wendy house

He told me that he was moving out. Today. We would not be spending the rest of our lives together, from today. The silence screamed as this inconceivable announcement bounced around my mind, never settling or subduing.

18 years later, remembering that moment spurs tears. He has my unconditional love for eternity. A few years earlier he’d been so keen for us to get married.

Sure, if that’s what you want, let’s have a big party for all our friends and family. I’ll love you forever, whatever, no marriage necessary. You’re a big part of my soul.

I wouldn’t wish loss like that on anyone. When marriages between beautiful people fail, I’m reminded of that day and the following years of learning to live with a rattle in the empty part of my soul. Like the rattling fan on my dying boiler except this is a rattle no-one else can hear in a hole no-one can see.

Since then I’ve had fun relationships, sensible relationships, all sorts of mixes with special people. My soul doesn’t rattle as loudly, but the gap is unfilled.

I tell myself it’s better to have lived that kind of love, and lost it, than never to have loved at all. Mostly, I believe myself because when I phone him, or think of us together, I can’t help but smile and LOL.

A sharply frosty new year’s morning. Glowing from a sociable celebration in my local pub, stumbling homeward bound along Love Lane with my first, second and third boyfriend. One boy, a ringer for James Dean:

James Dean Ringer (JDR): will you marry me?

17 yr wendy: Oh! Yes! after I’ve finished my A levels and got my degree

JDR: Why? Why can’t we get married this summer?

wendy: marriage is for life – we’ve got a lifetime to get married. Waiting 4 years is nothing as part of a whole life time. We’ll be able to save up for a home together and I’ll be able to get a job to help out financially

JDR: If you don’t want to marry me this summer, then it’s over

wendy: Huh? Are you serious? I’ll love you whether we’re married or not. I’m not going to marry you as a way to stop you from leaving! If you’re going to leave, you’ll leave, if you want to stay, you’ll stay

I never saw him again. It broke my heart because I didn’t understand how he could propose a lifetime together one moment then leave in the next. Most baffling. In the following years he sent valentines cards from four different continents. I remember him fondly…

Will you have forgotten me? Our first kiss was a surprise, not in the script or rehearsals. You’d planned it without knowing how I would’ve reacted. Your move wasn’t blocked, your instincts were right. A perfect, if tense, moment.

We didn’t know then, that I would’ve stayed with you forever. After you’d left, I expected to find someone else, or that someone else would’ve found me. Decades later, my spontaneous phonecall bought four hours of laughter. Briefly, centre stage again before returning to my place in the wings.

My future will have been littered with walk-on parts, as an optional-extra.

This 100 word post was darned hard to write, more drafts than an Irish castle! I’m normally too lazy to think about using tenses and suspect I’ve used the future perfect, imperfectly. The effort was inspired by the efforts, and an outstanding 100 word post, of Happy Frog and I

In my dream I was  still living with the *anker  that I actually  left in 2000 after years of building up the pluck to walk out.   Tight black leather jeans, tears bullying,   and that was just his his contribution to the dream, mine was even more icky.   I fell over several times at a cricket match during the game.   Most embaressing.  

Godley and Creme sang Under your thumb

you’re the only girl for me

We laughed together at his assertion.    It was one of the most honest expressions of closeness I’d heard then or since.

After two weeks of dating that involved lots of

• laughter,
sleeplessness,
loud singing after dark,
passionate debating of  the relative efficacies of pychological theories,
burning of incence, nicotene and canabis

He dumped me.

Easing the suprise with the phrase ‘you’re the only girl for me’ and  explaining that he preferred boys.   With hindsight, this explained the dearth in exchanges of bodily fluids.

20 years later. He’s still passionate, humourful, debating, smoking, prefering boys and I’m still the only girl for him.   Only now there is even  less excahniging of bodily fluids because the boy’s grown into a christian

priest

1994-2007

This sofa with  design and print  chosen by a person I lived with in   1994.  

He wouldn’t take it when he left.   He dumped me with the sofa-print from hell.   It’s fabulously comfortable and works perfectly well as a Sofa if you shield your eyes or use a throw.   Hence the sofa and I spending 13 years together despite the ‘looks’ issue.   But.  

Enough is enough

Craigslist put an end to the relationship.   Hoorah.   Furniture Freedom!

The sunrise thrust an orange glow through the undressed window onto the freshly painted brilliant white bedroom walls.    A small, sparsely decorated, warm,  dry  first new  home.   The bedroom empty,  save a matress upon which  is scattered a  duvet, pillows, sleepy him and I.   After unpublishable morning exercise two large mugs of tea joined us in the bedroom.

wendy:   this could be the most exquisite, happiest, moment of our whole lives.     it’s all downhill from here

him:   it’s not far down from a matress on the floor

wendy:   lets remember this morning for the rest of our lives…    

 him:   a little more exercise and another cuppa will help secure the memory

wendy: …mmmmmm….. (unpublishable)

20 brilliant things.   A self-referential indulgence    

Any one of these things can make my day sparkle:

1. Bakelite
2. Boyfriends
3. Bunnies
4. Cheese
5. David Byrne
6. Dreams
7. Glasses (optical accessories)
8. Gravity operated catfood dispensers
9. Hats
10. Lists
11. Mums
12. Other people’s clothes
13. Paper
14. Poetry
15. Pressies
16. Pretty dresses
17. Real Ale (NOT US Microbrews)
18. Wendy’s Frendys
19. Wendy’s Wardrobe
20. Yellow roses

What is really brilliant is that this list could go on and on and on and on….   …there are soooooooo many brilliant thangs…     …your brilliant list of things is probably different.   May include  furry bedding or something.   What-ever,     lots of goodies for the holidays.

W wonderful-thanging