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My friend X

Thanks guys. I felt a little guilty indulging in a 'real life' story, particularly one about a silly and rather melodramatic spat between two friends.


But it's actually been a good thing for our friendship I think this past 15 months or so. I learned that I won't break, even if I really thought X was out of my life for good (and good riddance!). I learned that I don't have to accept poor behaviour from X without expressing anger ... I learned I have a very bad temper sometimes. I learned time always works its magic. I learned a bunch of stuff about love.


I like to think he's learned a thing or two about the value of friendship and constancy ... loyalty and respect. Oh and the importance of saying sorry, even if 'we're not in kindergarten' (although sometimes it can feel like it). :)
 
ChrisR said:
Thanks for the update tanguerra! I'm glad that you made things up with your friend. If he really hurt you that much, then it must be a friendship worth holding on to, and like you say, life IS too short to hold on to grudges!
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Thanks Chris. Like a lot of these things it all seems a bit silly in hindsight, now that tempers have cooled, but it seemed pretty serious at the time. I know X and I know he didn't 'really' mean it deep down, or at least didn't expect things to turn out the way they did. It's one of his 'things' to behave a bit rashly and irresponsibly from time to time after all. :)
 
BriarRose said:
I agree, this life is much too short to waste. Do you think your Karmic business can be resolved in this life, so you can experience more happiness in another? I ask this because I feel I am tying up all the "loose ends" that I can, before getting back on the Cosmic Carousel again. Perhaps, it's the "storm and thunder" that binds you and X together? Something in your original posts resonated with me. You mentioned watching endlessly from the cliffs for his ship to return. When my husband is even a little late, I wait by the window like a lost soul, willing him to appear. I think you have given me an "aha" moment. I am glad you and X are speaking again. Blessings!
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Thanks BriarRose.


Yes, I think we're in the process of resolving all sorts of things this life. I've written above about my struggle with 'love without desire' and what it means to really feel that outward shining love towards another (even when they're very, very naughty). In fact, it's the main theme of the book I wrote and I try to practice what I preach, although it's not always easy. I try to set an example to X. Although sometimes it seems he's not paying attention, every now and again I realise he is really.

You mentioned watching endlessly from the cliffs for his ship to return. When my husband is even a little late, I wait by the window like a lost soul, willing him to appear. I think you have given me an "aha" moment. I am glad you and X are speaking again. Blessings!
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It's ages since I felt that sort of anxiety about X and it's a great relief. Love doesn't have to mean 'clinging' to each other or being afraid of 'losing' them. It can be done at a distance too, even with your arms crossed and backs to each other in a huff. Another important lesson... :)
 
Very wise, and very interesting, Tanguerra. You obviously are learning a lot from your experiences with X. In my case, it wasn't clinging so much, as remembering waiting for the beloved from one of the "widow's walks" that you see on old houses. I think the behavior carried over. It sounds like you and X have had a long, complicated journey together.
 
Perhaps 'clinging' is the wrong word. Maybe 'cleaving' is better? Anyway, it's a great relief just to let go of all that. But, yes I know what you mean about being haunted by these sorts of memories that carry into the present life.


I used to have all sorts of irrational anxieties about X's physical safety. It was really quite 'crazy' and I'm sure it's all to do with our 'history' - all the sudden disappearances in one way or another. Also, it's not helped that he really has been very gravely ill several times this life.


Fortunately that's all faded away now and I just feel a normal level of concern for his welfare as one would for any other friend. It's a great relief and I'm sure it's because I've done all this delving into it over the past few years and seen what's really going on 'under the bonnet' so to speak.
 
Love. Only love. As always. Ancient, mysterious endlessly surprising. Only scarey if you know what you're doing...and so few of us do. So beautiful. So sad. So happy. So full of hope and joy and wonder. So painful. So essential. So fleeting. So endless.


Stronger than death. More eternal than the spring.


Sometimes only music can say what we feel.


I wish it would go away. No I don't! (Yes I do, no I don't).
 
I watched a DVD movie last night and before the film began there were some trailers. I've been feeling a bit topsy turvy emotionally the past couple of weeks about Poland and X and pondering on our recent 'tiff' and reconciliation and whether I'm really ready to forgive him yet, especially since he hasn't actually said 'sorry' yet and if that matters, because I know what he's like ... and how do I feel about all that. [angry]


This trailer made me suddenly burst into tears. It shows in a quick three minutes what it feels like to have this kind of bizarro space-time continuum thingy whatever-it-is going on with X.


