I met Cian on a wet Thursday outside Whelan’s, both of us sheltering under the same useless awning while the rain came sideways across Wexford Street. He was carrying a guitar with one broken latch and I was carrying a tote bag full of folders from the office, because back then I believed being exhausted made me responsible. He asked if I knew whether the last Luas had gone, and I lied and said I did, just so we could keep talking.
He was the kind of person who noticed things. The blue light on puddles. The way buskers changed songs when crowds thinned. The smell of bread in the mornings near Camden Street. I was twenty-eight, working in accounts for a medical supplies company near the canals, and I measured my days in direct debits, lunch breaks, and whether I had enough energy left to answer my mother’s messages. Cian played small gigs, taught guitar to kids in Rathmines, and seemed to live on coffee, hope, and the occasional miracle.
For two years, he made Dublin feel like it had secret rooms. We walked by the Grand Canal after midnight, shared chips outside pubs, and sat in St Stephen’s Green on our lunch breaks when the weather behaved. He loved me in a way that was impractical and alive. He wrote songs about ordinary things, including the little scar on my thumb from when I broke a glass in my first flat. I loved him too, but I was frightened by the shape of his life. There was always a gig that might pay, a project that might happen, rent that might be late.
Then I met Mark at a friend’s engagement party in Ballsbridge. He was kind, steady, well-dressed, and already owned an apartment in Sandyford. He worked in insurance and had a five-year plan that sounded like a warm blanket. He asked questions politely, listened carefully, and never once made me wonder if he could afford dinner. My friends liked him instantly. My parents loved him before they met him, simply because I could describe him without using the words musician, freelance, or complicated.
I didn’t leave Cian in one dramatic scene. I did it slowly, which was worse. I began answering his messages later. I complained about his uncertainty more. I told myself love should not feel like a risk. One evening in Portobello, after he had played a small set to twenty people and looked happier than anyone I knew, I said I needed stability. He nodded as if I had handed him a bill he had expected but still could not pay.
“I can’t promise you that,” he said.
“I know,” I told him, and that was the cruelest part. I did know.
I married Mark eighteen months later in a hotel in the city centre with white flowers, a string quartet, and weather so clear everyone called it a blessing. Nothing terrible happened. That almost made it harder to explain. Mark was decent. He made tea when I was tired. He remembered appointments. He never raised his voice. We had a nice life, the sort of life I had once prayed would arrive and rescue me from worry. But somewhere inside it, I went quiet.
I realised it first on a Saturday morning in our kitchen. Mark was discussing mortgage rates, and I was watching steam rise from my coffee. There was no crisis. No betrayal. No slammed door. Just a terrible, calm understanding that I had chosen a life I could explain instead of one I could feel. I had confused safety with happiness, and now I was safe in every direction except inward.
Years passed like that. I became very good at being grateful. I told myself passion fades anyway. I told myself everyone compromises. But regret is patient. It waits in small places. A song heard from a passing car. Rain on Wexford Street. A guitar case on the Luas. One evening, after work, I saw a poster for a gig in a small venue near Dame Street, and Cian’s name was on it. Not huge, not famous, but there. Still playing. Still choosing the uncertain thing.
I went alone. I stood at the back with my coat on, ready to leave if it hurt too much. He looked older,
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
