My dearest M,
I trust that this e-mail finds you in good form and that I hope things are going well in NY and that you are as happy as you can possibly be, what with the crap workload and the trips to the hospital, etc. I am writing to you for purely selfish reasons. This is going to be fairly long-winded so I apologise for that now. Might I suggest you make yourself a cup of tea before going further as I will take some time. Be cheered; this is not one of those gloomy, woe-woe-I-love-you e-mails of the kind that I used to write, however it is rather important and therefore you will need to grit your teeth and work your way through it. So go – make a cuppa.
There? Sorted. Good.
Now, why am I mailing? Well it is to do with my lovelife. In order to explain where I am I need to be frank and honest, and – yes – name names. Hope you don’t mind but there you are! Bit of a pain but, from my end it’s got to be done (and when we get to the bottom of this mail you’ll see why).
As you know, way back at the end of 2001 when we split - and it does seem like a long time ago doesn’t it? My main memories of living with you in Ealing seem to circulate around [CENSORED]… anyway, where was I? Oh yes, after we split I was – as you know – a complete and utter mess. I spent the best part of a year crying on the floor, taking anti-depressants and speaking to my therapist. However at the end of that, despite the fact I still loved you, I decided that the best way forward was for me to sleep with as many women as possible in the hope that one of them might make me feel the way you did. Suffice to say, no-one ever did. You were the yardstick by which every woman was compared, and no-one matched up.
However in the autumn of 2004, while I was teaching at the University of B one of my students was a short, ginger woman by the name of BotS. She was a mature student (two years younger than me) whose husband had died a couple of years previous and was now looking to change both her life and her career. She was majoring in Psychology with English as her minor subject. After a while we started going out (in fact, I think at some point or other I mentioned her to you). She soon fell in love with me; I, on the other hand, didn’t feel anything and – if I’m honest – tended to take her for granted. However, she was intelligent, witty and fun, albeit a little more gobby than I’d have chosen and with a tendency to interfere without asking whether to first. Nonetheless, we got on very well. The following year, as you know, Mum was taken ill and BotS was an absolute rock during that time. She visited Mum on nights that I couldn’t make it. She helped her wash and bathe. She even wiped her arse for her on more than one occasion. When Mum died, it is my belief that BotS thought that after all she had done for me and Mum, her reward would be… well, marriage I suppose, or at the very least, total love and full commitment from me. Unfortunately I gave her neither. See the problem was that no matter how much I denied it, I was still in love with you and – to be frank – I still believed that one day you might come back. BotS realised this but, I guess, hoped that I’d eventually get over you. However it was becoming increasingly apparent that this wasn’t going to happen. The crunch point for BotS came on the day of Mum’s funeral. As my girlfriend for over a year, she saw her place as seated next to me in the funeral car. I told her this couldn’t be as the spaces were for Mum’s immediate relatives. Actually that wasn’t totally true. I was saving a space in the car for you - and she realised that. She knew that if you’d attended Mum’s funeral, I wouldn’t have even acknowledged that she, BotS, was there – and she was right. How horrible must it have been for her to realise that? Meanwhile I was so emotionally f*cked up that day, all I wanted was to be in your arms and nobody else’s. In fact, looking back, I’ve never really cried for Mum because I’ve been waiting to do it with you. Nuts, eh?
Anyhoo, enough of the gloomy stuff. BotS and I split. I continued to think with my dick and shag around. Then in October last I started going out with FM. She’s the one that lives in Putney. She is tall and blonde – a very attractive woman. In fact, I’m quite tempted to send you a photo as I feel you’d probably fancy her yourself (but, clearly, that would be somewhat inappropriate). Anyway, I was going out with FM up until this week when I dumped her. She was very upset. “I’ve never said it because I know you don’t love me, but I do love you” she said. (You know, I think I should carry a government health warning). Love, I told her, is as much about the person you are with making you feel loved as it is you loving them. “But you did make me feel loved! We’ve never even had a single argument”. Errrrr… quite!
Anyway, there was a reason why I dumped FM and it is this (see, I’m getting there eventually). I was forty-five a few weeks ago and I was thinking about my future. I’m not getting any younger. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on my own and – equally – neither do I want to just flit from shag-to-shag in the hope that eventually one of them might make me feel the way you used to. In fact, I don’t believe anyone ever will. For whatever reason, I will probably never experience the kind of gob-smackingly, ultra-vivid, throat-in-mouth, constant-yearning love that I had for you. Instead, there are many types of love so rather than look for the ‘pinch-me, pinch-me, pinch-me, I can’t believe I feel this happy’ type love we had, why not go for something that (for want of a better term) is a little longer-lasting?
And then I got to think about BotS. She worshipped me and I treated her like shit, and the reason I did this solely was because she had the sheer nerve not to be you! How dare she not be you and love me. What was she thinking of! It wasn’t as though we didn’t like each other; we got on fantastically well. And when we split, she felt like I felt when you and I broke up. She was the one who was emotionally destroyed, and it was I who had caused her this pain. What a bastard I am!
And the more I pondered, the more I realised that not only had I been a complete c*nt, but I’d actually done it to the one person other than you who could probably make me happy. What the f*ck had I been thinking? Was I mad????
You don’t get many opportunities in this life to right wrongs that you have done, to try and help put the people you’ve broken back together. Perhaps here was an opportunity for me to do that?
So I dumped FM. I rang BotS. I told her that I wanted her to go back out with me. She was somewhat dumbfounded. We met for a drink. “Why should I trust you?” she asked. I told her I loved her. “You never said that to me in the eighteen months we went out. What’s changed?” I told her that I had. That I realised I’d been a fool and that placing my future happiness on the hope that a gay woman who lives on a different continent might return five years after she left me is probably not the most sensible way of planning the rest of my life . “Can you comprehend the depths of the pain you have caused me”? Yes I can. I’ve been there myself.
So she’s thinking about it. “If I say yes, they’ll be conditions” she said. And who can blame her? Not I, that’s for sure - but the trouble is I already know what one of them will be: to break off all contact with you. When BotS and I split she commented “Diana said that there were three people in her marriage. In our relationship there was only ever one”. And she was right, because as far as I was concerned all I was doing was treading water in the hope that one day you might come back. You have known that’s never going to happen for years (and – I suppose – why should it?). Trouble is, it has taken me until now to realise this.
So – I’m taking BotS out for dinner on Monday evening. M, you know me well enough to know that I don’t lie. If she asks me to halt contact with you, then I’m going to have to. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to. However I do want stability in my life. I do not want to be drawing my pension on my own. I don’t know how much longer I have on this Earth, but I’ve known too many men who have died before they’ve even hit sixty let alone retirement age. So, I guess the bottom line is that if you don’t want the role of my life-partner, I need to give someone else a chance to apply for the post.
I’ll keep you posted on what happens next but I wanted to give you this advance notification.
Love always,
xxxxx
