Oranges

When I was about eleven years old, I developed an obsession for Sunny Delight. I'm not sure where it came from, but - all of a sudden - I needed Sunny Delight. I craved it all the time. I bought it on my way to school, and I bought it on my way home from school, and I left the house in wind and rain and snow because I'd run out of it. And the more I drank, the more I needed it; it never eliminated my thirst, and every bottle just made me want another one. Side effects - spots, tiredness, weight gain - were duly ignored. For one strange month in my eleventh year, I must have spent my entire pocket money and probably some I stole from my parent's jar of change (sorry, mum) on Sunny Delight.

The highs were good, of course. It was a strange, dizzy, buzzy, temporary kind of happiness, but it was beautiful; and the amazing thing was that the more Sunny Delight I drank, the thirstier I got, and so the more I could drink and the more energy I had, and the happier I thought I was. And - because I was convinced in my naivity that it was slightly edited orange juice - I also thought that I was drinking my way into health and general wellbeing, and that my obsession was actually good for me; even though my body was giving me every possible sign it could that it really, really wasn't.

And then somebody - I forget who - pointed out the ingredients to me. They turned the bottle around, and they showed me that it wasn't, in fact, a slightly modified orange juice, but actually liquid sugar, coloured orange and made to taste like it had once been a fruit; despite quite possibly never having actually seen one before. They showed me just how much orange juice was in it (2%), and suggested that nothing in the natural world would ever be that shade without containing poison.

It had taken me one whole month to realise that I was actually poisoning myself with something that looked and tasted like the real thing, but was barely even related to it. One whole month, until I finally got a real orange out, squeezed it and abruptly came to my senses.

I never touched Sunny Delight again.

This time, it has taken me almost exactly one whole year. One whole year to realise that I'm in the relationship equivalent of a bottle of Sunny Delight. Looks like orange juice, tastes like orange juice, makes me pretty damn giddy in a sickly, temporary kind of way, but - frankly - it wouldn't recognise an orange if it got punched in the face by one. All the benefits of an orange - the taste, the goodness, the nutrition, the magical symmetry of it - aren't there, and all I've got is something masquerading as something it never has been, and never could be. Something that was packaged up very nicely nicely and looked good because I was so incredibly thirsty. Something that told me it was something it was not. Something that has done nothing but damage my internal organs from the very moment it first touched my lips.

I remember the exact moment I looked at that Sunny Delight label, and read the bit that said: contains 2% orange juice. I remember how I felt; how angry I was, how confused, and how foolish I knew I had been. And, similarly, I remember the exact moment I looked at the beautiful, magical boy I had flown all the way across the world for - who had cheated on me continuously, lied to me, abandoned me in a strange country, insulted me, exposed me to heartbreak and pain and humiliation, and failed to once protect me or cherish me or fight for me - and realised that he had as much in common with my perfect man as that bottle of sugar had with a piece of fruit. And that he had just been pretending, and I was too naive, romantic, in love and - frankly - damn stupid to see it.

The real danger of Sunny Delight isn't what it'll do to you when you're drinking it. It'll slowly poison you - yes - but it probably won't kill you (although it'll make you fat and orange hued like an OompaLoompa and it'll cause your teeth to fall out, which is nearly as bad). The real danger of Sunny Delight is that if you don't walk away from it, you might never touch a real orange again. And you might simply forget that they exist at all.

So, although it's the hardest thing I have ever done - and it has broken my heart and ruined my health - I have found the strength to put the bottle down, and I have finally walked away properly. And I will not touch it again.

I need nothing, now, but plain water for a long, long time. I need to detox and rehydrate, and get the taste of sugar out of my mouth. I need to learn how to feel happy again without that intoxicated, giddy buzz. I need to be careful of just hooking myself onto the next pretty package that comes along.

But when I do decide I'm ready to start again, I'll look for something different. I'm finished with the kind of happiness that comes from something fake. The next time I fall in love, I want it to be real.

And, even more importantly, I want it to be good for me.