The highs, the lows, the sudden vanishings, the frustrations, the tears, the joys ... I haven't seen the film and I don't know if it's any good or not, but the nature of a movie trailer is to show the most exciting and enticing snippets and that's a bit what it's like having these sorts of memories.


I updated my avatar image with a new set of eyes (yes, they're all me at various important moments in this life). The bottom one is me looking at X on the occasion of my book launch. It's such a fond, smiling look. I can't remember what he was talking about, but it must have been something amusing.


It's important to remember the happy moments, especially when things are a bit tough going. This is one of the great lessons of this forum I think. That your memories may be fleeting, but they're important. Remember the important ones. That's the trick. Not to dwell too much on the 'bad' stuff.
 
I've been experiencing a lot of jumbled images and emotions about X lately, dear reader (thanks for listening - who else can you talk to about this? Nobody.)


I'm very fond of music as those who've read my posts over the years will know. Sometimes music is the only thing that can help some of us (me) untangle our (my) emotions. As a bit of a hobby I sing jazz vocals, but I've always been very interested in song lyrics since I was a little kid and for some reason find it easy to remember them. I know most of the lyrics of most of The Beatles' songs for instance - they were on the radio a lot when I was little after all. Most people hardly know more than one 'catch phrase' from the chorus of a song, and don't really listen to the words at all. But I'm one of those people who can hear the words and is interested in what the songwriter was trying to say. If I like a song, I'll learn it by heart. I don't know why. I just do. I can be a bit 'Rain Man' sometimes. :)


Consequentially enough, I have a lot of musician friends (lucky me). I was at a gig the other night at a local pub where some friends were playing and feeling a bit soulful about all this stuff I've been thinking about. The band does a great version of this song...

Gah!

And on that grand and fateful day
I will take thee in my hand
I will ride on a train
I will be the fisherman

With light in my head
You in my arms...
Light in my head
You in my arms...

Light in my head
You...
With light in my head
You in my arms...
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tanguerra said:
I watched a DVD movie last night and before the film began there were some trailers. I've been feeling a bit topsy turvy emotionally the past couple of weeks about Poland and X and pondering on our recent 'tiff' and reconciliation and whether I'm really ready to forgive him yet, especially since he hasn't actually said 'sorry' yet and if that matters, because I know what he's like ... and how do I feel about all that.
This trailer made me suddenly burst into tears. It shows in a quick three minutes what it feels like to have this kind of bizarro space-time continuum thingy whatever-it-is going on with X.

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Speaking of synchronicity, by the way, the day after I posted this, the movie was on TV, so obviously I watched it. It's not bad really. Heart breaking, but uplifting at the same time.


[He: "I can't stay"


She: "I know"]
 
I had a bit of a 'love' breakthrough this evening. I'd write a blog about it, but no civilians would understand what I meant and I don't know how to translate it into 'civilian' and I've got to share it with someone, so here it is...


I've been trying to harden my heart against X lately. I've been trying to tell myself this is rubbish. It's my imagination. There's no such thing as 'unrequited love'. There's no such thing as 'true love' and if there is, I'm just kidding myself that it's got anything to do with me and X... I've been remembering all the most disagreeable things about him (not just this life) and fully made up my mind just to leave it all well alone. I didn't go to that party. I didn't really want to anyway.... I've been feeling very grumpy. It's getting colder now, with Autumn coming on, but it's really been about all this.


Then, this evening, I was walking to go catch up with a pal for dinner and this song, A Thousand Years, came on my iPod. It was posted in a thread a few weeks back: Songs about reincarnation by LifePurpose

LifePurpose said:
No apologies for the movie soundtrack upon which it is showcased
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It's a lovely song all the same. It made such an impression on me I downloaded it... Tonight I really heard the words properly and every one felt like a stroke from the wing of an angel and a knife blade in my heart at the same time. Hard to explain... (It's a full moon?)


Once again the same old feeling came coursing through me with every word. I thought 'Dang it!'. Then I thought about our 'bet' or our 'game'. It sprang back into my mind. Lately I'd been thinking this whole 'unrequited love' thing is a doddle and you just have to get your mind right (or just walk away)... no problemo...


Gah!
 
