It is said that when we seek a life-partner we look for what we want or desire but later, and often after the point of no return, we realise that what we have been drawn to is the familiar wrapped in a beguiling costume. Are we always attracted to the same situation in different guises, and the same mistakes in different garb, until we find a way of confronting them or merely run out of life-battery during the attempt to do so?
When I first met her, Vanessa seemed like a party girl to me and possibly to her I seemed a kindly influence in an indifferent world. Much too late, some might say, we discovered we were strangers: who became politely intolerable to each other over the ensuing years.
That’s where manners come in: confronted by an uncomfortable truth, you offer it a cup of tea and ask it if its journey has been uneventful. The one thing you do not seek is to engage it in meaningful and personal conversation, because who knows what will happen once that dialogue begins. We found a way to sit together and exist on a diet of pleasantries and the need for space but I cannot really call it “Living.”
Living is what I did when I met Paula from work: trapped like me in a conventional straight-jacket and dreaming of the moment when she could cast aside convention. We gave each other the strength and courage to celebrate life in our way so, in a moment of reckless abandon, I told my wife I was leaving her and moved in with Paula, who divorced her husband, buoyed up by my impetuous euphoria.
Happiness was ours to drink and life to celebrate each and every day: the liberation was overwhelming and my joy complete. We were children without parents and life became our playground. Gradually we found ourselves somehow without direction, or boundaries apart from that set by exhaustion. Then the newly “free” Paula discovered an appetite for sharing her euphoria with all and anyone she met although less often with me.
That order from which I fled suddenly took on the mystique of Eden but by then Vanessa had met a man better suited to her than I ever was, leaving me free to reflect on the price of my frustrations!
countingducks 
Alack and alas, a tale too often told! But not nearly as well as you tell it, Ducks.
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ah, the life through the lens of time and wisdom. it all eventually comes into the light. well done, as always. i think i once recommended the film ‘Anomalisa’ to you once, see it if you can, i think you’d love it. (this does tie-in)
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Well, that’s the thing with party girls!
Sx
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The lost girls are often the most interesting people you can find, even if only in retrospect xx
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I enjoy your stories, Ducks.
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I really like your opening paragraph here, Peter – a story in itself…or maybe I mean philosophy.
As ever an excellent tale. I guess we all want something/someone who is like us, just not us.
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Our brains sometimes go where common sense does not.
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Reblogged this on Have We Had Help? and commented:
More from Peter 😉
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Sadly, we never know what we are getting.
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Just ordered your book. Will write review.
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That’s very kind. Sadly the publisher went bust so no idea what happens to the royalties and no idea how to self-publish but the thought is very appreciated
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I saw it on Amazon.
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