damaged goods...

time for a little bit of the past, a bit of purging...

****

i first met him when i was going through my divorce... things were getting messy, i was advised to get a lawyer, and after asking around I was given two names... one was a woman, a pitbull they assured me. she would go for the jugular... the other was a man, a less flamboyant personality, more cautious, more reasonable, but quietly persistent just the same...

i chose the man, i didn't feel comfortable with the hard-nosed approach, and it had never been my intention to clean the ex out of everything he had, i just wanted my share... i didn't want the jugular, i just wanted to tap a small vein...

throughout the 2 years of demands, counter demands and court appearances that followed, we saw quite a lot of each other... as was to be expected in those circumstances we became quite close, he knew so much, and more, about intimate details of my previous life... i felt comfortable and safe in his hands. he was an intelligent and sensitive man, and although not ever likely to make the hottest 100 list, there was attraction there... and an element of flirting, if i am to be honest, on both sides...

court case over and settlement agreed, we continued to meet for the occasional drink, every few months... he was in a long-term relationship, and i too, was involved and living with someone... we were friends with that occasional sparkle in the conversation, and the knowledge that each finds something attractive in the other, nothing more... and nothing more crossed our minds...

one day he called me... we were planning to meet that night, and did i mind if he cancelled? it's just that his girlfriend of 9 years had just up and left him without warning the day before and he didn't feel up to socialising... he sounded devastated, shattered... my heart went out to him...

a few weeks later he called again, to reschedule the drink... we met more frequently after that, I listened to his tales of woe, and he listened to mine... my relationship too, was on the rocks, and i was moments away from starting that god-awful process of deciding who keeps the sofa, who gets custody of the cat....

many drunken evenings spent consoling each other, and the inevitable happened, of course it did... i marveled at my ability to slide right from one into the waiting arms of another, ignoring the danger that lurked... it was not easy, both of us were damaged goods, sensitive to the tiniest details... but, with time and patience we could work it all out...

we always socialised over my side of town, never his... he met my friends, i never met his... i didn't think about it much at the time, wrapped up in those heady early days, when you can think of nothing else but the other, wanting to spend every waking minute with them... and he didn't mention me to her... not that i cared, she was history, right?

and so we carried on for a couple of months...iI ignored the external signals that all was not right, and i repressed the internal ones... the monster inside me, the depression, was breaking out of its box, but i put the tendency to lurch from euphoric highs in his presence to devastating lows in his absence down to the stress of the months that we had both passed... breakups are difficult, but we're on the mend, i've got a new man, and everything is going to be alright...

then one day, she came back... after months in her own personal wilderness, just like that, she came back... and decided that it might be a good idea to try again, one doesn't simply throw away 9 years, does one? and by the way, how about a spot of couples counseling?

and she didn't know that i existed...

he came over to my flat to tell me the news... what did I think he should do?

it was winter, and cold... in my memory of the years that followed it was always winter, and cold, and the watery sydney sunshine failed to penetrate the inside of my north-facing flat...

the black monster broke free of his constraints and put his hands around my throat...

i was stoic... of course one doesn't throw away 9 years like that... it's good to resolve these things, closure, etc... i convinced myself i wasn't worried... i was much more attractive than she (judging by the photos i'd seen) and if what he'd said was anything to go by I was a star in the bedroom... i would win...

he was a thinker that man... at first, that was what i liked about him, but after time passed it was the thinking that nearly killed me... it took him several weeks to decide whether he wanted to try the counseling or not... in which we carried on as we always had, me constantly fighting back the anxiety, trying to be the light, bright, better alternative... the monster tightened his grip...

i left for a trekking holiday in Peru... i left, still not knowing if he was going to go back and try it all again, or not... and in one single moment, on top of a mountain, i knew with a certainty, with a sinking heart that the decision had been made... and when i returned, to about 20 messages on my answering machine, my fears were confirmed... they were going to try again...

no worries... i am light, i am at one with the universe... i am prepared to risk my heart for this man... i will wait... i am more attractive, more fun, better in bed, closure is good... etc...

so he went to counseling and he lied, by omission... he never once mentioned my name... i didn't exist...

she moved back in to his house... across the other side of the city i settled in for a long drawn-out siege... he still never mentioned my name...

but he never gave me up either... he emailed, he called, he visited... moments of cold, stolen, gut-wrenching passion... and me alone in the eternal winter... he couldn't lose me, i'd come to mean too much to him, but now was not the right moment to tell her... she's not ready for it, he's got a major case coming up... then there were bushfires, someone's mother in hospital, major projects at work, illnesses, depression, something to do with some teenage kids... i swallowed it all, wondering when the universe was going to hand me out the prize for longevity...

days, turned into months, turned into years...

i fantasised about leaving him, i threatened him with ultimatums, deadlines... all of which dissolved into nothing the next time the phone rang or an email pinged it's way into my inbox... i needed him like a junkie needs his fix... i needed him to make me feel sexy and attractive, and to feed into the dark, desctructive, all consuming certainty that i was a shitty, worthless person, who didn't deserve to be loved... i lived for the drama, the angst, the stolen passion, the tears, the recriminations, the sadness, the guilt and the make-up sex... this must be love...

the black monster was the one taking all the decisions now... inevitably those were the decisions that caused the most pain... your life is fucked up, let's fuck it up a bit more... i lost my resolve, my strength, i was broken... i bored my family and friends with endless analysis and re-analysis... i went to a shrink who told me i had serious clinical depression, wrote me a script for anti-depressants and asked me a lot of questions about my mother... i threw the script in the bin and never went back...

i toyed with the idea of suicide, seriously... the only reason i never took that step was because of the obligation i felt towards those who cared about me... it's not natural for children to die before their parents... imagine the hurt they would feel... i hated them all, for caring about me, for loving me and forcing me to stay and live through another shitty day...

i carried on... i went to yoga classes in the mornings, and curled up in the bath, or on the bed, crying for 4 hours at a stretch afterwards... i worked like a dog, many late nights and weekends... i went out and partied... i drank, a lot... all the time waiting, filling up the hours/days/weeks between one visit and the next...

as time passed, the contact became more sporadic, weeks went by instead of days... i started to cure, and the eternal winter started to show signs of spring... sometimes I noticed the sun shining, sometimes I smiled, and enjoyed myself, deeply and from the heart... but always, there was another phone call, another visit, and I would be reeled back in...

there is no dramatic end to this story... the contact just petered out, months and months went by and he didn't call again... and slowly i joined the land of the living... i took out the hammer and nails, boarded the monster back up in his box and decided I would be fine on my own, that i would do all those things i'd wanted to do, but never got around to... i quit my job, gave up my apartment, packed everything in boxes, and with a backpack on my back, set off to do all that traveling i'd never done... live in a city I'd never been to before... destination: europe, london... unexpected, extended stopover in mondragón...

****

sitting in an internet cafe in paris, some 18 months after the last time i'd had news of him, i checked my email, and saw again in the list of unread messages that name that always had made my heart beat a little faster... except this time my heart didn't beat quite so fast...

he wanted to get in contact with me, to explain his absence for the last little while... he had contacted the office, they said that i had left the country... he wheedled my new email address out of them, he had so much he wanted to tell me... and there he was, stretching out a hand to join him in the blackness again...

fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

****