Parallel Universes

So KP found the blog. Not entirely surprising I guess, as there’s been various chit chat about Sisters In The City on Facebook. I got a message at 4pm today… “Are you Sister Louise?” Heart in mouth, I denied it… and then asked him not to read any more, (to which he agreed). It seemed to be a cruel twist of fate that he should find it just as I’m starting to write something positive and just as we (KP and I) have finally, in the last couple of weeks, achieved an unaffected if somewhat distant friendship. I had always wanted to maintain a friendship. Closure had been difficult, our break-up had come out of the blue for me, it rattled me, challenged my sense of security. I gave up any hope of getting back together with him very soon after we broke up, but I needed him to need me as a friend, because I couldn’t understand the great big gaping hole between living together, cosy, coupledom… and nothing. In my head, if there was nothing, then he never really loved me. And if he never really loved me and I believed that he had, then how was I meant to believe anyone who might portend to love me in the future?

But then a few weeks ago, I stopped caring, I gave up. Since then (as always seems to happen when you stop caring) we’ve had several unaffected friendly chit-chats via messenger. Maybe he sensed the pressure lift, that it was now his choice. I don’t know. But the conversations were different, I no longer felt like prey being ripped apart by the predator. We had reached level ground.

But you see, I’ve maybe learnt a lot these last few weeks. The start of my year was dismal as I’ve mentioned before, the ‘thing’ I couldn’t mention was a disciplinary procedure at work, which seemed huge at the time but was actually systematic of a male dominated, cut throat, working environment, with no procedures for performance review and people management. When I started talking to girls at work, I found others going through the same thing, someone far more superior than me had been offered her ‘references’ for daring to suggest that the culture in our work place was ‘diseased’. This on top of burglary, towings, uncertainty about getting into a new relationship had led to me becoming anxious, jumpy and unable to cope.

And then I spoke to someone. My first love. I was with him for four years and on and off for a fifth. It didn’t work out, we were young, like a couple of lion cubs intermittently playing and fighting. We needed to grow up separately from each other and find our own pathways. And when I rang, tired and stressed and coming down off some awful tablets the doctor had given me which had made me feel ten times worse - he told me this. He said that everyone is the centre of their own Universe. That no matter how much we care about others, we are all pre-occupied with our own world. That if someone doesn’t do what you expect them to, it’s not because they don’t care necessarily, it’s just that they’re trying to deal with their own life first. He told me, because he knows me, that I’ve always been too hard on myself, that I put too much pressure on myself, that I need to start celebrating what I do right and not what I don’t. He told me he didn’t like hearing me in a state. I know I worried him. We split up six years ago and yet he still drove five hours and came to see me, hugged me, talked to me and said if I ever get in another state to ring him, not to be alone. And I guess what I’m trying to say is that people are different; some friends have more time for you than others. Some love interests will declare you’re ‘the one’ within five minutes of meeting you and then five months later, declare you’re not. Some will be in your life for years and then exit it suddenly. But every once in a lifetime, someone (lover or friend) makes your heart sing because their love for you burns to the very core of their being and, despite risking exposure to old wounds, they’ll extend their Universe just wide enough to let you in for a while… just when you really, really need to be let in.