End of an Era

I rang BBB twice this week on our landline number and there was no answer. Highly unusual. So I rang him on his mobile. He said he was after moving out of our house.

The minute he said it, my heart got all cloudy and sad. I was imagining our little red phone ringing in our deserted room, with noone to answer it but the ghosts of two years of my life. I had a Ghost of Pavia Past moment where I imagined myself standing to the side, watching some happy scenes of the time I spent there, doing midnight ninja stealth farts on BBB's leg, introducing pancakes into his life, laughing at my own blog, and so on.

Why am I so affected by it, like? I suppose now it's official that my second life is no more. You see, before, I had two lives; my life in Ireland and then my life in Pavia. The thing about moving to a different country where noone knows you or even speaks your language is that you can be who you truly are, unrestrained by the more often than not cringeworthy dirt that your friends and family have on you. The time you told your friend that she was a baby at her birthday party when you were 7, the time you went down the bogs on rollerskates with your best friend and laughed so much you pissed yourself when you were 10, that unfortunate grunge phase you went through as a teenager, and all the subsequent hearts you (accidentally) broke when you finally came into your own - all these things just melt away and it's who you are now that matters. Anyway, that's fucked out the window now. I don't have my little safe place to go and run away to any more. Well I mean I can always go to BBB's new house but shur that's not the same - the shower head doesn't even spray directly into the toilet! What kind of an establishment is that?! I don't mean that I want to back down that road, it's just nice to know that it's there, this parallel universe that I can escape to if ever everything goes tits up.

I'm really happy now in Dublin and I have that good feeling you get when you know you're in a good place. But, goddammit - I miss that bidet!

Bidet to you all.

Eddie, Eddie, Wherefore Art Thou, Eddie?

Well, well, well. If it isn't Jenniky skulking around her long-neglected blog. 

The cheek of it. 

The utter GOWL of it.

Whatever, take your judgement elsewhere. This is a place of merriment, I tell you! Also a place of whining, though. And bitching. Also occasionally moaning. 

So my last post was over a year ago. A lot can change in a year. Par example, BBB and myself are no more. We broke up in November, but my first clue of our imminent doom came months before that, when he went to Switzerland for the day. 

He drove up to Geneva to see the car show, and as I would rather stick a needle in my eye than go through that torturous hell, I stayed at home to "work on my thesis". He said he would bring me back a present, so immediately I was buzzin off my head as I thought that my lifelong dream of owning a little cuckoo clock (a real one, now) was about to come true. He's hardly going to get me anything else - my utter abhorrence of teddies is well known by anyone who knows me, and I'm not a big chocolate person either. That narrows it down to a cuckoo clock or a fine lump of cheese, both of which I would welcome. Buzz buzz buzz all down the day thinking about me little cuckoo clock-to-be. 

Cut to the evening when he comes in the door home. "I got you a present!" he says. Be still, my beating heart. "I went into a shop and all they had was either teddies or cuckoo clocks", he says, with a cheeky twinkle in his eye, implying that the choice was obvious. He puts his hand into his bag, my pulse quickens. He rummages around and finally pulls out...a little teddy. There are no words to adequately describe the feeling I had just then. Not childish disappointment because he didn't choose the cuckoo clock; something deeper, something dark, with distinct tones of dread: 

It's not going to be him.

Oh no. Noooooooooo. Stomach pains. World-crumbling feelings of wretched despair.

The adorable puppy face he is making and the fact that he was thoughtful enough to pick out a teddy for me is only making the pain worse. 

He's not going to be The Fella. Oh no. It's not him. Oh bollixy bullshit crapbags. 

Shur it's only a matter of time now. Now that I know he doesn't understand me and never will, it's only a matter of time before the crippling loneliness of being with someone who doesn't understand you gets the better of me and I do my signature runner. AGAIN. Fuck sake, like. What the fuck?! Can't wait to die alone. I'd say it's going to be some laugh.

As predicted, several months down the road I cut him loose. I had moved back to Dublin by then and I loved doing my own thing and to be honest the whole long-distance relationship thing would have been fine for me were it not for the whole have-to-ring-the-other-person-every-day-or-else-they-will-bombard-me-with-missed-calls-and-messages-telling-me-I-am-neglecting-them thing. I just couldn't deal with it. Plus when he came to visit he basically wrecked my head. He just didn't fit into my life here. I should have listened to my friend Kazza's advice when she said "never take a foreigner out of context". Wise words.

Anyway I'm much happier now that the pressure is off. Although he's still on my Top Ten Rides of the Universe list. Right up there with Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. Oh early 90's Kevin, it would be an honour and a privilege to cause you a sex-related personal injury. 

In other news, I'm back in Dublin. Think I might lurk here for a few months more and then who knows? How are the rest of ye doing anyway? 

Are ye well? 

Cos ye're lookin well.