‘Then let’s have a coffee and celebrate…’ I took her hand and whisked her into Nero’s.
I have known Julia (JJ) a long time, we used to write together, our desks adjoined in a busy publishing office. We talked a lot about love, her loves mostly… so I got to know her better than the majority of her boyfriends and the pain and despair caused by the old ones.
It was a holiday romance that stopped that, where she finally fell in love, in love enough to feel safe, secure in the knowledge that he might be the one… someone interesting, she thought trustworthy and who really loved her. A man who despite her quirky nature laughed with her and understood her mind, the way it worked, because he was the same… two peas in a pod I remember how an old school friend of hers described them and it was a pretty accurate description.
I was nearly as shaken as she was when he left, for it seemed inconceivable that they’d not share the rest of their lives together… ‘I guess sometimes life has another path for us, I’m sure people come into our lives to teach us something, to show us some lesson we need to learn about who we are,’ I said trying to make her cry less.
I remember she looked at me, her pained expression posing the question, then he won’t come back to me, he has taught me something and now he’s gone, to teach someone else a lesson too, to be in love with them and not me.
‘I lie awake at night,’ she told me, ‘waiting for him to text me… from the day we first met until the day he left there was not one despite his travels that we did not speak in some way…’ she stared to sob again.
That was nearly five years ago… during that time she managed to keep in touch with him, and he with her, just enough to know what each other were up to. The hurt stayed though, and the anger that he had damaged who they were together.
Then about a year ago I went to a party and she was there, a new man on her arm, another tall and handsome guy, and I guess he owned one of the Porsche’s lined up next to my old car on the drive outside. I winked at her, and as I kissed her and said ‘Happy Christmas,’ I whispered in her ear… ‘your new man then?’
I was introduced and shook his hand, we spoke a little before he went off to get us a drink. ‘He seems nice. Is this one serious?’ She smiled a little and rocked her head first one way and then the other, her way of saying… it’s ok, it’ll do… he has everything in the right place.
She text me a week later… ‘It was so lovely to see you, let’s meet for a coffee some-place, make it soon!!xx’ She used exclamation marks only to say that she was serious and I really need to see you.
We sat on our customary sofa by a familiar view of the busy high street, a place we so often used to sit for a coffee during our lunch break or just a get-together and a chat.
‘What’s up then?’ I asked… we both smiled but I could see the pain behind hers… her brown eyes had a sadness in them.
‘Are you with anyone? She asked…
‘Are you?’ I offered back. She looked like she was about to cry again so I reached and touched her hand… entwined my fingers in hers. We talked for an hour, finished another large cup of coffee before I had to go.
‘The thing is JJ, do you want me to be really honest with you?
‘Yes’ she said, ‘Why change the habit of a life-time – it’s why you’re my friend, you make me think, help me move forward however brutal I think you are sometimes, you’re usually right, you bugger!!’
‘It seems to me…’ I said, ‘that you still love him, you are still trying to find another just like him and the chances of that are nil… every-one is so different; so why don’t you call him or when he contacts you again start a conversation, meet him like we are here for a coffee and see if he really is the man you still love deep down behind that denial of yours.’
She said something I hear so often… ‘I don’t step back!!’ I don’t want to move back to that town, it feels like a ‘step back’, I don’t want another job like I had ten years ago, it feels a ‘step back’, I don’t want another of those cars, it feels a ‘step back’, however much I love him I won’t go back to him because it’s a ‘step back’.
‘Why not!! Is that not cutting off your nose to spite your face?
‘It’s a principle I have’ she said… and my friends tell me that too!’
‘Hmmmm…’ was my immediate reply.
‘So you think that stepping back is just going to recreate the hurt, you remember the pain when he left and you don’t want to face that again… yet you do every time you think of him, or something reminds you of him or you meet someone who reminds you of him then turns out to hurt you or annoy you; to not be the man you hoped he was once you really got to know him.
‘What do I do to move on then…?’ she asked her eyes welling up again.
‘Darling stop listening to others opinions, follow your heart… and this not stepping back fixation is ridiculous… there is no such thing, it only exists as something negative if that’s how you choose to look at it. We all have this bloody ego thing that sits there putting the fear of God into every thought we have and look it’s shouting at you right now, don’t step back you’ll get hurt again, or what will my friends say, or there’s a principle at stake here!!!?’
‘It still hurts though, it’s still raw, it still makes me cry!’
‘Then deal with it… stepping back is often the bravest of all things, probably the hardest too... simply because we think it’s a negative thing when in reality it’s the absolute opposite, especially if it’s something we really want however much we deny that to ourselves. Stepping back with the right frame of mind can be the most wonderful experience, because you are saying to yourself, look I have learned my past mistakes, I understand me and the situation better, I know how to handle this now, to not be afraid of it, and to take it to the next level.’
‘But how do I do that?’
‘Rewrite what your mind is saying to you about the past… go back in your mind, rewrite the thoughts to how you wish it had turned out, make it like a fantasy, a dream… then carry that thought forward into your future rather than the story of the past you think of now. You must stop pushing the negativity of your past into your future, because otherwise it will always be there in that form and keep that feeling of unhappiness alive.’
‘None of that will be true through, what happened, happened!’
‘The truth darling is only what you want to make it, how you want to perceive it… reinvent that and you’ll see how it changes your view, how it will make you smile instead of cry… you will see how you can move on and the only way of doing that is to step back first… And with him in mind it might just allow you to do that or you might find that love again… the two of you. What have you got to be afraid of? Nothing, it’s all positive, it’s all about letting go of the past, all the hurt and emotions whichever way you step. Stepping back is the beginning of going forward with this… with him or without the hurt of that time… then you’ll be running before you realise what is happening and you will have the BIGGEST smile on your face and butterfly’s again in your tum.’
It’s nearly Christmas again, and we’re sitting on the same comfy sofa, next to the familiar view of the High Street, but she is smiling now… She pointed her long finger at me… ‘look’ she said, I held her hand in mine, ran my finger over the cluster of diamonds… ‘When?’ I asked with a broad smile.
‘Just after I saw you last, he text me, asked me for a coffee… we cried and we laughed, he held me tightly when he left, it felt like no time had passed, like we had been together all of that time, just in a different time and space, somewhere parallel… waiting for the right moment for us to come together again. Now we’re getting married, in March, it marks a very special time for us and you know what, I did exactly as you said like the good girl I am… and you were bloody right again, just as you always are… so don’t get too smug about that!!’
I hugged her and said with more than a dash of self-righteousness, but feeling enormously happy for her too… ‘the power of your mind is always there sweetie, all you have to do is remember to use it…’
She kissed me goodbye again… ‘see you in March!!’ she said.
‘We have a date then…’
© Simon Lawrence