David is my Christmas present (he’s here and now) and he’s also my Christmas present (gift).
We first met way back in the early days of my marriage. Our mutual friend Claire introduced us at a party. We got on fantastically well. No two ways about it, we really liked each other. It was, of course, doomed to disaster. I was newly married and I believed (then and now) that you have to work at marriage and make it work once you’ve made that commitment.
For many years, we regularly stood in the kitchens of various houses of Claire & Gary’s chatting and joking together, while parties went on around us. You’ll laugh at the cliché that I think you can see into a person’s soul by looking in their eyes. His eyes are steel blue and so deep I always feel I could drown in them. There has always been something about them that has beguiled me totally. I always felt the mistake of my marriage most sharply when in his presence.
Anyway, years passed, my marriage blundered on and David moved in with Cali. Eventually both relationships failed and we both happened to be single at the same time. The only problem was that when we’d first started this (flirtation/friendship) I’d been young, pretty and most of all slim. Now I most definitely am not any of those things. I really didn’t see any way in which we would end up where we are now.
We started chatting on email. We chatted some more on email. We chatted on yahoo messenger. It was just about the most thrilling thing ever to hear that ‘brrrriiiing’ of a message popping into my box. We watched the eclipse of the moon together apart – him in his Ascot house and me in Sandhurst.
We started to meet. Our mad whirlwind beginnings faltered when David became ill and we didn’t see one-another for several weeks just before Christmas 2000. I didn’t see any way in which we could pick up where we left off but we did just that and moved in together in August 2001, he was made redundant from a job he hated, he came here and just never went home.
On New Year’s Day in 2001, we’d seen in the New Year together but both needed to work the following day so he’d gone home. We chatted on messenger that evening for a couple of hours then both went off-line so we could talk on the phone. We spoke for three hours more. David drank ¾ bottle of whisky during that conversation and I drank the dregs of all the night-before’s party wine! Being apart wasn’t good for us.
That’s not to say all of this has been easy or smooth. We’ve had to spend a good deal of effort trying to boost David’s immune system to be with the dogs – he was terribly allergic to them at first. Thankfully Symbicort gives him this freedom – without it I would have had to have chosen them or him……I couldn’t have borne that.
We’ve also had to spend much time building up Archie’s confidence that he won’t be dumped (again) because a new man has become top dog in the house. Poor Archie – he was terribly spooked by David’s arrival. We worked through it all though and now Archie idolises David. I will tell more of Archie’s story on another day.
Throughout this year, times have been hard – the sale of David’s house eventually has ended our difficulties.
Christmas present brings relief from financial worry, relief from the worry of maintaining the Ascot house and a deep emotional contentment, borne of having to wait so long for this moment. I sit here typing this, with David watching ‘The Love Bug’ (his favourite movie of course) next to me on his ibook. He’s humming ‘…..who needs paradise, I’d rather have you….’ From Amen Corner’s ‘If paradise is half as nice’.
Christmas present is a good, happy time.
