You’ve probably figured by now that I’m a bit of a storyteller. For me, the recollection of events and glorious little moments in the past, is more pleasant than the actual experiencing. Why? Because you get to share the moment with other people! You know what they say: sharing a moment with someone is… magical! Be it just a brief lock of the eyes, a moment of sympathy, or just something that makes you both laugh — it’s these events we remember and retell the most.

Let’s go back 7 years.

After she left England for the second time, with no sign of returning, I had to admit to myself that this was going to be a long courtship. But the slowness of the dragged out foreplay was teasing, not infuriating. This was an epic kiss,  6 years in the making, stemming back to when I was just 16. I had to wait. I had to be patient. I had to wait through 2 false starts, a marriage to another man, and a 3 year communication blackout.

It’s odd, thinking about it now, but I always knew she was going to come back. I didn’t know when, how, or why, but I hardly batted an eyelid when she sent me an email. A brief, cursory email.

“I’m coming back to England. Want to meet up?”

‘Sure,’ I said, the email gratefully removing any proof of my shaking fingers.

I’ve been hot-air ballooning over lands that can only be described as moonscapes, watching the sun rise over the horizon. I’ve stood with my back to a mighty arch of the Colosseum as the sun set. I’ve sat atop the highest building in Belgrade and gazed out across the city, a full, blue moon glinting off the Sveti Sava.

I’ve seen and done a  lot of things, and I’m only young — God knows I’m going to do a hell of a lot more before I die — but it all pales in comparison to when I first kissed The American. It’s humbling, recalling the moment when our lips first touched. It was more emotionally intense than when I first stood at the top of the Grand Canyon and looked down. We’re talking about a chasm so large that you could fit a small country — like Ireland — in it. It was dwarfed by that kiss.

Looking back, the only moment that more readily brings tears to my eyes is when I drove a race-tuned Dodge Viper GTS around a serpentine, mountainous road in the Appalachians. They were both the source of the same kind of heady, euphoric feeling: that fantastic feeling that courses through your body when you’re doing something truly awesome. The Viper had me reeling from its acceleration; the girl had just to touch her lips against mine for the same effect.

I remember every single kiss. I can recall each and every one of them in an instant; I just shut my eyes, and she’s there. Those lips are there. The memories will never diminish.

* * *

Funny, this entry began as something completely different, and I wasn’t actually intending to write about it. I got to the end of the first paragraph, and the rest just flowed, almost automatically. The original subject was meant to be ‘A Goose Egg’. Why? I’ll tell you in my next entry.

First, a little derivation of one of the most recognisable phrases in modern English. ‘Till death us do part’ is one of a few phrases from the Book of Common Prayer. Along with the works of Shakespeare and the King James bible, these three works form the basis of English as we know it today.

I just looked up the full title, it’s one hell of a mouthful: The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England together with the Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches and the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons. I guess that didn’t fit on the front cover (it must’ve been horrible to copy out in full, back before printing presses were invented), so it’s known simply as ‘The Book of Common Prayer’ today.

It seems that the book was written and revised a few times around the 1500s and then majorly in 1662. The point is, I’m not sure who actually penned the famous phrases. I guess, much like the Bible, no one really knows who wrote it. It just kind of… appeared on paper. A great example of divine will at work, I guess…

Much like the works of Shakespeare and passages from King James Bible, phrases from the Common Prayer Book have actually become part of our language. Today, many people use phrases such as ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace’, or ‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ without really knowing where they came from; we heard them as children, or more commonly nowadays in popular media. They are very religious phrases indeed; they stem from some of the oldest Christian rites!

Anyway, using a line from the marriage liturgy was perhaps a little disingenuous, as I actually want to write about the complete opposite of marriage: death. Perhaps the ‘Earth to earth’ phrase would’ve been a better choice… Oh well!

