streams of unconsciousness

In 2008, when my marriage hit a significant pothole that changed the shape of the relationship forever, I wrote this short but poignant post; Blindsided.

Now everything is different.

The marriage is gone and I live alone.

I am seeing someone, but it is an infant of a relationship.

And, lovely though she is, we both have baggage to deal with.

I hope it works out, but every now and then I recall how I was blindsided.

And I wonder what hope there is for the now, for the future, and for me.

The thing is, no matter where one has come from (in the relationship universe), regardless of how one got to this point…

The simple fact is that regardless of personal history, when you (and I’m going to use that personal pronoun from now on) start going out with someone new, there’s a lot of very delicate eggshell-walking to be done.

It seems remarkable, really, that we manage to navigate our way across the swathe of eggshells, to reach a stable relationship.

We all know that language is a code, but so is body-language. And tone. And inflection. And delivery. And eye-contact.

It is, frankly, a fucking minefield – this relationship lark.

Or perhaps ‘lark’ is the wrong word.

Because when you’re in a relationship, and when it is a high-octane, emotionally intense relationship, the word ‘lark’ isn’t appropriate.

Although there are larks (not the avians) in the relationship; there are many good times. So maybe ‘larks’ is appropriate, after all.

Anyway, I digress.

You will remember those first cautious steps; those times when you slide in to your own bed, alone, at the end of a date, and replay the day/evening/night you’ve spent in each other’s company.

And you might revisit a scene and play back the conversation and think to yourself ‘What did she mean by that?’ or ‘Oh, is that code for she doesn’t want to see me again?’.

And so it goes.

We are fragile things and in some ways our egos are even more fragile.

We have the capacity, in these fledgling steps, to damage ourselves. If we’re not careful.

If we are not careful we will spend all evening listening to melancholy power ballads while desperately wishing the dying relationship on to a healthier place…

Except, back in the real world, the relationship is hale, healthy and hearty; just that we have allowed our inner uncertainty to tip the pot of sadness on to the emotional landscape.

We are weird creatures, we eggshell-walkers.

Cool, amazing, awesome and with a tremendous capacity for greatness.

But also totally fucking weird.

I have just got off an hour-long phone call with the girl.

We chatted, we laughed and, when there were silences, we filled them with smiles.

And we decided that our ‘baby-steps’ relationship is doing pretty damn well.

Early days though, early days.