Have you ever seen the series Gavin and Stacey? I have. It's perfect. I want that. Surely it shouldn't be that impossible?
The last few days have been a bit of a blur, I've been forcing myself to go through the motions while suppressing myself from doing what would come so naturally... curling into a giant ball and texting Miles.
He called me the other day, it was a little unexpected and came exactly at the right time as I had not long returned from another horrific day at work (again!). We spoke on the phone for about an hour, he calms me with such ease. In terms of 'us', we are no further forward with, in fact we are no-where. It's over. We speak barely, never flirt and all the while I've still no idea (if this was the outcome), why he couldn't just have said it was where he wanted to be all along and saved me the pain of trying to grasp at something as it fades away like smoke.
He is always on my mind. Today I was in a meeting at work talking about some conference call or other and out of nowhere out popped his name mid sentence. Luckily I don't think anyone noticed. You see even when I'm not thinking about him, I'm thinking about him. He invades my dreams, my conscious thought and my resting mind... It is altogether impossible move on. I just don't know how.
I found myself contemplating Facebook and the lives of others yesterday - a dangerous game; but I just don't get it. In the last two years I've known two marriages one long term couple split up, all parties of which have since moved on. It blows my mind! How can people be so flippant about it all?!!? What makes it so impossible for me when others seem to be able to flick a switch? The last thing I want when love fails is to step right into the game, and even when I do I rarely 'fall'. I think it took me a good two years to start dating after Clutz, and another two before I met Mr X; after him well... you already know that story; and here I am... Miles.
I didn't plan for this. I didn't plan to fall for someone in a different country, I didn't plan to fall in love when I met him, and I certainly didn't plan to be where I am now; wondering where to go and how to squash feelings that for me are so real and deep that if I'm honest I struggle to understand how they came to be so readily. Yep bloggers, I'm definitely a black or white girl. There's no middle ground, even when I try to convince myself there is, god help you if you get caught in the crossfire of the land of grey - when the penny drops and I realise you'll never be more than mild amusement, I'm cutting. There's no ghosting or fading away in this little chick's dating land. Not when I'm the A-player. Smoke doesn't exist, only fire and ice.
I was at a friends wedding last weekend and was asked for my number by one guy and had another get my digits from my friend (he has yet to be found forgiveness) to text me and tell me he thought I was 'hot' - ummm way to rock the 90s vocab. Needless to say rather than feeling flattered it only served to make me think about Miles and that bloggers resulted in the one thing any self respecting 21st century girl should aim to stay away from... The drunken text. Phones should come with brethalisers). Did I mention the fact I was hot potato while making a total prat of myself declaring that I missed him I hear you wonder. No, no I did not. For all Miles knew I had been sat there sniffling into a glass of prosecco all night. Not ceilidh dancing and playing enforced social butterfly - drunk text Ser3ndipity just went for full on mental case! Wedding aside, men have been creeping about all over the place. I've been asked for a drink thing by a guy at work who refers to himself as 'Hunter', I mean seriously... Hunter?! Needless to say I smiled politely and like with the others, rapidly declined. Mr Helicopter and a couple of guy friends I've known for a while also seem to have sensed the single-ness even though I've not declared it, and have made mumblings of drinks. I'm just not interested. There's some serious irony that Miles asked me what I would do if someone asked me for a drink if we were going to see where it went... I can't even bring myself to go for a bloody drink with a guy after its over, let alone when we were on the same track!
Red and Evanescence have both been giving me girl advice. They're such great friends when it comes to listening to my boy dilemmas, but even by their own admission this one is tough because it is so rare that I declare I've fallen in love. I'm not quite sure they know what to do with it to be honest. I think they are both a little perplexed at it and are hoping I'm a little confused. Evanescence told me I should cut him out, that he isn't any good for me, and that he's messed me about saying he wanted to see where it goes when he clearly doesn't. She did a really quick about turn after giving me some solid anxiety advice when I first got back - she's the reason I did the jump and put my cards on the table telling him exactly how I felt and how I would be happy to slow things right down, right back to the start if that's what he needed providing he and I were going to be exclusive. Yep, Evanescence thinks I should run for the hills and fast. Red is a little more balanced, she and I are very similar in some respects and she knows it will take a lot for me to tell myself that there is nothing else that can be said or could done to find a way forward. That said, she had me download tinder the other day and go swiping... 2 hours of 'left, left, left, left' and I realised it wouldn't matter if everyone on there had right swiped me, I would never know. I wasn't interested. They weren't for me. They weren't him. They weren't Miles. I deleted it and removed myself.
I think Miles and I will drift further and further apart over the next few weeks, the festive season. All the while him thinking it came to a natural end, and all the while I'll be thinking about him constantly as my mind runs things through over and over driving me insane wishing there was something I could do, but at a total loss for words. He will disappear and I'll be screaming 'I love you, is there nothing at all we can do, please don't leave' on the inside.
It will sound insignificant and stupid to some of you, but I keep coming back to my tattoo...
One small heart with three dots. Three. Not four or five or six; three. Clutz, Mr X and the spare dot for the last guy I was ever going to fall in love with and give my heart to. There was never going to be a fourth dot. I don't want a fourth, I never wanted a fourth. He was meant to be my forever. How could I have read things so wrong. I'm going to get it covered up. Not to move on, but to signify that I found love three times, three fantastical times and that it was enough. It isn't what I wanted. It didn't end how I wanted, but I'm not looking anymore. The fractures run too deep. I'll work it all out, how to grow old by myself, how to move forward by myself. How to press the stop button if I can't. The girl who had three dots, three beautifully all encompassing dots, each more magical than the last. I'll remember them all with love and fondness. Love and fondness and wishes that one day at some point they look back and remember me with a smile. If history repeats itself Miles will find the girl that magically lights him up in the not too distant future, the one that comes after me; always the one that comes right after. His forever person. I'll smile when he tells me, like I did with the others. Smile while I'm breaking inside. I know, I just KNOW he was the third. I've never felt like that before. Not fireworks and intensity, but softness, calmness and happiness. Quiet and yet so incredibly loud.
Three dots. One, two, and I jumped and there was the third when I least expected it.
I could tell you a million and one things, how I'm not sleeping because I can't switch off at night; how I've starting shaking and hear the blood whoohing in my ears as my heart beats through my chest each day I walk up the stairs to the office. That I've been starving myself and my stupid messed up body has rebelled by bloating leaving me hating every inch of my body even more, the body that let me down, the body that wasn't good enough. I could tell you about the pain in my abdomen, the cramping that has worsened and worsened over the last two weeks so much so that at times I'm doubled up in half that I'm petrified to go to see the GP about. The thing is bloggers, it doesn't matter. None of it matters, because the last thing on my mind at night and the first thing on my mind in a morning is him. He'll never know how important he was to me and I'll never quite know if things would have turned out differently if I hadn't given him the unedited version. If there was something I could do or say that could have us back on the exclusive page with the couple app still in play, lists and trips and adventures and dancing in the kitchen ahead. It's funny how that's the thing that keeps coming back to my mind. The simplicity of it all, the smile that lit me up on the inside. The knowing that he and I could have lived in a cardboard box on the street and it would still have been enough.
We weren't Gavin and Stacey. I was fire and he was ice. I fell and he wasn't there to catch me.
If you had only one day left to live what would you do...?
I would try to figure out how to find happiness.
Stephen Fretwell - Run
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