As always, as ever; I was plotting a way out. Well, you were doing too much or not enough. I fantasised about situations that would fufil my needs. Swimming in doubt, I sat you down and told you that we should each have more of our own lives, less convention hanging on us and off us, strangling all our options. Why couldn’t we make this up as we went along and have some good fun doing it? You wondered if that was such a good idea. What’s to lose? I said. Can things possibly get any worse?You bristled. Love is complex, I said, waving it away. Let it be complex.
So we did our own thing, as discussed. Whatever you were doing had nothing to do with me. Whatever I didn’t know, I didn’t know. I couldn't get out on the town quickly enough. I rushed to where I was adored, well received. My ego loved the game of it, the small powers I recovered. You went where you were wanted too, stayed out a little later, returned with less and less to say for yourself. I felt it a bit, but these were our special new rules. I forced bigger and better things; went for people harder to know than you. I needed a more incredible thrill, the threat of disappointment.
Not that it’s any excuse, but my mother was lost from me for a few important years. She was supposed to come to visit on Sundays but often wouldn’t. There was something in the waiting and waiting for her, something of the gamble.
I began to romanticise not knowing.
There arose a fear of consistency, of the hidden absolute.
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