For those of you that are following me on Twitter you might be aware that a few days ago my great uncle died. Now, being the lucky kind of guy that I am, this is actually the first death I’ve had in my immediate family, discounting my grandmother that died when I was quite young (and I wasn’t very close to). Tomorrow I will attend his memorial service, and on Thursday I will attend my very first funeral.

‘What will the mood be?’ I asked the world in general, when I found out I would be attending a funeral. ‘Bittersweet’ came the reply from my friends. Instantly, being a connoisseur of dark chocolate, my mind hopped, skipped and jumped back to the sensations I experienced while eating my very first piece of 99% cocoa Lindt chocolate. Now, I have to tell you that my first piece was enjoyed in the presence of The American, so my senses were perhaps just a little skewed, but the experience was… unique. But what I do remember clearly, once I strip out the fuzzy, love-fuelled memories, was a moment — a brief, fleeting explosion — of dark and powerful intensity. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but it was intense.

That’s what I imagine the funeral will be like: dark and intense, but swiftly followed by clarity and the brightness of things to come. Once our farewells have been said and our prayers delivered I hope the sadness and loss that hangs over the ceremony like a cloud will simply waft away. He’s gone and the darkness of his death will be quickly be replaced by the sparkling possibilities of tomorrow.

If anything does in fact remain after death, it will certainly be his wise, gently-nagging Jewish rasping voice whispering time-tested advice into our ears!

Looking forward though, even if the day itself is veiled with sadness, I know he will be happy knowing that he brought the entire family together again. People will come from all over the world — hundreds of people — to remember a great man, a man that was dearly loved by many and respected by all.

Discussing the funeral itself, I posed a rather silly question to my mother:

‘Mum, can I go to the funeral with my half-good-half-evil beard? I’ll be able to mourn with one side, and be happy with the other at the end!’

‘No, Seb, don’t be silly; there might be some nice girls there that you can marry!’

Jewish to the very end!

This is a series of posts (Time-Travel Thursday) which so far has looked only at the beginning of my time at university, between 2003 and 2004. After the events of last week’s entry I begun a relationship that would span the remainder of my time at university; it wasn’t an uneventful time, but it was particularly peaceful. I’ll write about sometime, just not today. I want to talk about the past, so you can understand a bit more about me today.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed a recurring theme: I’ve been hilariously unfortunate when it comes to girls. I’ve been fortunate too — heck, I still consider myself lucky to have been with all my girlfriends — but, inevitably, bad relationships end. I remember the good times fondly, of course, but it’s the bad times that really stick with you. The pain and emotional distress from a bad relationship and the ensuing break-up really bogs us down! Some people are still plagued by uncertainty, unknowingness and doubt from relationships that ended a decade ago. Bad relationships haunt us.

The relationship I’m going to tell you about still lingers hauntingly, affecting my decisions when it comes to other girls — potential girlfriends.

If you’ve ever experimented with blindfolds in the bedroom with a loved one you’ll know that the experience is intense. With our visual sense deprived, other senses kick into overdrive, competing and clamouring to be heard by the brain. Before you know it, you’re flinching and squirming and whimpering, unable to predict what will happen next. Your partner has you in the palm of their hand.

Ultimate gratification is a boon that only your partner can provide in such a situation. Or, alternatively, your partner could walk out of the room and leave you there on the bed, blindfolded, prone, alone, unable to act and defenceless.

A relationship itself is like being emotionally blindfolded. In a relationship, our remaining senses are heightened, our emotional empathy increases.  In exchange, our foresight disappears. Love is blind(ness)! Objectivity flies out of the window. The world you so gracefully inhabited beforehand slides into a blurred, grey background — out of sight, out of mind. It’s just you and your lover, spotlit, center stage. In my case, it was me and The American. She had me blindfolded, but it wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t make our her brilliantly bright form, picked out by the focused spot light of my love.

(Ironic, now that I think about it, that I put it into photographic terms. I’ve known her for 8 years, and I possess just 2 photos of her. And about a million mental images of her.)

