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| Blogs > titsandsmarts > StillLife (in an old girl yet) |
Falling in Love Again...
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Falling in Love Again... Despite sitting on my sofa, wrapped in a blanket and wearing a coat and hat, I have a huge smile on my face. I have finally - finally - got approval to arrange my dates for some travel later this month. Now, that's not so unusual, admittedly - I travel quite a lot with work and work-related things: in fact, I'm going to The Hague and then Geneva tomorrow. But what's making me grin from ear to ear is going back to Istanbul - and why? Because I am falling in love  I've got that delicious<b> butterfly </font></b>feeling in my tummy at the thought of seeing her again. My head is full of all the things I am going to do. I am trying not to get my hopes up and, at the same time, dreaming big dreams. It's a wonderful feeling. Like standing on the edge of a precipice, seeking the world open up around you, and feeling that there are infinite possibilities in front of you, in fact. It's daft to be so excited this time: I'm there every few weeks anyway, after all, and I have a miserable schedule this time. But as Marlene goes on to say, I can't help it. I first fell in love with a city back in 1993, and that love has shaped my adult life up until now. If I hadn't met her in that summer after the first year of undergrad, I quite literally wouldn't have had the life I have had now. My careers, the languages I speak, my understanding of the big questions in life - all of these have been indelibly shaped by that love. And I wouldn't change a thing. It hasn't been a conventional life by any means, and certainly is not one that is not at all familiar to my school friends, the people I studied with, or even my family. (I think even my mother sometimes wonders how this happens - after all, I should clearly be married to an Old Etonian and have given up my promising career at the Bar to raise two ; my father, however, knows. I followed the dream. He would be mortified if I stopped doing that, now or ever.) It hasn't been easy - and I could count the number of times it has been comfortable on the fingers of one hand. But by G-d it's been worthwhile! We had 23 mostly happy years together, and a fairly amicable split six and a half years ago. And maybe this is now why I am starting to fall in love again - the time is passing, wounds are healing even at deeper levels, and the pain is mostly gone. Of course, I could have rushed straight into another city's arms, and that would have worked for a time - but I think it's better this way: a chance to have an equal, serious relationship, where baggage has been reduced to carry-on only. I don't know what will happen with us, if we will get to the moving-in-together stage or whether we will always stay long-distance, but right now, none of that matters. I am on the brink of another glorious, headlong rush, where the future is full of possibilities. And it is making me beam with happiness. (Before anyone asks, yes, I do also fall in love with men and, on occasion, women. But that happens at least a thousand times a day.) |
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