Another moonlit night

I still miss him so much.  It surprises me sometimes.

Tonight there was a show, with the pub sign from the show he directed but never saw because he was in ICU, with the long storyteller's coat that he wanted to wear to our wedding, with songs recycled from previous shows he'd been involved in.  The memories didn't hit as hard as they used to but, even so, I still left at the interval to go and find some space.

I ended up eating chips on the quay by the river and even that brought back memories of sitting on the edge of the quayside in the harbour, in the exact same skirt, on what probably passed as our first real date eating ice cream and listening to the Storyteller tell my a story all of my very own.

I'm fed up of being alone.  It hurts too much.

I'm trying to pluck up the courage at the moment to go in the pub behind me, get a drink and listen to the band properly, rather than sitting out here in the quay.  I used to enjoy going and listening to random live music in pubs.  I've never been brave enough to go by myself though.  Of course, now I've said that, it sounds rather a lot like they're taking a break. So perhaps, I won't.

By the light of the moon

It's late; my brain is caffeine-addled.  The moon is almost full.  The night is clear and shadows fill the room with a peace, of sorts.

The lack of shadow highlights the smoothness of one side of this bed.  If I sit up, I can still identify the white lights of the hospital against the orange lights of the town.  The view from this home has both comforted me and sickened me, in the past.

This home won't be mine much longer.  Four more days at the most.  Soon, someone else will watch the weather come in from the Channel, hiding or revealing the islands.  Someone else will watch the fireworks on the quay.

Soon,  there will be a new place for me.  A new kitchen to feed people from. A new home for my books.  A new home for my huge stripy blanket.

The shadows move slowly across the walls.  How many nights has their progress been tracked?  How many mornings have been spent watching the sky lighten?

This room hasn't known as many tears as perhaps it should have.  Loneliness and sorrow are old friends but rarely given vent to, not here.

Which life do I wish I was leading?  Married but poor, a carer and childless?  Married, with children but having compromised who I am to get there?  Divorced with children, having made the decision too late?  Or as I am, single, financially solvent and able to plan a complete change of career almost at the drop of a hat?

The empty side of the bed looks emptier by this light.  This wasn't what I wanted.  On a different moonlit night, six years ago, I was all of a-flutter, did I have the time for him?  If I knew then how it would end, would I still have made that choice?  Would I still have said yes?

Random update

Just so you know, I'm not ignoring this blog, I just don't need it so much any more.  I'm leaving it up because I know I've linked to it in a few different places and I want to leave those posts available just in case anyone comes back here and needs to know that they're not alone, that they'll get through it.

Thoughts of a less private nature will be found over here when I finish writing the first post

http://helenmt81.blogspot.com

Bleugh, wibble, etc

Christmas.

What joy.

On one level, I like Christmas.  I like the message of light in the darkness and all of that stuff.

On another level, ouch, it's a recipe for nothing but heartache.

I'm no longer going to go into all the details of *why* it's a recipe for nothing but heartache.  That was my plan when I started writing.  But then John 1:5 came into my head.

And there is Hope.

The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it

Wibble

Not for any particular reason, just plain wibble.

I'm feeling wibbly about going to Moorlands next year.

I've been aware these past couple of days that I am single and that has actually been the word I've used to describe myself.

I've felt mildly lost with longing when our new student, when desperately triangulating the various relationships at church, made the fairly reasonable assumption that the guy I was sat next to at the quiz last night was my husband.  No, I do look similar to his wife but she wasn't there and I don't have a husband.

I'm outright *craving* hugs and cuddles at the moment.  I just want to cling on to someone so that the world disappears.

I really want to come in from work after a long day occasionally and have someone look after me.  Not to have to put the next load of laundry on.  Not to have to work out what I want to eat for dinner.

I miss the insanity of the Flat back in the days when I never knew who was going to be here when I walked in the door.  I hated it at the time because Little Miss INTJ just couldn't cope after a long week at work but now I miss it.

There's still more thoughts stuck in my brain, about hugs and friends and the smell of aftershave and the feel of their shirt and accountability and longing and mutually snuggling into each other's necks while hugging in a technical platonic fashion (using "platonic"as the adjective there amuses me because of how I know said friend and the different belief difference involved. Perhaps storge/phileo-ic would be a better description!)

 

Loneliness

Loneliness is a complete bitch and I really wish that it couldn't get it's claws into me in the way that it sometimes does.

I really dislike coming home from a lovely sociable sort of day to realise that I'm a bit too tired and now my brain's going to grumble and crave cuddles and attention.  Come on, how long before it realises that such things really aren't an option any more?  I am single and will be for the foreseeable future. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in laying myself open to that level of pain and heartache ever again.

And that's my final word on the subject, tonight at least.

A long day

Please note, it's been a long day today and I'm more than pretty sure that everything will look better in the morning.

I don't know how to start this post.  Do I start with what prompted it?  Do I start with how I felt?  With what reality looks like at the end of it?  With what I want reality to look like?

Today's reality is that I can smell my friend's aftershave on my hair after he hugged me and it's causing me to feel almost homesick.

At this moment I want someone to call my own so much it almost hurts.  I want to know that I can get in from the office at 7.15pm and that someone will be there to cuddle me.  I want someone who'll keep me safe when I'm feeling vulnerable.  I want to be able to be able to look after someone else when they're feeling vulnerable.  I want someone who can follow my tangents and ramblings and keep up with them and anticipate them.  I want in-jokes and laughter and made-up words and silliness and to follow someone else's tangents to the point that words and sentences are all mixed up and are tumbling over each other and that no one else can keep up. I want my hair to smell of their aftershave and to be able to smile because it's marked me as theirs, in the same way that a tan-line under a ring indelibly marks me as theirs.

I want all of the security of being in a long term relationship without the pain and scaredness and heartache and freedom of letting down the barriers that I've built up.  I know that's not going to happen.  I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I've got to learn to put God first before He'll let me anywhere near a relationship that would be any good for me. I know that, as Paul says in one of his letters, it is better to be single so that you can devote your whole life to God rather than having to share time between God and your family.  I definitely know that, if that is God's long-term plan for me, I'll go along with it without too much grumbling.