In a relationship, our happiness is completely at the whim of our lover — the lover that has us chained down in a bed, emotionally blindfolded. You can’t force her to bestow upon you the heavenly, nirvana-like pleasures of love, intimacy and sex. It’s up to her. Where there isn’t an equality of control, where one person controls the entire flow of the relationship, where one partner holds the keys and forces you to jump through hoops to attain love, and thus happiness and satisfaction — these relationships are destined to fail.

If only I’d known that when I was 16.

If only I’d known, as I sat there on the bench, watching a beautiful blonde girl slowly wend her way through a throng of school friends towards me, that 8 years down the line, I’d still be nursing a fragmented heart.

She was short. Really short, perky and cute. It was a strong start, certainly. She’d finished traversing the crowd of kids and stood before me.

‘Hi!’ A ready smile, too. Good teeth. A grin that lit up her little face.

Unfortunately, she had an American accent.

‘Ah… you were doing so well, until you opened your mouth!’

The opening words of a relationship that, one form or another, would span almost a decade. Middle school, highschool and college.

I’ve told you before that I’m really mean to girls that I like, right? It’s probably a self-defence thing; a self-esteem thing. Pushing a girl away before she gets close enough to tease my heart-strings, and then inevitably dump me for a stronger, hairier and manlier man than I. Well, try as I might, this one wouldn’t be pushed. She sat down next to me and just continued to smile. I perservered. Continuing with low blows, sarcasm and a neverending, incessant pick-pick-picking of her American accent and mannerisms, I just couldn’t shake her off.

She loved it. She’d never experienced it before, being America — the dry, English wit; irony — or perhaps she just fancied the socks off me. I like to think it’s because she wanted my babies. Perhaps I was so funny that she wanted my babies?

She only stayed for the summer that time but she promised she’d be back. If she hadn’t come back, I would’ve gone to her anyway; 5000 miles was nothing for a couple of smitten, lovesick teenagers that craved each other’s company.

A year later and I’m in the process of finding a buyer for one of my kidneys when I receive an email from her: ‘I’m flying over in August. We need to talk.’

She refused to tell me about it over email.

In fact, she must’ve realised sometime between writing the email and the amazing 3 months we spent together that summer that her mother could talk to me instead.

And so it was that, one day, sitting outside eating lunch, her mother sat down beside me.

‘We need to talk, Sebastian.’

‘About what?’ I’d completely forgotten about the aforementioned ‘talk’ and I had a big grin on my face: I didn’t like her mother particularly, but it made sense to smile at your future mother-in-law, right?

‘This relationship of yours, between you and my daughter. It can’t continue.’

My heart skipped a beat. ‘Why…?’

‘She has a fiancé in America. Her childhood sweetheart. She’s marrying him this winter.’

To be continued…

If you haven’t read the first half of the story you really, really should. In fact, this entry won’t make much sense, nor will it have anywhere near the same emotional impact if you don’t start from the beginning — so go and read the first half!

It’s the last night of school, the summer ball. A coming of age for many, but I still haven’t had my first kiss. We walk away together, muted, numb, hand in hand. I turn to face her when we reach the car park and I’m reminded of just how much taller than her I am. She’s at least a foot shorter than me and still as beautiful as the day we first met, 2 years ago.

We continue to wait in silence, not really sure of what can be said; what should be said.

‘Would a kiss be out of the question?’ I’m the one breaking the silence. It would be quite a different story if she’d been the one asking.

‘You know I can’t… we can’t…’ She sounds so incredibly disappointed, held back by a promise made to someone I’d never met, her childhood sweetheart. Her fiancé. Her thief, unwittingly and unfairly stealing away the love of my life.