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Have you tried an involvement with a new man? A new love always faded my old one into obscurity very quickly. Of course, I probably wasn't dealing with relationships that had endured for several hundred years. You might as well just forgive him quickly, you are probably going to anyway. Reincarnation does put a complicating spin on love.
 
BriarRose said:
Have you tried an involvement with a new man? A new love always faded my old one into obscurity very quickly. Of course, I probably wasn't dealing with relationships that had endured for several hundred years. You might as well just forgive him quickly, you are probably going to anyway. Reincarnation does put a complicating spin on love.
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I've had various relationships over the years with some lovely men. Somehow though I just don't ever feel quite that way about them, although I do try. There's a level of depth always missing. I was perfectly happy just being friends with X before the 'alleged incident' last year. I'm not really all that angry with him any more. I 'forgive' him, because I understand him. I know he didn't 'really' mean it. I feel towards him more like a naughty but adorable brother most of the time ... Just every now and again I get a blast of this overpowering outwards shining love for him and it won't go away even if I try to make it. So, lucky me I guess. It's probably not something I should whinge about.
 
tanguerra said:
A year or two before I met X in real life, I came across [became obsesssed by] this folk song - about a woman waiting faithfully for seven years (and seven more..) for a sailor to come home. [One of my numerous 'quirks' is a great love of folk tunes and an odd ability to memorise lyrics and tunes if I hear a song I like. I know dozens and dozens of folk songs (and pop songs) by heart, but some make a deeper impression upon me than others and this was one of those] .... and although my friends thought it was sloppy and sentimental [and a bit weird] it always brings a tear to my eye (because in the song he actually came back), especially this bit...

...It's seven years since I had a sweetheart
And seven more since I did him see.
But seven more I will wait upon him,
For if he's alive he'll come home to me.


If he's sick I wish him better;
Or if he's dead I wish him rest;
But if he's alive I will wait upon him
For he is the young man that I love best...
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I'm still feeling very topsy turvy this weekend. (It's fine, don't worry. It happens once in a while). I was googling this song and the 'seven years' motif in it strikes me. I googled a very authentic version of it tonight. It's a Scottish/Irish song from around about this time. This is a very amateur singer, but it's how people used to sing 'in the olden days'. I probably sang it when I was a housemaid, mangling sheets or dusting ornaments, or making beds, or whatever and so on... That's the sort of thing I would have done. Me being me, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. It unfailingly brings tears to my eyes, but in a kind of 'self indulgent' 'sentimental' way. De ja vu.

'.

"...It's been nearly seven years since I joined the forum.
You'd think I'd have figured it out by now,
It's been seven hundred since I've been going crazy about X
If it wasn't still fun, I'd probably stop doing it ..."
 
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tanguerra said:
I'm not really all that angry with him any more. I 'forgive' him, because I understand him. I know he didn't 'really' mean it.
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Tanguerra, you don't sound to me like the kind of woman who would tolerate abuse, emotional or otherwise, but do you realize how many women have used almost exactly those words about men who weren't worth loving? Including myself, I might add! (First husband, long story!) It doesn't sound as if your relationship has evolved much since you were a Polish officer who killed X's lover in a duel! I think your soul has matured beyond that, but his hasn't. :confused:
 
Oops! I just edited over my original post...


Anyway the short version is, X and I and some pals went to a party at my daughter's house last night and all's back to normal.

...X was looking around the house which he helped me and my daughter paint and renovate a few years back and we were looking at the bit he had painted and so on. My daughter's cat came up to X to say hello. He's known my kids and the pets for years and years of course. It was a nice reminder of what good friends we really are and how close we've been over the years...
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It just struck me how this little moment is such a mirror image of the scene I remembered in Poland in the room where once there'd been a happy party, making a rather bitter good bye, rather than a nice, relaxed moment of renewed friendship with a happy party going on.


Also, I'm not kidding, the party was a costume party and I'd come dressed as a cossack [the Polish Count in my mind], wearing my thigh high suede boots and a rather impressive jacket ensemble and my hair tied back under a fur hat (I even had a red cape just for fun). X was dressed, stylishly as usual, as himself, but he's peroxided his hair and grown it a bit longer recently and was also wearing it swept back like mine. Funny old world. :)


... After the party X and me and 'the boys' went back to my place for a cup of tea before heading off home. My little old dog came out and greeted X and later fell asleep in his lap while everyone was talking and laughing, just like the old days.
 
This song has always given me X-related goosebumps.


