Us

I wrote this about six years ago - almost to the day, in fact.
Stumbled up on this today while cleaning out my e-cupboaard
it seems so ruthlessly insightful
anyway, here goes
a blast from the past ...

''I am getting to be a real butt aperture, with a generous amount of MCP (male chauvinistic porkiness) added on top. Anything that goes against my wish and against my “Greater Scheme Of Things” upsets me terribly and then I am so irritated and generally crappy that selfishness oozes out embarrassingly from every pore.
Today her hospital informed her that they do not have accommodation for her for Aug. 2002 – Feb. 2003. This is less than 1 month before the next job, today being the 8th of July, with her job starting on the 7th of Aug. When she told me about it, she sounded so lonely and scared that it broke my heart. She said she was in the library searching the net for some sort of accommodation (that was pretty serious, she avoids the library like the plague).
I did the most sensible thing I could do – I panicked. I was in a raging fit. I imagined myself throttling the office staff in her hospital, contacting the BMA and making a case out of it, writing letters in triplicate with carbon copies and blind carbon copies to everyone concerned.
About half an hour later, I was in the middle of such a letter when I called her again and she told me that SHE HAD NOT INFORMED THE OFFICE STAFF UNTIL ABOUT ONE MONTH AGO (remember that the job was confirmed in March which means she never enquired about accommodation till 3 months later!)

Let’s stop here.

Think about the facts.

Why did I feel so angry?? Because I love her??

Oh, yeah! Heard that one before.

The honest answer remains, I did what I did because it was a spanner in the works, against my GSOT (Greater Scheme Of Things) and I can't allow it, can I?

I mean, to work up an anger, to shout at her for not enquiring about her accommodation (by the way, I still feel it was justifiable), it just shows my obsession with GSOT above everything else. It embarrasses me, at the same time, I can’t let go (like the mother of a serial killer/rapist/psychopath – she knows her son is wrong, but he’s still her son), it’s an obsession I don’t want to correct.
She says I am looking for headaches when I don’t have any. She is right, I should let her sort her problems out, me saying all this undermines her confidence and makes her feel that she can never be independent, but at the same time, a small voice in my head says “well, she is just too irresponsible right now, you have to sort her out, or she will go against your GSOT”

Its tough fighting against yourself, as I now discover.

I think about it more and more. In my universe of uncertainties, she is the Reference Point, the imaginary axis around which my world revolves, the pole star that defines the pole, the 0 that gets me started, my launch pad, my home base, my soul keep. But, when I've been out fighting the dragons, only to come back and discover that my castle is not where it used to be (especially if the aforesaid dragons are hot on my tail!) I feel, well, to say the least, kinda stupid.

No, I don’t feel betrayed; I know better, she never ever betrays me, it’s beyond her. It’s more of a nuisance, like the runs of ill-sustained VT on the cardiac monitor, like discovering that your gun has jammed just after you challenged the psycho in the corner to a duel.

An irritation, like nettle rash.

I call her again and tell her so.

She didn’t eat me alive (only vegetarian on Mondays)

Hmmm…I wonder why she muttered: 'Olanzapine by syringe driver'

Very strange.''

what does it take - the short version

it takes 5 years and 93,000 miles

what does it take ...

to be where you want to be?
to do what you want to do?
to love who you want to love?
to live how you want to live?

it takes a decision
with a pinch of denial
and a hint of a daydream

it takes the love of friends
and the tears of loved ones

it takes desire wrapped
in love and sealed with
a drop of
molten passion
- for what you believe in
- for when and where
--you want to be

it takes the journey of
a lifetime shedding excess
baggage on the way -
- looming black boxes
of pride and anger
and arrogance lie
by the wayside
like rusty old cars

it takes the fall of
frustration and the
rise of confidence

it takes the sweetening
of bitterness with a
sprinkle of hope

it takes
the absolute certainty that ...
this is the work you really want
and the love you really crave
and the place you really like
and the life you really choose

it takes the humility to
remember your mistakes

and the gratitude to
acknowledge your friends

and the love to
try your best

and the strength (oft borrowed!) to
see things through

and the (pigheaded) stubbornness
to keep your head low
and your eyes straight
and just swing away
with all your might-
-till you feel your arm ripping out
to keep swinging
and not stop to hear that
resounding CRACK
as you finally connect and
the ball goes sailing
to remind yourself
(yet again!) -
-to swing away
with all your heart
and enjoy the pain
in your torn shoulder

... for the game
has just begun ...

finally, alone in the dark,
as you lie down
and lick your wounds
and nurse your arm

you realise
(every day
every night)

that it takes
more than anything else

the good fortune

to be

a friend
to the best friends
a man could have

and a son
to the best parents in
the whole wide world