2006-04-25
So Kevin – you haven’t mentioned Jo lately. What’s happening with her?Well – as the title suggests, she’s coming home (British, particularly English readers, may have been singing along a ten year old football ditty). At the end of last week, on cue she caught a touch of something viral and went into something of a decline similar to that which she suffered for a year or so over here in our damp and colder climate. The last message I got from her suggested she was on a light up-curve but having mixed feelings about packing up in California.
“Feeling a bit better - the shivers have gone, replaced by feeling too, too hot! well it is about 80 outside just now. No nice walks for us today even if I was feeling OK as I have all the packing to do, solo, with 2 boys running around my feet. O is now crawling really fast and particularly likes electrical cables (and believe me there are enough of them lying around) and the wobbly spring door stops that are on every door. Unfortunately he grabs them then pulls so the edge of the door smacks him on the forehead. It's odd, part of me just doesn't want to come home at all but part of me feels just too exhausted by life here to stay. I need baby help but is the help more tiring that the boys themselves? Certainly enjoying the break from family stuff. Not enjoying being responsible for all the cleaning, cooking etc. I'm really quite good as a loner when I have my boys to play with. We've had lots of fun together though, so that must count as a positive.”
Dave, she says has not greatly been enjoying the long hours and workload while he’s been out there and is looking on the return as a chance to have a rest. My suspicions as I’ve said before are that he will have itchy feet very soon and will be looking for something new to do rather than going back to his old job and now he precedent is set that she will just have to follow wherever or whatever he decides to do. A dissatisfied unsettled Dave will be an irritable Dave and Jo, more likely than not, will pay the price.
But for the time being they are taking a holiday, and I have to assume that it will be a happy time; the holiday of a lifetime with their two small boys.
And after that? After that for him a rest, for her an increase in pressure she’s already aware of. She hasn’t worked for over a year, she is still not in good health, she will have (because that’s the way it is) most of the domestic responsibility and the juggling of child-care for two children who are used to having her available all the time. And she, of course will be used to having them beside her all the time. Sure, she says it’ll be a relief not to have to entertain and organise them all the time, but the other side will be inevitable worry about what’s happening to them while they’re out of her sight and four or five miles away. All mothers know what that’s like; few fathers really do.
And me? How do I feel at the prospect of being reunited with a (let’s face it) ex-lover with whom I’ve had little direct contact for more than a year? I’ll never stop enjoying her company, I know that, so there is immense pleasure at the thought of having my best friend with me again. But it’s all tinged with a little sadness and a lot of apprehension. Worry (maybe knowledge) that we’ll not be the same as we were and concern at how our history will influence how we are with each other. Will it help, or hinder?. How does she feel about it? How will we settle into a new relationship? How often, how soon will we go back over the old ground?
And then there’s the return to those constant fears of confrontation, of meeting Dave somewhere and having to deal with it. For six months I’ve not had to consider the possibility when I’m out in town, or at the mall, not had to limit where I go and when. After three years it gets no less of a concern. It’ll happen sometime I know and now after months of not being possible it’ll be back in my mind. And worse than that – what we did will be back as an immediate issue for him and for her. If they’ve managed (and I don’t know whether they have) to set what happened here back in the past, then being here will bring the past back to life in much more of an immediate way.