Our Director Writes:
Diary of a Mature Student: Another Weekend, Another Planet
So there have been a few good things about this summer, one of which is due to take place tomorrow.
But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.
Tomorrow, you see, two good friends are (finally!) getting married. And I mean it when I say they're good friends, because as well as being friends, they're good people (by my estimation, so hey, your mileage may vary) and they're beacons of sensibility in my otherwise slightly different world.
They are also touchstones for my last time on the merry-go-round, being as we studied for the same degree at the same time - although thanks to my involuntary sabbatical year, I started with one of them and graduated with the other, their having started their studies a year apart. So it's nice to have links to the past that I treasure rather than avoid, frankly, because we all have things we've said or done that we'd rather stayed buried. Such, as they say, is life.
The reason I'm nervous (I keep wanting to say a little nervous, but that would be an economical untruth) is because there's the vague possibility that An Ex will also be there. And let's bear in mind the crushing stupidity of this, because we're (I think) the same age, so we've both grown up, matured, moved on, got some life experience, yadda yadda ya... But it's still nervous-making, all the same, because of the uncertainty of how I'd feel around her, and possibly even how she'd feel around me.
So here's a lesson for the students of today; relationships, like it or not, can have shelf lives. Yes, true love is possible - and part of me hopes it's even probable, given the way of the world - and you might meet the person you stay with and love for the rest of your life.
Then again, you might not. So with the wedding - as a social engagement - upcoming, I've been devoting more thought than I would have liked to this whole thing. The conclusion I've come to is that this relationship of the past had a shelf-life of six months - a month and a half of flirtation, three months of romantic engagement, and a month and a half of disentanglement - and that this was then stretched over the course of two years, to both our detriment, because the flirtation took six months, and then once the six months of thinly-stretched romanticism was done with, I made her life difficult for another six, and she made mine difficult for another six after that, until, finally, it was over. Technically, it was over after eighteen months, but really, don't ask about the last six months, because god knows I won't talk about it.
So there's the prospect of a spade being struck into the dirt of my past, and I really really really don't want it getting in the way of anything tomorrow, so I'm just going to have to work on this one for a while, realistically - oh, say, another eighteen hours?
Then again, I love a deadline.
Tomorrow will be a beautiful reaffirment of the love that two people I care for have for each other. And that is that.
So... There!
No comments:
Post a Comment