Day and night, she followed him
His teeth did brightly shine
And he led her over the mountains,
Did that sly, bold Reynardine.
 
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So my mother has been having some fun on ancestry.com. Turns out X and I are distant cousins. Two sides removed on my mother's side, three sides on his father's. Astonished? No. Both our (white) families go back five or six generations in Australia, so that's not a surprise (really).


Cousins is nice.
 
I saw X tonight at an art gallery opening (as you do). Haven't seen him for a month or so. His hair is a little longer. He's growing it like I am, and is blond now. Such a copy cat. We picked up our conversation pretty much where we left it a month or so ago (computer stuff). We were with a bunch of other friends who all turned up as well (which happens) so I wasn't rudely just talking to him all the time. It was very nice. We had a drink or two and a few laughs with the gang, just like always.


He very sweetly kissed me on the cheek in parting (when I very sensibly left early as it's a week night). It's a good thing. Hard to describe a sensation like that, but, I feel beautifully, marvellously calm, which is good.
 
X stopped by tonight unexpectedly and unnannouced for a glass of wine and a bit of a gossip on his way from an art gallery opening to another event (as you do). My pretend brother / oldest friend / X's best mate "Douglas" suggested it, as they had both been at the gallery earlier..... D turned up a bit later on. Just normal friend stuff, hanging out together like we used to. It's really lovely that we are on good terms again and we had great fun, X talking about a million miles an hour to catch me up on his latest thoughts about 'everything' (flying cars, an idea about how garden gnomes could become cool again, politics... everything). D all the while smiling indulgently at it all. He's relieved X and I are friends again and the tension is gone.

Later on we headed out into the night different directions. X went right to his thing and D and I went left to go and hear some friends playing music. Just a normal Friday night out and about.

A few hours later, when I got home, I opened the door and I had a rush of the smell of X that hit me like a freight train. My knees actually went weak for a moment as I stepped into my living room and it 'stopped me in my tracks', quite literally, just like the first time we met. Now, don't get me wrong. X doesn't 'smell' or anything. He is one of the most fastidious people I know in that regard. But, nonetheless, his molecules were in my house and I sensed them. I could feel him. I breathed him in. Everything came flooding through me: Japan, Germany, England, Poland, before, after and beyond .... all of it. Whoosh! Just when I thought I was totally cool about it all and no big deal.

I went and sat down in his favourite chair, where he'd been sitting a few hours before, and just inhaled for a minute or two. I wept a quiet little tear of happy gratitude that he is still in my life and we are friends and he is real and he lives and breathes and pops over to visit.

And then this song jumped into my head (it happens).


Odd? Bizarre? Love?
 
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I hope all this doesn't bore people too much. But, it was a strange and overpowering experience last night. I wondered about the song. It's something I hadn't heard for years. It's from a movie soundtrack and has no real connection with X (as far as I know, except we watched the movie together on DVD when we were sharing my apartment a few years back - no big deal at the time). But I think it was something about the thrilling, yet lamenting tone of it... the yearning, the joy, the star-crossed lovers...?


Whenever I see X I'm totally cool about it at the time. We just hang out, have a chat, have a laugh, just like always. But usually later, when I'm alone, these sorts of feelings come over me. I don't want anyone to think that I want a romantic relationship with X in this life. It's nothing like that. He's really very poor boyfriend material! Unreliable, unfaithful, irresponsible, unpunctual, untidy ... It's a very long list! :)


But I am truly overjoyed that we are friends again and things are back to normal and how they should be. It's a lovely place to be. I think that's more what the rush of emotion was about last night. It's a good thing.


Soul mates... it's not like in the movies. At least not the way I do it.
 
My dear friend Tanguerra, such a story does not bore me. I think it is wonderful that you are able to capture this timeless love and all of its ups and downs. As you say, that is the reality of the soul-mate or twin-soul connection... it is NOT always a bowl of cherries!


We share a common ability to detect our "other" in the sense of smell. Once in a great while, and always when I least expect it, I will smell the scent of rose water, her smell from the 1890s. It is almost like a bridge to that other time... and I cross it every time in a daydream stupor. One other similarity is that in those places we shared common time I can still see and feel her presence... and that is in this life and the last. Sometimes I will stand in the exact spot of our last embrace, slip out of time, and hold her once again. It is always painful to return, but I wouldn't give it up for anything. It is like the aura of this intense union remains in some form of spiritual haunt.


