2006-08-30
[Yes Rylorn, I meant you!]I like analogies. There is, of course the danger that what you are trying to express doesn’t fully map into the analogy, and also that it isn’t possible t extend the analogy in a way that the real life situation is extendable, but generally I find it helps to think of complex and troubling things in simple and familiar terms. If I can say: ‘you know it’s the same as…’ . Well, when I can make a convincing link anyway.
Jo tried an analogy of where we are now. She said you could think of the onset of our relationship as entering a big house. Neither of us had been there before and there was only us in it. It felt secure and a protection from everything outside and it was something and somewhere we could explore together. And we did. We went everywhere…especially all the bedrooms. We had thoughts about how the place might be decorated or furnished without ever actually saying that we were going to take it on to live in. They were plans, but not necessarily plans for us.
And then all the lights went out and we couldn’t see each other and felt as though we had to get out quickly. And so it was for a couple of years. But now we’re back in the hallway, never venturing further in and still unable to see each other clearly.
I agreed it was a reasonable analogy except that I think the lights have come up a little and we both know we’re never going further into the house at least not together. And also that for at least two years I’ve felt as though she was holding the front door almost shut so that I wasn’t sure whether I was allowed in or not. (The truth might have been better expressed as I wasn’t sure whether by keeping the door that little bit open she was thinking I might want to come back in, while knowing that the right thing to do would be to set off down the garden path)
Enough of this anyway. Today was another lesson in our close it is possible to come to unpleasantness without knowing it. Jo has been taking Wednesdays off while she gets herself back into the way of working – just using up the holidays at one day a week since they had their family holiday before she came back. But Dave’s grandfather is about to die and she guessed there might be an extra day she needed to take next week so she decided to come in today without telling me. I’d arranged to meet friends in town for lunch today and it turned out – because they had an appointment with a mortgage advisor – she’d arranged to meet Dave at the same time in the same pub! If she hadn’t come in we would have been there together and there would surely have been friction she can do without (let alone me).
“and D's in a bad mood with me anyway and doesn't want to have lunch with me. Not because I wasn't sympathetic or anything last night but because, in his opinion, I didn't do things in the right order this morning. I put on washing before having a shower. This apparently contravenes logic and means that he had to come into the bathroom to clean the boys teeth while I was there, which I apparently complain about. Some things never change eh.?”
And then at the prospect of the averted meeting she said: “ I live in the naive hope that one day we'll be able to take the very grown up view and move on without potential trouble. Very naive I guess. And one day we'll all be able to sit around in the pub together and share a drink without animosity. In my fairytale head, based on Woody Allan films and sophisticated New York lifestyles.”