Take Good Care Of My Baby

It is 11.30pm on Friday 26th January 2019 here in London. That means it is 10.30am on Saturday January 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. How do I do I know this?

 

Well…you know that invisible string that is tied to my heart at one end and at the other end is tied firmly to Goldfinch’s ribcage – it is telling me that he is in his element this weekend. A boardgame convention – role-playing and empire building and all sorts of games that could go on not just for hours, but technically for days and days.

Now…if you are going to be there and you end up playing against my Goldfinch – then play nice! He is very wonderful. So make sure he has the best time please.

And…buy him drink for me. Go on spoil him like he deserves it – because he is rather gorgeous. Take good care of my baby.

 

(I know this is a song about a woman – but imagine I am singing it about a man 🙂 )

 

 

 

Caramel Learning To Live Again

I have been working on a new series of posts which I am going to publish next week.

I started writing about a subject I that I have kept suppressed within me for a long time. Not the night I was the victim of a crime, not the year I spent with family recovering from my injuries and the trauma of what had happened – but the six months after that. My first six months back in London.

Let me tell you – they were pretty terrible really. I did not realize how much that was the case at the time. As I have been writing about those six months, I have felt rather horrified at how incredibly vulnerable I was at that time.

I am much stronger now. I pity that woman who was trying to get back on her feet but had some horrible challenges to deal with. I am going to publish some of the experiences I had to deal with. When you read them, you might scratch your head at my reaction to the challenges I faced. But please remember that I am relating to you how an extremely vulnerable me acted – not the me I am now.

The two years before I was attacked (during which I was teased, taunted, shunned, essentially bullied and eventually maliciously slandered) had crushed my self-confidence. The year after I was attacked sheltered me from the world outside and I lost a lot of my ability to deal with challenges. I have been reading back the posts I have completed so far and it really is strange to realize the depth of my vulnerability then. But in some ways – I had to get through that awful achey shaky breaky period to develop some strength again.

Starting with my first job back in London, next week I am going to publish one post a day in the series:

CARAMEL LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN.

Thou Art Gone…And Forever

I was reading through the post from Laura Bailey, creator of All The Shoes I Wear with her Three Way Writing Prompt, which she posts each Monday. The photo above is part of that prompt and another part is the word “EVANESCENT”. I kind of knew what it meant, but I rarely use it in conversation, so I thought I would check the definition.

Evanescent: soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence;

quickly fading or disappearing

Now, please do forgive me, but I felt a ripple of pain strike through my heart. I don’t want to let go of Goldfinch in my heart. I am determined to keep him  there always. Now I have a real reason never to let go of him.

I have agreed to go for a coffee with a man (a friend of a friend) on a sort of date. Goldfinch knows – I have told him I feel awful about it – it seems like a betrayal for some reason. But it seems like a good idea for reasons I won’t write about in this post.

I am almost more terrified of the coffee-date going well, than of it being a disaster. I am going to write more about that situation in other posts. But the photo in Laura’s writing prompt and the word “evanescent” made me think of a very famous verse from Sir Walter Scott’s “The Lady Of The Lake”:

So sad!! Every now and then grief rushes over me like a giant wave and a gnawing aching thought that he has gone…and forever…oppresses me. It’s so oppressive. I cannot let it dominate my thinking. I try to dwell on the wonderful memories I shared with him and be happy that he is happy and where he belongs.

I am going out on this coffee-date because I don’t think I should wallow in grief for a long long time. I am going out on this coffee-date because  am still in constant communication with Goldfinch and can involve him in my decisions. I am going on this coffee-date because I am frightened of being alone and having to deal with future challenges on my own. I might possibly be going on this coffee-date because deep down I am in need of a man to hug me and hold me and allow the accrued pain from all sorts of losses – some little, some large to ease out of my heart.

There are things I need and am going to need in the future that Goldfinch just can’t provide from Australia. I would have been content to stay in a bubble of grief for longer. But I have to be mindful of the future.

But I do not want my love for Goldfinch to be evanescent. I do not want it to fade away. I felt so horrified at the very thought of my love for Goldfinch being evanescent that I immediately searched for words that have the opposite meaning and now I have a substantial list:

long-lived

imperishable

continuing

lifelong

abiding

durable

persistent

timeless

eternal

unfading

enduring

indestructible

lasting

immortal

I know there are others, including some wonderful bloggers, who have lost on a far greater scale than I have. I am sure you have grieved even more deeply than I. This awful dread that my love could be evanescent. This guilt over agreeing to go on a coffee-date. This determination never to let go, to cling tight to a love that has meant so much, and expect everyone in the world to know that he cannot be replaced – it’s just he’s gone, and I don’t believe he is coming back.

I am sure there are many who will understand and empathize and probably be able to express it very beautifully.

 

https://alltheshoesiwear.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/manic-mondays-3-way-prompt-evanescent/

https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/25/fowc-with-fandango-determined/