Friday morning, I took Suzie to the airport. So it ends, and we begin again.
Suzie and I were together for nine years. When we met, I was living at my parents, studying Biology, writing in a newspaper. She was married (with an adult daughter living at home), studying history, editing and writing in the same newspaper.
She was my first real girlfriend.
I got my own place so I could be with her. I got a job so I could get a place so I could be with her. For nine years, she was the most important person in the world to me, and the closest.
Now she’s gone, to Switzerland, where she will write the next chapter of her life, and the apartment is still filled with the shed skin of her previous life, her life with me. The nails in the walls, bits of laundry and cosmetics, cats (Three in the house, with me, Twenty five in the yard, in the next-door neighbour’s care). Potted plants. Her name on the door.
I can’t really tell the story of my life with Suzie, and if I tried to I probably couldn’t stop. I should say that the break-up was friendly, that we both had a lot of time to adjust to the idea, which explains why I’m so muted about it, and that we still love each other. She is the most remarkable woman I have ever met.
I don’t post too much personal stuff to my blog, both because it actually requires me to write something (rather than just re-posting a link). When I do, it’s more often than not a passing thought rather than mentioning anything concrete connected to my life. But there are things I really ought to mention, and I’m alone, for the first time in a decade
is probably one of them. So this is a heads-up notice and an obvious cheap plea for sympathy. I’d be grateful if the aforementioned sympathy wouldn’t be in the form of a comment such as:
Gee, I’m sorry.
See, now you can enjoy the perks of being alone
(I’ve already practiced this for a couple of months, thanks. Mostly, it sucks).So, now you can go about pursuing your reproductive destiny.
Well, I never really liked her anyway.
On the other hand, company, affection, and offers to adopt a cat would be very nice to have. I also have lots of things (some of them Suzie’s, like oil paints and boards, some of them mine, like comics and books, a computer monitor or two) that I would like to sell or give away. Come over and take a look.
So we end, and so I begin.