As an accelerated passage to self-knowledge living on a different continent to one’s loved one is not to be recommended, though – conversely – precisely so to be. Such antithetical circumstances are doubtless sufficiently commonplace that I need not expand further upon them here, except to say that I firmly intend to remain humbly grateful for whatever lessons are handed to me.
Learning is, of course, all about the unknown, though I have come to recognise that – at the risk of being swept into waters Rumsfeldian – some lessons come as a greater surprise than others. In the case of my voluntary separation from the Kickass Canada Girl some lessons were easily anticipated. Others came as more of a surprise.
I had – before the Girl’s return – been focusing on the emotional mechanics of living apart – on the maneuvers necessary to maintain a relationship over a long distance… the frequent if sometimes prosaic communication – the need to remain engaged in one another’s life and so forth. I had paid considerably less attention to the things that I was doing to sanction my newly solo existence in the UK. Some of these latter stratagems only really became apparent when the Girl arrived back in Berkshire last Thursday.
It seems that – having shared this living space joyfully with the Girl since last September and having then had to come to terms with inhabiting it alone – I had put in place numerous little routines and rituals that were designed to prevent myself from becoming lonely, or from suffering too many morbid memories. I had clearly applied these defences sufficiently assiduously and conscientiously that I had achieved a sort of emotional plateau, on which – though I naturally missed the Girl hugely – my existence could be maintained for much of the time in a relatively pain-free fashion. Further, this had apparently been done entirely sub-consciously without me even being aware that I had done so.
As a result for the first couple of hours being together again in our apartment in Berkshire felt slightly odd – as though some protective levee had been breached and I was in danger of all my careful defences being swept away in the ensuing flood. Fortunately – notwithstanding my fears – this did indeed turn out to be the case, and the emotional rush of being together again performed its familiar magic as a wave of joy washed us up gratefully on the sun-bleached beach of togetherness.
I’m not sure that I will ever truly become accustomed to that roller-coaster moment when one crests the rise on the big dipper – but thankfully we will not have to do so too many more times.
In that – as in so many things – we are fortunate.
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