* FOREWORD. FOREWARNED. Do not read this if you have ever dated me or are currently dating me (I get there is only one person in this second category, I hope you know who you are and stop here, and I also hope you know that even though I said that I don’t really mean it).
I was going to write a book titled something like this post, and thought perhaps, if I can get it out of my system as a blog post rather than an entire history of the world, that might be a good thing. I could still write a book, but a blog post probably won’t take up as much of my life as a book. About Fleur’s brief history of men. It could be seriously long and disappointing. And also, I’m kind of completely sick of the whole novel to be honest. Been writing that mofo for far too many years.
I have to write this because (it’s been going around in my head for ages and writing it out is my best solution) I re-read something last night that I wrote about a year ago which tells the history of relationships and me pretty succinctly. It goes a bit like this…
All those men who weren’t lost I dumped first. Those men who were smart and interesting and seemed to adore me. And I left them for the crazy, lost freaks collection. The lost boys. And I tried to love them and overlove them. I attracted lost men and became more lost and then when I started to find my way out of the foggy maze of lostness and decide not to accept lost anymore they leave. And in the end they didn’t leave me and become amazing, they left me and stayed lost.
And that’s it really. And I’d actually written so much more, and what I intended to do about that, but I forgot that I wrote such a detailed description of my choices. I actually laughed out loud when I read that I wrote the “crazy, lost freaks collection”. I would be worried that they could get offended if they read that, but most of them can’t read. Ouch. Bitter cow.
I’m writing all of this because the complete opposite person has happened. To me. And I’m guessing you don’t get to meet people until you’re ready because honestly my 20-year-old self would have chewed him up. Not intentionally. Not with forethought and dedicated planning. But my fear would have driven me so far from someone like him and directly into the path of some dude with long hair, a skateboard and a drug habit. My 30-year-old self was not much better. Finally though, my 40-year-old self (apart from occasionally feeling terrified and this funny squeezy feeling in my heart when he fixes my taps and reads stories to my children) cannot find any reasons (not one) to put this person into the crazy, lost freaks collection. And I’m SO GLAD I’m grown up. So this is like the accountability check in. Just to make sure you know that I know that I’m on a good thing.
I’m a bit scared. Of course. Because it’s way too close to everything I wanted and asked for. And that’s terrifying. What would it mean if it all worked out? If someone kind and loving and beautiful and caring and who thought my children were adorable and I was funny and beautiful and precious and had his shit together just turned up and loved us? Gently and slowly, and without pressure of expectation? Would it be OK?
He just turned up. At the end of Gap Year. He has swirled in similar circles to me for years and although I knew his face and name, I had not noticed him before. I was busy. He was married. I was married. I was lost. He was lost. And then, one day he read something I wrote and wrote to me. And when it happened I noticed him, and wrote back really briefly because it was late at night and I didn’t know him enough to write back all the words I wanted to say. Not for any reason, but just that there are always so many words with me. So I just said “thanks” (this was a shock even to me. To be so succinct). The very next morning I went to the closest shops to my house to get milk for breakfast. This NEVER happens because we always have milk or if we don’t we have toast. But for some reason we had to have milk, and as I walked into the shop, he walked out. BAM. How did that happen? I have never seen him at that shop ever before. In the 7 years it has been my closest shop. It’s his closest shop too. He lives pretty much directly above my house on the hill a few streets back. He has lived there for probably the same time I have lived here. And so, it seemed that somehow the time was right for me to meet him properly and notice, and slowly and gently it has just become this thing that is everything I ever wanted and asked for. But not until I stopped being lost, and took some time to work out what that was exactly. You need to do that bit. Stop being lost. And set an intention for what you want and how that will be and then live your life as though it is already happening and then one day it is.
I suspect this is not a brief thing. The possibility is it could be quite an enormous new direction in the history of the world. Amongst other things. Brief and not so brief.
