Dozy Writes

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Last week I had an emotional breakdown whilst in a shop looking at kitchenware.

I was perusing the available items and deciding which ones I would furnish my imaginary kitchen with – I have not had my own kitchen, or my own house for that matter, for over three years so it amuses me to play this little game.

Whilst looking at some utensils, my gaze wandered to a vegetable peeler. Suddenly I realised that I had tears in my eyes as I recalled a memory of my partner, A.P, using a similar vegetable peeler to prepare dinner for me.

My mind flooded with images of his strong hands grasping the small kitchen implement with confidence and ease.

I had to leave the shop quickly, fearful that I was in danger of descending into a full blown episode of ugly crying with all of the gulping and snot that accompanies it.

You may wonder why such an innocuous memory could cause such sadness.

The truth is that towards the end of last year, A.P and I made the incredibly difficult decision to separate. 

We realised that our lives were moving in different directions and we found ourselves on different paths. 

Some may wonder why we couldn’t find a compromise that would allow us to stay on the same path. The simple fact is that our love for each other is so deep that we don’t want to stand in each other’s way.

Many years ago, we recognised that we were each on a spiritual journey and that it was important to us as individuals to follow our dreams without holding ourselves back.

We didn’t want for one of us to be forced to follow the other person’s path. That would only lead to resentment further down the line and neither of us wanted to sully our love with bitterness and bad feelings. 

Our relationship, which rarely followed a traditional template, set the tone for our separation.

A perimenopausal rage

I must confess that immediately after our decision to separate, I tried to engage my usual break-up technique of shouting and venting my frustration in an attempt to burn some bridges. 

I commenced a magnificent performance where I exhibited a rage known only to a perimenopausal woman, spitballing frustrations as if I was some kind of gangsta rapper. 

The whole time A.P calmly watched me, without interruption.

After ten minutes I ran out of steam and, putting my hands on my hips in a defiant manner, I announced that I was still angry but that I had run out of things to say for the moment. 

A.P started laughing and then I started laughing.

‘Did you mean to be funny?’ he asked me later.

‘Not initially’, I replied, ‘But I did start to find it funny when I was halfway through.’  

‘Nothing you said was different from anything you’ve ever told me before,’ he said. ‘Well, apart from calling me a prick. You’ve never called me a prick before.’

We laughed again and I explained that I felt that I needed to burn some bridges because I believed that was the way to ensure I could walk away.

A.P took hold of my hands and looked at me with love. ‘The problem with trying to burn bridges,’ he said, ‘is that the fire gets extinguished when it reaches the water line. The structure still remains underneath.

In anyone else I may have taken this as a threat but in A.P it was an important reminder that no matter what I said or did, our underlying bridge structure would still be there. 

More importantly, I realised that I didn’t want to burn it down, I was simply falling back into old habits, taking comfort from their familiarity.

A magical two days

After making this momentous decision and organising my return trip, we decided to spend our remaining two days together enjoying each other’s company. We wanted to make the most of every last moment with one another.

We had an elaborate cheese board in front of the fire, one of our favourite traditions from the early days of our relationship.

We hugged and we laughed, we talked and we reminisced. We put off sleeping for as long as we could, not wanting to waste our precious moments together.

As we lay together in bed that final night, each of us dreading the arrival of the  morning, we gazed up at the fairy lights above the bed and cried.

Fucking fairy lights.

Who knew that these small dazzling LED lights could play such a major role in our relationship.

I have always been obsessed with fairy lights and A.P was happy to feed that obsession.

Whether it was the fairy lights he wrapped around the mast of his boat for me, or the ones he used to make a bedside lamp which were artfully coiled inside an enormous olive jar, he was always keen to create some magic for me. 

He didn’t even complain when I decided I wanted two olive jar fairy lights rather than just one, meaning he had to eat olives solidly for another two months in order to get an additional jar.

Then there were my 40th birthday fairy lights. On the night before my birthday, I could hear him hammering away outside in the dark. I had strict instructions not to look out the window because it was a surprise. 

Eventually, he came back into the house and when midnight arrived, he switched off the bedroom light, wished me a happy birthday and opened the curtains to reveal my hobbit-like shed, magically lit up with fairy lights.

It was a moment of pure love and romance.

And finally, there were the fairy lights he had arranged on top of the canopy bed which we found ourselves lying under on our final night together.

As we looked up at the lights they began to dim before gradually switching off completely. The batteries had run out.

It seemed fitting and poignant that their light was extinguished at the end of our relationship.

Time to say goodbye

When morning arrived, we were both quiet, not looking forward to saying goodbye.

Over the last couple of years, A.P and I have said goodbye many times.

The nature of our lives meant that we often found ourselves saying goodbye to each other in a busy street or on the concourse of a train station as we headed off on our individual adventures, never certain when we might see each other again. 

However, this final morning was different because we knew that this was a definite end. It was a farewell to our relationship.

