London Called

So I'm back again. Partly glad. Partly sad.

It seems I've been missed like mad at work, and so much stuff has collapsed since I left 3 weeks ago. Draw your own conclusions, but it's always nice to go back to work somewhere where people value what you do... even if you don't much like your current career track (but I'm not about to launch into that one again just yet). Of course there's always a flip side, and in this case it's that I won't see my folks again for another year, and that I've had to say good-bye to Natalie, yet again, and give up everything it is to be around her. I seem to have been locked into this kind of masochistic, yet strangely superlative, roller coaster relationship with Nat since my undergraduate days. Its roots lie in the respective spaces we occupy: currently London, England (me) vs. Grahamstown, South Africa (her). At best the difference between our locations has been 400kms, which was when I staying in Cape Town, South Africa in 2002. Hence we’ve spent most of our time apart from each other, and yet when we do manage to organise the precious week or so together we both know that it’s conclusion will lie in yet another catastrophic, heart wrenching separation. The only way I get through this is by focussing on the finish line… that period when we will both occupy the same space indefinitely.

It's safe to say I think, that I fell in love with Nat at first site in Gossip's all those years ago. And while that may sound wonderfully romantic, yet doomed to failure, you also have to understand that prior to actually meeting her I probably knew her better than anyone else, thanks mainly to a couple of month’s worth of intense e-mail bonding. Yes, I know… so geek worthy. Still, it meant that I knew her intimately before I actually met her, and then when she actually measured up to my outrageous expectations, well, I guess something had to come of it.

To date no one else has ever managed to get as close to, or mean as much to me, as she is/does. We've both toyed with other relationships, which have ended badly, and yet somehow we're still here. Still 'together' as it were (I'm am definitely not going into details on this one).

I don’t really know why I’m mentioning all this now (although I know Nat let go with a pretty personal account a couple of days ago too). We’ve both discussed this joint site and come to the conclusion that we should keep posts about ‘us’ to a minimum. If we did decide to post regularly about our relationship this site would just spiral downward into a mess of sniffly nosed, “life’s so unfair and I’m depressed” articles. None of us want that so we censor certain aspects. However, since I’ve just come back from seeing Nat for the first time in a year, and with the prospect of yet another year apart stretching out in front, I feel compelled to say something for fear of otherwise losing my rather tenuous grip on sanity.

But I’ve said it now. It’s out there. It’s also 02:15.

Night night.