A Fresh Start - 02/03/2013

          Well hello dear diary, how nice to see you after such a busy day.
         Today I have moved from the house which I occupied and which has occupied me for the last 42 years. Today I sit amongst half of the boxes I did yesterday, but in a different location. Today I sit looking out to sea from a small fishing village nestling on the mouth of the Tay on the east coast of Scotland – 500 miles away from life in London. And I am happy.
          I have left behind the painful solid, memory of Tony and exchanged it for ethereal nostalgia. I have left behind also, that aching, burning, painful desire, the longing and that frustration of a contentment constantly just out-of-reach. I leave behind clutching at straws and my reliance on another to fulfil my life. I leave behind that day he came bounding over our wall and begging me for help.
          Mum and dad left for work as per usual that day and I solely occupied the house by 7.30 am. At around 7.32 am there came the banging and shouting on the patio doors from the 17-year-old fool from across the road.
          In 1986, I had light brown, shoulder-length hair, usually in a pony tail. I wore jeans and a yellow T-shirt – always – and always flat shoes, if any.
          I jumped down the stairs, as I could at 15, took one look at the flustered boy through the glass and unlocked the patio doors to have him pile in and land in a heap on the floor.
          “You’ve got to hide me,” he said, “I’m really sorry, but you have to let me in for a few minutes, just until my uncle is gone. He’s going to kill me you see.” He panted and attempted these theatrical puppy-dog eyes with his hands clasped.
          I looked at him in a different way from that moment on. For the first time I saw the glint in his eye, and I realised that his mind had the ability to trivialise all of life’s horrors and disappointments and by doing so, he could see some sort of pleasure in the pointlessness of it all. He got something, but not a conventional thing, from nothing. He was half smiling, always, he was half-smiling.
          “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing,” I shouted.
          “Saving my own life,” he replied.
          And from that point on, I’m sure we spent every waking moment together for the next three weeks. At least it felt like that, because you see, very suddenly, very unexpectedly, we fell in love.
          But I don’t know where to begin with this at such an hour of the morning.
          Perhaps this will be the shortest entry and I apologise for it Kitty, but the story requires too much thought and it has been too long a day to even contemplate beginning at this hour.
          I must say, the water is beautiful though - watching it makes me feel complete and I have suddenly realised that I have been missing it all my natural born life.
          - Rebecca.