Walk the line

Whilst I'm waiting, I wonder if I should write about where I am, and why I am waiting. So far I'm unresolved, but as I wonder let me type away and see how far I get.

As I left things with you, I was certain that The Conversation was long overdue. I was right, without really knowing I'd slowly pushed a series of buttons that resulted in the most explosive of evenings. We drank, we chatted, we critiqued the woman in the cheap red shoes who subconsciously reached down to stroke her leg each time she felt the conflict of flirting with her male companion too much to bear.

Her male companion, we surmised, was married and a colleague, or possibly her boss, we both sensed a conflict of emotion - in hindsight I wonder if we projected our own feelings, as ever in tandem, onto her. At some point I made a comment which saw Mr Magic disappear in a puff of smoke that stung my eyes so much I cried all of the way home and when he eventually reappeared we talked in earnest. We talked and we talked and we talked for hours, roughly covering all topics you'd expect of The Conversation.

He said this, I said that and quite soon we were back to the lovely place we curiously left in December as it became horribly clear that we both wanted the same thing, but were also both idiots, saboteurs and gloriously in-lust with each other. We still need to talk more, but for now that has to wait as he's flown half way around the world to spend a fortnight's holiday with his other women. Yes ... quite.

This is Her, the woman with whom I share taste in men, a mutual loathing and absolutely nothing else. She is still away on a long term overseas assignment, so this will be the first time they've seen each other in six months - I wonder if anything will be different between them. I wonder if she'll notice that he has new underwear?

So yet again we have Him, we have Her and we have me who, for now, will wait, and try not to wonder too much.

Turandot

It was a picture postcard, the text he sent, a picture postcard of where he is, alone, on holiday. With: 'Wish you were here ... XX' written underneath. Amusingly I found that my mobile had done it's thing and turned itself off unnoticed by me else I'd have received it 8 hours earlier and thus would not have spent a fair amount of time fantasising about the mental torture I could serve to him. God I hate it when he's right!

A friend had mentioned he'd just gone away, so my irritation had been sparked by not knowing this, or at least not recalling that I knew this. Irritating to find then, that once he'd settled in his hotel he'd found a nice view and sent me a picture of it almost straight away. I wonder if he sent the same to the dowdy girlfriend as she is currently away on a long term mission so hence not with him (more on that, I'm sure, in another post), if he really did wish I was there or if he was just being lazy regurgitating a used text message. Furthermore given his reasonable attempt to get me to go with him whilst he was considering location, whether I wanted to be there with him, if I was irritated with his sentiment or just pleased that he thought of me at all.

Should I embrace this relationship with careless abandon, should I remain sceptical of his motives, or can I dare to sit back and gently appreciate it, all the while letting it develop into a deeper and stronger union? Rather than ponder that further let me tell you about Turandot, which I saw last night - it's the story of a beautiful Chinese princess, burnt from past experience she decides she will only marry the man who can answer her three riddles and those who fail lose their heads. The story unfolds, a prince succeeds to her horror but rather than take her hand he sets her a challenge: to discover his name before dawn - if she succeeds she can take his head, if she fails she must take his hand. The prince, blinded by her beauty and his love for her, crosses the chasm under moonlight and tells her his name, leaving his fate in her hands. As the opera reaches it's crescendo, we watched the princess take audience with her father, declaring that she knew the princes's name, and that it is Love.

If you don't already know, this is where Nessun Dorma comes from, and by the end I was fighting back tears, breathless with emotion, hand poised dramatically over my chest as if it would catch my heart when it burst out, unable to beat so fast in its own chamber. I identified with Princess Turandot; I've unintentionally set Him various challenges, which he has met at every step, and rather than bask in glory he challenges me, then changes the rules, handing me victory, relying only on the trust that comes from a deep unspoken love to save him from failure.

As a person who is loathe to trust at the drop of the hat, but who's socks have been well and truly knocked off in the most magnificent way by Him, I ask you: How does this happen in the real world, and how does one deal with it?! Baffling, quite honestly, baffling ...