After my sister’s wedding, as had become habitual for me, I went to see Jasper. He had been invited to the wedding, but for reasons of his own, decided not to come. My sister had invited him for my sake, and he had accepted the invitation. The thing was, he didn’t unaccept it, so up until the Monday before the wedding, I had no idea that he wasn’t coming. To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. I was, in fact, livid. I was so angry that I changed my ticket. Instead of returning to Amsterdam for the end of my trip, I decided to cancel that leg and remain in the UK for an extra week.
Still, the part of me that couldn’t let go of our relationship, decided to go to Amsterdam and see what was up. I won’t bore you with the specific details of the how, but the what is not a state secret. I went to Amsterdam as Jasper’s best friend, his very worried best friend, and left for Scotland a week later as his girlfriend. It was a surprise to everyone, but most of all, me. You see, I had gone to Amsterdam to say a permanent goodbye. I was angry and felt that the respectful thing to do would have been to let me and my sister know that he wasn’t coming.
I had so many complicated feelings for and about Jasper. I had loved him for five years before we got together in that fall of 2015. But I hadn’t moped or waited around, as some people seem to think. I just didn’t broadcast my attempts to find a relationship. If I had had the gift of magic that my main character, Nerys has, I might have foreseen this change and it wouldn’t have been such a surprise. I also wouldn’t have changed my trip and stayed in the UK, but I did and it ended up being a good decision.
While in Scotland, I had met some people that I became quite close to. When I left Scotland, I went to them in Wapping. I barely knew Colin and Caroline Hampden-White in 2012, having met them in the fall of 2011 through my sister Alex. In 2015, it was a different story. By 2015, I considered C and C (sorry, its just too time consuming to write Colin and Caroline) very close friends. They had been at the wedding and asked me to come and stay with them in London. They could accurately read my mood and knew that cheering up, plus a lot of whiskey, was in order. So off I went to London. It was just what the doctor ordered. Colin and Caroline were the first people to express support for my decision to enter into a relationship with Jasper. Caroline is very level headed and rather than judging me, she told me to jump. I am to this day, so grateful for the unconditional support, and of course, the whiskey. With them, I processed what all of this meant and what that might mean for the future.
I left the US responsible to and for, myself in 2015. I returned in the fall accountable to someone else. I hadn’t been in a relationship for nine years. I wasn’t sure what to expect or if I could do it again. But I had found my writing, and that would help with the changes to come.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. How did I manage a very long distance relationship and all the other things I juggled? Stay tuned, that’s up next.
Inkreadable 