No T such timeless love stories cannot bore they are the momentum of living a passionate life. We are blessed to know. For those who cannot understand it is easy for them to move onto another thread. Thank you for sharing. It is a cold, rainy Sunday morning, perfect for numinous thought of love in all its wonder.


Tman
 
This is not boring! I think I, too, was in that chair once, but for me it was several hundred years ago, and I was smelling his jacket.

tanguerra said:
Soul mates... it's not like in the movies.
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That's for **** sure . . .
 
Thanks guys.


Smell, and music too, are somehow connected to the deepest memories and often strongest emotions, aren't they?
 
Tinkerman said:
...Once in a great while, and always when I least expect it, I will smell the scent of rose water, her smell from the 1890s. It is almost like a bridge to that other time... and I cross it every time in a daydream stupor. One other similarity is that in those places we shared common time I can still see and feel her presence... and that is in this life and the last. Sometimes I will stand in the exact spot of our last embrace, slip out of time, and hold her once again. It is always painful to return, but I wouldn't give it up for anything. It is like the aura of this intense union remains in some form of spiritual haunt...
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The other night when I opened the door X was 'there' 'in front of me', undeniably, unignorably, unexpectedly and unreasonably... There he was (again). The scent of him was the trigger- but it was an experience of all my senses at once plus one (or two). I heard his voice, I saw his face(s), I felt him... as I describe above, it 'whooshed' over me.


As you say, Tinkerman, it was to ...' slip out of time, and hold her once again. It is always painful to return, but I wouldn't give it up for anything. It is like the aura of this intense union remains in some form of spiritual haunt...'


Probably not something to whinge about but... augrufughotuytrrrrrgghh!
 
I went out tonight, tearing about town as usual, to a birthday party funnily enough with my 'pretend brother' D and my friend X...


At one point, on the way, we ended up in X's cute little bohemian apartment above an old building - small, simple, a secure roof, a haven for him ... He is from a wealthy family, but they've largely 'disowned' him because of his bohemian carryings on this life... Be careful what you wish for I suppose... X often complains that he lives in poverty because they don't trust him with an inheritance (fairly wise in my view, knowing him as I do). But, they have bought him this little apartment at last.


I hadn't seen his new place before although he's been living there a little while now. He was showing it off and apologisng about the mess (not very messy really I thought - rather Spartan, a little bit Star Trek - very X). It reminded me of my tiny, little flat in London during WWII, above the bar, that he thought was so cool at the time (but with a lot less pink) ... He's trying to make friends with me again. It's so cute and so marvellous I don't know how to express my joy.


De ja vu.

 
Over the weekend my dear little dog died. He was very old and it was time, but I was quite sad about it, of course. X and D wanted me to come out and have fun with them, but I said I wasn't in the mood. They came over to my place anyway with a bottle of wine to cheer me up.


X walked into my apartment and opened his arms wide and I just walked into them. He held me in his arms for several minutes in the most sweet way. We don't normally hug and have barely touched each other, except perhaps a passing brush by accident, for years, maybe the occasional peck on the cheek in parting. But it felt so natural and wonderful and was very, very comforting. D was quietly astonished, not least because barely a few months ago we weren't speaking and this is not characteristic X behaviour. (Think Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory who is so like X we tease him about it sometimes). Before too long I was feeling a lot better. They'd invited some more of my friends over without telling me (such sweet boys really). Then we all went out and stayed up until almost dawn and had the most wonderful time.


When I eventually went home to bed I cried my eyes out for what seemed like hours. It wasn't just about the dog (although it mostly was). I was thinking about all the separations from X over the centuries, especially most recently during The Blitz and how each time I thought I couldn't bear it and wouldn't ever, ever get over it. I often didn't 'get over it' of course. I think a lot of what's been going on this life with us is to do with me 'getting over it' and realising I can get along perfectly well with or without him. Somehow this thought was very comforting while I was rather melodramatically thinking I would 'never get over' the death of my little dog. I'm still quite sad about it, but I know I'll 'get over it' in my own time.


Oddly enough, X was wearing a T-shirt with a huge letter 'X' emblazoned on the front, taking up his whole torso. I asked him at one point what it meant. He said he didn't know. He just thought it looked 'cool'. Funny, huh? He doesn't know anything about this forum or anything and I wouldn't dream of telling him. I'm so glad we're friends again.
 
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