As he walked me to the taxi, we instinctively reached out and clasped our hands together, something we didn’t normally do.

Under the watchful eye of the taxi driver, A.P cupped my face in his hands and through our interlocked gaze, we shared the wealth of feelings and emotions that words alone could not convey.

I sat quietly in the back of the taxi and watched the sunrise appear. The dawn of my new life. A life without A.P.

When I arrived at the airport, a part of me hoped that A.P would arrive, flustered and out of breath, to try and persuade me to return.  

But this wasn’t a film or TV show. In real life, we respect each other’s boundaries and prefer to hush the sense of drama. 

Intertwined lives

Despite our efforts throughout our relationship to maintain our individuality, it quickly became apparent after our separation that we were tightly interwoven in each other’s lives.

Far tighter than either of us had realised.

As I travelled by train from London up to the Highlands, every stop held a memory: the day we stopped for lunch in York before travelling in different directions; the sailing trip into Newcastle; our multiple adventures staying in dodgy B&Bs in Edinburgh. 

There was also a romantic trip away in Fife where we missed seven junctions on the motorway because we were so enthralled with each other that we stopped paying attention to the directions.  

(Confession time: I also may have misread the directions and used the instructions for approaching from the south rather than the north.)

As the train passed Lindisfarne, I looked out the window and remembered the incredible day we’d had sailing there – one of the few days where I wasn’t vomiting over the side of the boat. 

And yet, despite the vomiting, A.P still thought I was magnificent. He said he thought I was brave because, despite knowing that I was likely to feel sick, I would go out sailing anyway.

He was my confidant and my cheerleader. My comedy partner and my best friend.

He is everywhere. Memories of him are ingrained in the food I eat, the activities I do, and the music I listen to.

I recently heard a rendition of ‘I’d do anything’ from the musical Oliver. I wasn’t prepared for the wrench of pain I experienced when I heard the line, ‘What? fisticuffs?

I sobbed as I recalled A.P singing it to me in an exaggerated cockney accent, a joke song that secretly conveyed his underlying commitment to my happiness.

It seems that, despite the less conventional style of our relationship, we were more traditional than we thought.

The aftermath

It has been a peculiar experience navigating the aftermath of my relationship with A.P because we hadn’t reached the point where we disliked each other or had lost respect for one another. 

We hadn’t argued about trivial matters or spoken negatively about each other. We hadn’t fallen out of love or lust. We just wanted different things.

There have been times in the past where I have thought that A.P was a bit weird because, let’s be honest, he is a very unusual man. But now I think he’s perfect.

He’s just not perfect for me any more.

In the aftermath of our separation, I have found myself experiencing conflicting emotions. I still love him with a passion, and yet I feel content in our decision. It feels like the right thing to do.

I have had moments of sadness so intense that it has been physically painful, as if my heart has been ripped out of my chest.

Secretly, I have hoped that he has been feeling the same level of pain, worried somehow that the absence of pain would equal an absence of love.

A part of me doesn’t want to get over A.P. I don’t want to move on. I want to stay frozen in time with our perfect memories.

A parallel world

On our final night together, A.P and I talked about an imaginary world where our relationship could continue. We created a parallel world where we each had more conventional ideas, where our differing spiritual needs weren’t quite so pressing. 

In this alternative reality we designed a tiny home, built by A.P of course. We created a successful career for me as a writer, whilst he decreed that he was happy to stay at home to look after our fictional child. 

Our fictional child’s older half-sibling would live nearby and we would have a house full of love and laughter.  

Naturally, because we are both a little bit weird, we couldn’t stop ourselves from creating some challenges to navigate in our fictional world. We also ensured that my successful career would involve a fair amount of travelling the world so we could each still have time to ourselves.

After establishing our parallel world, we sent it out into the ether, a little globe of perfection dancing around like a dust mote in the sunlight.

It was a comfort to us both to know that somewhere out there, we are together forever.

Appreciating the positives

At the time of our separation, a loved one told me that whenever she spent time with A.P and I, she could feel the depth of our love for each other.

It was obvious to her that we shared a special connection and she reminded me that, even in a lifetime together, some couples might never achieve that connection.

A.P and I had eleven magical years together. Eleven more years than some people might ever experience.

So I don’t want to focus on what I have lost. Instead I want to celebrate what we had together, and the positive effect our relationship has had on my life.

Some people might worry that by continuing to talk about A.P in a loving way, I may not be moving on but that’s not the case. I am already moving on.

I just don’t want to stop talking about him as if he didn’t exist or as if he no longer matters to me. He will always matter to me even if I never see him again.

I will never stop loving him because he is a part of me, and a vital part of my story.

A.P and I hope that one day, when enough time has passed, that there will be a way for us to be in each other’s lives again in some form or another.  

But for now, I am happy to turn my focus inwards as I embark on my greatest ever love story.

The one where I learn to truly love myself.