Moving on and worrying

At the moment, I'm packing up my home, my kids and my life in preparation to move on to a new exciting chapter of the Tao of Wiltshire. In the midst of the exciting though frightening new challenges and things that await me, I'm trying to hold on to the old that I should really let go of.

The past makes me feel safe, but being alive means that I can't exist in a cocoon of safety - I have to face the future full on.

As I was packing, I came across this box that I have. In it are letters, postcards, pictures, poems - special things from people who have been special to me at some junction in the past. There's a lot of things from my niece and nephews, letters from my beloved Nan, cards from my favourite aunt and uncle, news from my Mum. There are some from my current partner, and even one thing from my son's father. There are a lot of things from this guy I knew.

About a million years ago, or more accurately 1992, I met this guy. We did a course together that I dropped out of to look after my Nan. He stuck with it and rather irritatingly, he did well and is now successful and happy. The bastard.

Over the last decade or so we've had sporadic contact. This is partly because he had girlfriends which he was involved with in that rubbish way that male friends do that means you don't see them for eons, partly because I am a bit rubbish and got embroiled in my own stuff.

However, just after I left the course, for about 6 or 7 years afterwards, we spoke every week, wrote to each other long rambling bizarre notes, and fairly regularly, we would meet up and get lashed, laughing lots. There was always an air of awkwardness, without being too corny about it, that there was something to say that never was, but I was far too stupid and drunk to pick up on it. This was a time before Internet, or mobile phones were freely available, so it was all terribly innocent in this day and age, considering that we were in our early to mid twenties at the time.

He was around and in my actual near vicinity for the majority of my late teenage hood and early twenties milestones - when I was told my niece was born, when I was fired from a crap job I hated, when my nephew was born and I needed to go and sit with my niece whilst my brother in law took my sister to the hospital, and shortly after I was told my Nan died. In short, he was a truly lovely, kind man.

I, of course, didn't appreciate him at all. I didn't appreciate his actions or deeds, and I certainly didn't appreciate at the time how much I loved him. And actually yes, I did love him like that, in a slightly pathetic and soggy embarrassing way.

Of course, we had a number of disastrous quasi romantic encounters always (without exception to my shame) under the cover of "ahem, too much to drink, er..." I never, ever told him that I liked him, "like that" or otherwise. Obviously, he was much braver than I and did tell me how he felt. Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, this was after we had slept together. We had had, in his words 'a skinful'. Luckily, I was a total arsehole the next day. And the next time I saw him.

Then, surprisingly (as it seemed at the time but on reflection not so), we just didn't see each other anymore. I don't think we so much as spoke for the next few years.

To this day, I still feel ashamed at how I acted. Even worse - I bloody missed the bastard. Massively so. Even kept an eye on what his team were up to. I shouldn't have thought I passed his mind again, but I was mightily pissed off at myself for being such an idiot.

The thing is - and really, it's not a big deal now as we've all moved on and the past is a different island just past Romford - this stupid bloody boy remains my big regret. We would have made such a terrible, horrible couple - it would never have worked. He is far too popular and I am far too jealous - we would have stabbed each other in a matter of days. He is far too selfish and I am far too stubborn.

The real reason I was struck by inaction? There are a few. Don't underestimate how much I loved him as a friend - that was and is extremely important to me, especially back then when I treated my friends much, much better than I treated the people I slept with. Another? I was terrified - rigid with inaction. I'd had a termination a few months previously, and couldn't forgive myself for my decision. I was with someone I despised but would stay with for a few more years as I was almost incoherent with fear that I would be alone. The irony is that I did end up alone anyway, and then I just thought why on earth should someone who killed their baby deserve any happiness at all?

Time passes - things lessen and become easier. We choose to do things and choose not to do things. The only way to survive is to hope that the regrets you have are, like mine, the things you didn't do. Isn't it? Still, sometimes, in the back of mind whilst I don't think 'what if', I do find the following Wendy Cope poem rolls around my head
"I worry about you / So long since we spoke. / Love, are you downhearted, / Dispirited, broke? I worry about you. I can't sleep at night. Are you sad? Are you lonely? Or are you all right? They say that men suffer, As badly, as long. I worry, I worry, In case they are wrong."

It would have been a disaster. It would never have worked. Yet I still worried. The bastard.