My dad arrives and we hop tentatively into the back of his car. I cry quietly. At least she can’t see my face or eyes. She too begins to cry. We head back to her place, both in some kind of dark void — limbo — unaware of anything beyond our immediate surroundings, intent on keeping one last crystal-clear shared memory, sharp and  deeply etched. Maybe wind rushed in through an open window, or music tumbled lazily out of the radio, I don’t know. We’re both lost in the moment, crying.  The car stops and for a moment silence rules. The memory of her opening the door and slowly stepping out into the dark night is quickly and vividly seared into the memories of my adolescence.

I open my door and follow her to the doorstep.

I smile in the darkness, my lips twisted into some kind of disgusting rictus; irony and self-pity rolled into one. She’d played me all along. A game that, while beautiful, had had its outcome set in stone since the day we’d first met. I’d fallen for her and she’d fallen for me, but try as we might, this parting moment had been inescapable. Preordained is the word I think they use, and I wouldn’t have minded if someone Up There had taken her from me. But it wasn’t God, nor some angelic, oiled-torsoed Adonis: it was some pesky, backward farmer boy with a predilection for big, shiny tractors.

‘Bye, Sebby.’ I nodded with finality and turned to leave. I stopped for a moment, looking over my shoulder.

‘You owe me a kiss.’ That was me talking again. I meant it.

Five years went by. Five. A lot happened in those five years. I aged from 17 to 22. In truth, I’d almost forgotten about her. She was always there, in the back of my mind, one of a few ‘what ifs’. I’m not one to linger and dwell though; my thoughts of her were of platonic curiousity rather than visceral yearning — I wondered how she’d been, if marriage had been worth it. If she regretted not kissing me that night on her doorstep. Most of what you’ve read on this blog happened after she vanished.

I know it sounds like some kind of awful Hollywood, silver-screen cliche, but I knew she’d come back. There was too much unfinished business to simply… up and leave. That’s not to say I wrote sappy love letters, or abstained from sex and relationships, hoping that one day the phone would ring — no, university came and went without contact. I begun my travels around the world — there were even trips to America and Los Angeles, close to where I thought she might be. But of course, I had no address — her mother forbade any contact. I briefly thought about quizzing people on the streets if they’d ’seen this girl’, but the only photo I had of her was 5 years old and probably no use. Plus, people don’t really do that in real life… do they?

It was now January 2007. 20:00 January 17th, 2007 — midday, Pacific Standard Time, her time. I have new email, and it’s from her. I can’t really describe how I felt at that instant, but I should at least try: light-headed euphoria. Righteous vindication. I’m so rarely wrong — I so rarely make a bad call — but I was seriously starting to doubt if I’d got this one wrong. 5 years is a long time to leave a guy hanging for a kiss; I’m patient, but there are limits! When that email finally arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Returning… — January 17th 2007

Hi Sebby.

I’m considering returning back to the UK very shortly to live there for a bit.

Saw your photos. Very nice! Quite the world traveller these days, aren’t you?

I’m sure I’ll hear from you soon.

Love,

Understated, as always. A fluttering, torrential storm of mail followed as we quickly caught up, though a lot remained unsaid until we finally met again in person, a month later.

To this day, I still can’t believe she was reading my journal and looking at my photos — keeping tabs, like a voyeur. She could’ve said Hi, just once, but no, she made me wait. I guess that should’ve been the first sign that the ball was still very much on her side of the court. My heart thumped a rhythm dictated by her carefully-orchestrated maneuvers. 7 years had passed since we met, but nothing had changed.

If only I’d known that in March, when we first kissed, that this wasn’t going to be the happily-ever-after that I — we? — had so hoped for. Nothing had changed for the better — or for worse — we were still very much in love, but it wasn’t going to be an easy ride.

A year later, after some of the most blissfully memorable moments of my life, she left me again. A year of apocryphal magic — times of love, of her tiny body wrapped in my arms, her soft skin teasing my fingertips — tainted by lows that still haunt me today: would things have turned out differently if I’d whispered different sweet nothings into her ear?

Seven years of strife for a single year of part-time love.

I haven’t seen or heard from her since. I don’t think she’s coming back this time, either.