Actually, Love

Two days ago, M (the nurse) MSN messaged me .

It's been a long while since we've conversed, and I wondered what she needed now, or what new crisis had cropped up to trigger this occurrence.

That's the nature of our "friendship" - if you can call it even that. I see her clearly now for what she is, a "user". Cynical, cynical me.
And I wonder what on earth I ever saw in her. Rusty - you were right, if you ever read this. Good old' rusty, agony aunt and celebrity friend all in one.

Somehow, in between long pauses while I surfed the web on ways to get X-com 3 to work on windows XP, and she doubtlessly continued getting chatted up by a million guys (such is the fate of pretty young females; I am resigned to it. Even my Other Half , the Peddler indulges in it, methinks...) the topic got round to my exams. After it had wandered around her wanting to go on holiday, and how scary it is for a girl to travel alone like she has been doing, because, boohoo, all sorts of angmoh strangers try to get to know her and ask her to go to their rooms, or ask to go to hers... tough life, pat pat. you poor dear...

"So when u going for exams, will it be in the UK?"

I wonder when the hammer is going to fall.

"I was thinking of tagging along..."

Ah.
Blink.
Subtle.

After a pause, I reply rather deliberately - if I was going to bring someone with me, it would be my other half... (and by implication, not you.)

I guess she doesn't know about the other half - thats how infrequently she messages me, and I never bother to initiate conversations with her. Just maintain a civil front; it would be rude to block her from MSN, no?

A longer pause this time.

She doesn't begin by asking about the other half, oh no. No niceties here.

"then I shouldn't come along ba, wouldn't want your gf to get the wrong idea..."

WTF is this? IS SHE FOR REAL?
Let me weigh my options. I think I am supposed to say no, come along, come along, here I pay for you? Or... perhaps I'm supposed to write that I'll take her and not my other half, and have a sordid sex holiday with her, since she's offering. Oh, oh. I know, I'll ask her to come along in secret, and bonk her when the other half's back is turned!
Wow. Incredible, I can actually make out the thought processes she's banking on my Y chromosome to lead me down.

Roll eyes.

"no. you shouldn't. I don't want my gf to get the wrong idea."

Unspoken : I love her. And she's 800... no, eight million times the woman you will never be, trapped in your juvenile teenagehood as you are. I would never do anything to jeapordize what I have with her. Run along now and find some fool to manipulate - I shall not be that fool.

M finally asks me about the other half -- not what she looks like, or even what she's like as a person, oh no. It's all about what she does and how we met.

I tell her repeatedly that I can't tell her, and she demands to know why I'm being secretive - at first she assumes I'm bound to silence, and says it's usually because the girl has someone else. And when she realises I'M the one who won't talk she badgers me incessantly, rather inconveniencing my web browsing.

I tell her to stop asking.
(Unspoken : I can't tell you because I don't want any harm to come to her, or her job. And I can't tell you even this, because then you'll seek out the answers more.)

In the end I tell her that I have to go and study, goodbye.

Some time later, she messages me "I realli miss the old times when we could talk freely about anything"

I think back... how long ago was that? Two years? Two and a half? During the time we were just getting to know each other? And how long did that last? A week?
I don't miss those times. I know who you are now, M.

*****
In the rest of this post (in time to come):

And about somethings that happened rather long ago, that resulted in the death of this blog.

And about The One - past, present, and future.

And about how time changes us.

Unfortunately, I have all of three minutes to write it. So for now, it shall remain buried in the haphazard depths of my mind.

I won't be blogging much, I don't expect. I have found peace, and I want to cherish every moment of this peace that I have been Given, and that has been shared with me. Even should I - should I be so lucky - somehow manage to keep this peace, and this remarkable person - for it is always really about a person, is it not? - by my side through this entire lifetime... I wish never to take it, and her for granted, and to cherish her, and us all our living days.

Lessons learnt from a stormy and dysfunctional past.

*****

I used to write primarily for myself, and for the latent audience of friends that knew me well. I didn't really write much for the faceless strangers that chanced by this blog, but it was gratifying, of course, to be paid compliments about the way I write.

I have lost my readership now; this blog was dead, then replaced, and now is completely unknown.

I begin anew; a clean slate. I write - for myself.

Re-minisce, remember all these words when you are older, and pray that you may still be smiling as you read them, the way you were when you wrote.

I live, again.

But for now, I sleep.

as much as I can, preferably.