You set a boundary. You were entitled to.
Both times I'd said goodbye. Properly. Sayonara. Not mine to hold. Meaning every word.
And both times I drifted back anyway.
That part wasn't fair on you. That one's on me.
It hurt. But the hurt was mine to carry, not yours to manage.
Because there were good bits too.
The 7am messages.
The random check-ins before the day properly started.
The emojis.
You were ridiculously good at emojis.
Entire conversations somehow held together by tiny yellow faces.
The photo of your cocktail at midnight.
You telling me I had too much time on my hands.
You weren't entirely wrong.
The lemons from London.
Which sounds completely mental now I read it back.
A grown man travelling around the country thinking:
"Rebecca will probably appreciate this lemon."
Yet somehow that felt perfectly reasonable at the time.
The Opal Fruits left on your car.
One vegetarian.
One not.
Because apparently even my ridiculous ideas come with dietary considerations.
The laughs.
The teasing.
The daft little rituals that somehow became our thing.
The moments that looked tiny from the outside and felt huge from where I was standing.
And now I'm cut off from all of it.
The messages.
The emojis.
The laughs.
The lemons.
The little pieces of normal that never felt important at the time.
Until they disappeared.
Funny how you only realise something has become part of your life when it isn't there anymore.
Sometimes I wonder if that was my fault.
I honestly don't know.
I just know I miss it.
That's the bit people don't see when they try to reduce this story to something simple.
Because it never felt simple to me.
It felt real.
Then the corridor after Spain. First time face to face. Nervous small talk. Both of us pretending. And then at the end eyes locked for a couple of beats and neither of us said a word. We didn't need to.
You blocked me on Myzone and I flew to Dubai. Seven days on a sunbed. Started building something on my phone because every door had closed and my brain opened a different one. Came back thinking I was done. Properly done. You'd made the decision for both of us and I respected it. Packed it away.
Let's be clear. At that point I had moved on.
And then one day you looked at me through that glass at the water station. Cooling down after Blaze. I was on my way to spin. Thirty seconds. Looking haunted and exhausted. And you wouldn't look away. I raised a hand and walked off. You jolted. Like I'd pulled you back from somewhere.
That's what you do to me Rebecca.
Straight back in the room. Instantly. Like I'd never left.
A week later I left you a note. A lemon. Run by Snow Patrol. And the truth. More than I could carry on my own any longer.
And then I went dark again.
I started going back to Blaze on Saturdays. Same room. Same hour. Six feet apart.
First class back and it was already there. Arm to arm. Both of us pushing into each other and pretending we weren't. The high five that got firmer every week. Held longer than it needed to be. Neither of us letting go first.
And a while ago in the cafe after Blaze. I told you my heart rate had been too high. Twenty seven minutes in red. Faith told me to get myself checked.
And I'm fairly sure it wasn't the workout.
We stood there in silence. Two feet apart. Neither of us moved.
And more than once now, at the end of class, I've held out my hand.
You go to fist bump me. Then your hand opens to match mine.
You grip harder than I do. And you stare straight into me and don't look away.
Every time.
I know what I felt in those moments.
I don't know what this is for you.
I know what it is for me.
And whatever it is, I've never quite known what to do with it.
We can barely talk anymore. Everything loaded. Everything nervous. At least, that's how it feels from my side.
I felt you before I knew you. My body knew before my brain caught up. When I touched your shoulder in Blaze it wasn't planned. My body moved towards you because it recognised something in you that matched something in me. I didn't think about it. I just reached for you.
And maybe I read too much into it, but you didn't pull away.
Energy knows energy.
Or that's how it felt to me.
I've never said all of this out loud before. Not properly. Not all of it in one place.
But I need you to know what's real. Because we've been circling this for a while and neither of us knows what to do with it and I'd rather say it plainly than keep pretending that Saturday morning small talk is enough.
All of it was real. Every moment. Every look. From my side.
This isn't the first time I've tried to tell you.
Seven months ago I sent you a note. I said I could see the energy behind your eyes. The uniqueness. The something underneath that most people never even look for.
And I said that if you see something real in someone you should tell them. Because it might be the only thing they never forget.
I still believe it.
And while all of that was happening, my brain did what it always does. It built.
That's what the ADHD does. It doesn't sit still very well. It doesn't sit with feelings very well either. It turns them into something. A plan. A project. An adventure. A business. A company. A website apparently.
