Joni Mitchell and James Blake can say it better than I can. I haven’t found how to articulate it in glasses of red wine this weekend either and I’ve tried. My friends have been amazing. Such a wonderful circle of support. They really are a ray of sunshine in all of this politics, recession, personal sadness. Who doesn't need roast chicken? lots of cuddles? a sofa to crash on?
A saving grace of this week, I think, is that I was able to tell Ivan exactly how I feel. I have always tried to be totally uncompromisingly honest. To say I don’t know when I don’t, to say I love you even if it makes him uncomfortable, to show upset or anger. I miss him. And yet I can’t see a future together. Despite all our similarities, and our often eerie connection, I think we are set to have different lives.
He was very dignified, telling me his feeling won’t change quickly, that he will still want to see me in May when he is in ‘Europe’ even if I decide not to travel after Christmas, and that I should take my time before any decision. I also today felt I truly heard how he feels about me. I need reassurance, he doesn’t. He just doesn't want to fight, and I've been goading him. He keeps saying his feeling don’t ebb and flow. Mine don’t either, but I do feel that my thoughts about what I want from the next few years are growing, and coming into view stronger. I imagine myself, a childless cynical spinster regretting all this. Perhaps I am just secretly annoyed that this redundancy hasn't led him to say he will move to England. But I am not willing to drop my dreams to be an academic, to travel, to spend quality time with my grandma in her last years, to accept my life as one where I rely on him for so much financial and emotional support. Political differences, or aspirations, or personality traits that would normally be so slight grow messy and strong with a recession, and these thousands of miles distance. What started as a phone call about my dates to fly to visit has become - I’m not even sure what just yet. A very sad and unproductive weekend.
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