Skinny coffee, boinging beds and ohhhh those pings.

Well, after last Friday I never quite knew where this week was heading. The weekend was hard for us both. We still had to take in the Embassy news and adjust to the fact that we had to wait longer to be together… get through thanksgiving (last year being my first and such a wonderful occasion,this. Well, I’m still here, I suppose. Jesse, too. So that’s something to give thanks for.) But I turned to my friends for comfort like you do, and some were, in all fairness, sweet. Others had decided that, as we lost this round, maybe we should just give in and go our separate ways. (This cut me to the core as they hadn’t learnt by now just how I love, how much I love Jesse and how I could no sooner learn to fly or quit eating than walk away from my man.) I sat Sunday afternoon on a clear, crisp, sunny day outside a local church. Dazed by recent events, raw with hurt and confused by why people thought walking away would be so easy. Yes, I get that we met via Facebook… I get most don’t take these relationships seriously. It’s like some view it as a kind of petty infatuation that I’m going to have fun with and grow out of. We both have put ourselves through hell to get here… weathered life changing things, so, no, we are not going to give up… no, we can’t just walk away now.

I sat there a while regrouping, regaining lost energy. And then not only did anger kick in, but a renewed energy. I knew what I wanted. Whether it was the caffeine in the two large Americano coffees I had, anger or sheer bloody stubbornness… I don’t know and really do not care, but that night I spoke to Jesse and pathways cleared. I was sure of what I wanted, certain that nothing would get in my way now. Jesse is my pathway to happiness and now my back’s against that proverbial wall. I won’t give up on him or us. I sat with the sun breaking through the treetops, dappling it’s wintry rays on my face… closed my eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath. There was peace there a while. I could hear black birds singing, cars, people going about their day, Jesse pounding out drafted emails to clients. But despite the noise, a hush came over my stressed mind and I listened to me a while… to what my heart said I wanted.

This has been an odd week for me filled with cathartic rushes and dull rainy miserable winter days. But each day, no matter how low my mood sank, I got up and made my way down to the March Hare Cafe, sat in the warm hub bub of life listening to others in their normality, making Christmas plans, whose house they were eating at, hopes that aunt Ethel would cook the turkey properly. Someone’s sister would clean the house. Uncle whatsaface wouldn’t get drunk and show the family up to the in-laws (or is that outlaws? I can never be sure). But as I sipped my now new favourite drink, a large Americano with skinny almond and vanilla flavoured whatever it is, I looked about myself and thought ‘how wonderful it would be to be boring again’. Well, not boring, but normal, I guess… to go about life without a care, without wondering what the hell was going to hit you next. Decorations hang from light fittings, the tree sits in the corner twinkling away with every breeze from the ever opening door, and for the first year it means nothing. After last year’s sweetness spent with Jesse, our first tree, Cumzi the dog watching our companionable industrious goings-ons, laying in his arms, (Jesse’s not Cumzi’s)… it was all so perfect.

When I come back from the cafe, it’s straight back up here to my room. I perch very very delicately on my bed with a muttered hope and a prayer that it won’t make that dreaded sound; a cross between a loud bang and boinnnnng. This, ladies and gents, is, in itself, an art form. I’ve yet to manage this. I’ve never managed this. Each time I try and just think ‘Yeahhhh !!!! I’ve done it!’ the loud bang occurs. I sink into the slowly disappearing mattress that falls through the loosened bed slats. Jesse is left on my bedside table in phoneland, the phone either sliding down the side between the table and bed, dangling in mid air or just wondering where the hell I’ve gone as I sink further into oblivion. I try to pull myself out while Jesse is, by now, in fits of laughter. All he can see is flaying arms and legs in the air and the air blue with curse words. I do eventually right myself, like some upturned turtle, pulling myself out of my pit, then sitting about trying to repair the bed which requires much shuffling of wooden slats and shifting a heavy mattress. My back’s sore and I’m bruised but I’m getting quite good at gently perching my mattress over said slats without them moving again. This, I come to the conclusion, is solely to lull me into a false sense of security as the minute I sit on this bloody bed it boings, and I fall through again. Talking of which I had better set to and put it back together. It just went as I sat to writing this.

But despite the bed, people’s disparaging comments, the phone… oh, don’t get us started on how many times these phones have disconnected – those blooming pings and bloop bloop bloop before the calls dropped, sounds that fill me full of panic. It drives us both insane. Top that off with Jesse going in shops, putting me down in phoneland on the counters, paying, then walking out without me or said phone… me screaming out futily at his back as he walks away “Jesse! The phoneeeeeee!!!!!!” He, of course, can’t hear me without his earbuds. Oh yes, life is anything but dull in this wacky world of mine and my love’s. Whatever you’re doing folks, enjoy one another and most of all take care. xx