Every closed door became another challenge. Every setback became a problem to solve. Every time life said no, my brain went looking for another route.
So while all of this was going on, I built. Thousands of hours. Train journeys. Hotel rooms. Airport lounges. Four screens glowing at stupid o'clock in the morning. Learning things I had absolutely no business learning. Building things I had absolutely no business building.
One idea became several. Then products. Then platforms. Then a business people started telling me could be worth a lot of money.
Which is lovely. But that was never really the point.
The point was that I finally understood something about myself. I don't just feel things. I build with them. I always have.
That's what the ADHD was trying to tell me all along. The same engine that creates the chaos creates the good stuff too. The same intensity that gets me into trouble is the intensity that built everything else.
The gift.
The curse.
Same engine.
Different destinations.
And somewhere in the middle of all that building, all those hours and all those ideas, there was still a woman with a laugh I could hear from the other side of the room and a pair of blue eyes I couldn't quite forget.
You're in procurement. You evaluate value for a living. In February I offered you a link in a car park. You said yes. I watched your face change. And then you said no. I walked away knowing exactly why.
I walked away.
There is something else I need to say.
And yes, I know this sounds fucking mad.
Because it is.
We never had the normal stuff.
That is the bastard of it.
It was scraps.
A look. A laugh. A message. A silence. That stare.
And my head, being my head, built a cathedral out of crumbs.
Fucking ADHD.
When something gets through, it gets through.
So I tried to bury it. Build from it. Laugh around it. Train beside it. Walk away from it.
And still.
There it fucking was.
So I have held this sentence for five months.
Five months trying to make it softer. Safer. Less frightening.
Five months trying to run away from it.
Five months trying to call it something else.
And I still couldn't make it less true.
So here it is.
Brace.
I think I fell in love with you.
No.
Fuck that.
Rebecca, I did fall in love with you.
Not with some life we never had. Not with some made-up fairytale bollocks. Not with anything I have any right to claim.
But with what I saw. With what hit me. With the part of you I couldn't forget.
My mum said it best.
Tell them.
So I am.
And that might be the most frightening thing I've ever written in my life.
But fuck it.
One life.
I know you didn't ask for this. I know you owe me nothing.
But I can't pretend I didn't see something in you.
I can't pretend it didn't change me.
And I can't pretend I regret loving you.
Because I don't.
Not for a second.
It hurt.
Fuck, it hurt.
But it was also one of the most human things that has ever happened to me.
So no.
I'm not sorry for loving you.
How could I be?
I'm only sorry for the weight of telling you.
Rebecca, from my side of the world, I loved what I saw.
sorry
Last year I told you. Look after your mum. They're gone too soon.
Mine had just gone.
14.03.2025
You said thanks Paul.
And I've spent two years watching you from across a room knowing exactly what's missing and saying nothing.
She would have told me to stop being a coward.
There's a line in Run by Snow Patrol that's followed me around for years.
"Light up, light up, as if you have a choice."
For two years I thought I had a choice.
I don't think I ever did.
Not really.
So fuck it.
Here I am.
Council estate kid who escaped.
Who feels everything at full volume and can't pretend otherwise.
Who builds things at 3am because the wanting has to go somewhere.
Who got caught in the Sri Lanka monsoon, booked a flight to Dubai on the spot, and was on a plane within four hours because one life and why the fuck not.
Who taught himself to code from scratch on a phone on a plane because nobody else was going to do it.
Who has sat in this gym for two years carrying something that had no address.
Who loves hard. Completely. Without a volume control.
Who cried when his mum died and built something without ever saying that's what he was doing.
Some people think I'm bonkers.
I just think I'm free.
I'd rather be too much than not enough.
I'd rather tell the truth and look ridiculous than stay silent and wonder for the rest of my life.
I just don't want to keep pretending I feel nothing on a Saturday morning.
And maybe that is the truth underneath the whole fucking circus.
The gift built something worth millions.
The curse has been not being able to let go of you.
All the intensity.
All the words.
All the stupid 3am building.
All the fucking noise in my head.
And underneath it?
I think what I really wanted was peace.
Not drama. Not more fire. Not another loaded room.
Just peace.
The kind where nobody has to perform.
Where a silence is just a silence.
Where a laugh is just a laugh.
Where nothing has to be decoded every five fucking seconds.
And when my head tried to imagine that, of course it went to Thailand.
Khao Lak.
Because that is where my head goes when it wants to shut the fuck up.
A battered Hilux pick-up truck. Probably too hot. Probably the wrong road. Probably me pretending I know where I'm going when I clearly fucking don't.
No schedule. No gym. No Blaze. No loaded room. No heart-rate screen. No pretending Saturday morning is just Saturday morning.
Just us, driving the dusty beach road to Coconut Beach with the windows open.
Dust everywhere. Sweat everywhere. The road getting worse. The sea getting louder.
You sweating through your contacts and calling me a fucking twat for thinking this was a good idea.
Me laughing because you were probably right.
And then, after all that bollocks, the sand opening up in front of us. The sea there. The sky there.
That mad little moment where you look at a place and think:
Here.
This will do.
Then walking. Not some grand romantic film scene. Just walking.
For hours if we wanted. Talking if the words came. Saying nothing if they didn't.
No pressure. No performance. No working out what the fuck anything meant.
Just the surf. The breeze. You being you. Me finally not trying to solve everything.
The sun dropping. The day going soft.
And for once, nothing loaded. Nothing awkward. Nothing hidden behind a joke or a look or a stupid Saturday morning hello.
Just somewhere wide enough for the whole thing to stop being frightening for five bloody minutes.
Maybe that was the dream, really.
Not possession. Not drama. Not asking you to become anything.
Just you and me, somewhere life could breathe.
And I know that was mine. My picture. My impossible little bit of peace.
Not yours to carry. Not yours to answer for.
Just the place my head went when it tried to imagine this without all the fear bolted to it.
So that's it, Becki. My crazy cat lady. My competitor in Blaze. My curse.
My lovable out of reach fucking muse.
No more pretending. No more shrinking it down until it looks harmless.
No more walking into that room on a Saturday with my face saying fine and everything underneath saying fuck no.
I was never fine. Not really.
Six feet of gym floor did not make this normal. It made it harder.
Close enough to feel everything. Far enough to do nothing with it. Public enough to behave. Private enough to carry it.
And I kept doing it. Week after week. Calling it routine. Calling it discipline. Calling it anything except what it was.
A loop I had to end.
And that is the madness and beauty of ADHD. It does not let things stay half-felt. It does not file pain neatly. It does not let a look just be a look.
It takes a spark and turns it into a weather system.
Sometimes that is the gift. It builds futures. It builds businesses. It builds things worth millions out of nothing but noise, instinct and refusal.
And sometimes it is the curse. Because the same engine that can build a company can also stand six feet from you in a gym and lose the ability to call it nothing.
Same engine.
Different destinations.
That is what happened in me.
Not because you asked for it. Not because you owed me anything. Not because you were mine.
Because I know what real life is. Twenty eight years teaches you that.
Loyalty. Consequence. Damage. The price of wanting something you have no clean right to want.
That is why I buried it. That is why I walked. That is why I kept dressing it up in smaller words.
Wobble. Crush. Gym thing. ADHD madness. Anything but the truth.
But no.
Here it is. No padding. No pretty version. No soft landing.
I fell in love with you, Becki.
Not the idea of you. Not the gym version. Not the funny version. Not the pretty version.
You. The real one. The quiet one. The one behind the eyes.
The one I probably had no right to see that clearly. But I did.
And once I had, I could not make you ordinary again.
I tried. I tried to call it chemistry. I tried to call it madness. I tried to call it nothing.
But it was not nothing. It was you.
That is the truth.
So now you know.
And after this, I'm gone.
Not as punishment. Not as drama. Not to make you carry anything.
Just because I cannot keep standing in the same room pretending this is ordinary.
Different timetable. Different room. Different route.
Just the guy you used to know at the gym.
No more awkward Tuesdays.
No more loaded Saturdays.
No more ghosts on a gym floor.
No more taking silence apart like there might be a message hidden in it.
No more maybe.
I have said it. Properly. Once.
My mum said it best.
Tell them.
So I just did.
No expectation. No debt. No claim. Just truth.
If I got to the end of my life and never told you, I would regret that more than any silence I got back.
I wanted you to know who I am.
And I wanted you to know what you were to me.
Not a crush. Not a fantasy. Not a gym story.
You. The woman I saw. The one who got through. The one I fell in love with.
That is all this ever was.
What you do with it is yours.
Paul
—
If you ever want a chilled out chat… the door's still open.
I'd like that too.
Just say Hi!
Just not at twat o'clock.