Thursday 26 March 2015

Familiarity

I'm just whiling away what should be a couple of seconds to receive an email, but seems to be turning into a matter of hours.

It pays to shop around. I have just committed to buy 30 kilograms of aluminium ingot from a company in Yorkshire who are more used to delivering the stuff by the tonne rather than the tiny amount which I need. Sometimes it pays to be small as well.

I was lying in bed before dawn this morning, thinking of how my life would have been different if I was physically smaller than I ended up. I came to the conclusion that I would probably have used my height in the same way as I have exploited my actual height, and try to appeal to the mothering instincts of girls and women, rather than the homicidal Amazonian traits in the ones that I seemed to have attracted.

I think the only woman I ever related to on an equal basis without endless conflict is H.I., which is - no doubt - why we are still together. I have known quite a few couples who delight in constant bickering and arguments about nothing, and they have told me that life would be dull without them. I don't see it myself.

I was walking down the street yesterday, when I came upon an elderly couple at a bus-stop.

She was sitting on the bench and he was standing there, just watching, when - without warning - she threw-up on the pavement. She was obviously not well.

"Oh, that was clever, wasn't it?!", was his unsympathetic response.

She just said, "I couldn't help it," and I was filled with sadness that a couple could be so long together and lose all sense of empathy for each other.

The worst experience of my life to date happened a few years ago when, one evening, I heard a terrible crash from the room next door and ran in to find H.I. lying in a heap after she had fallen over whilst changing out of her trousers and into her pyjamas. She had lost balance and fallen onto a cluttered glass table which - thankfully - had not broken, and she ended up semi-conscious on the floor.

Her face was horribly bruised and she did not leave the house for about a week because of it. Even then, she wore a scarf around her face and dark sunglasses. I still have to fight off tearfulness when I remember it.

That email has just arrived.

21 comments:

  1. This post made me cry.
    Sad tears for myself. I am that woman throwing up.
    Happy tears because of your love for H.I.

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  2. That old woman should have said, "No, THIS is clever!" and thrown up again...this time on him. What an asshole.

    I can't imagine being married to such a mean spirited person. Especially as an elderly person. That's so sad.

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    1. I am sure it was not as basic as it seemed, but I would have thought that when you get to a certain age, you are less embarrassed by other's behaviour and more by your own?

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  3. I, too, find it unbearably sad to see couples expressing such total apathy-- sometimes one to another sometimes to each other. You and H.I. are so lucky to have each other. The only time I have seen my husband cry was when I accidentally hit my head on the corner of table -- it was in the dark. When he turned the light on I was almost hysterical and blood was pouring from my forehead. The wound was far worse than it looked, but it looked terrible! So did the resulting two black and blue eyes...

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  4. I see the elderly man differently
    As i have witnessed such behaviour time and time again in hospital......
    Many people cannot verbalise their feelings adequately
    They fill the void with shite

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    1. That comment was for my benefit, because I was passing at the time, and his wife's behaviour embarrassed him. No excuse. No excuse whatsoever.

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    2. A lot of people are just people that do things we wouldnt do
      Like my parents..
      His thoughts may be very different

      Oh fuck it...........he was a twat

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    3. That's the spirit, but aren't we all?

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  5. John beat me to it. Peter shouts at me like this. It doesn't mean he doesn't love me. It is just his way of coping. Once the initial shouting is over he is good at the comforting bit that follows, and one of the kindest men you could ever meet. When I was so ill once I couldn't move out of bed he shouted at me when he found me there and then proceeded to wait on me hand and foot and nothing was too much trouble.

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    1. Of course. But why should anyone feel embarrassed about showing love, empathy and affection in public? What kind of an understanding is that? You make allowance for Peter's social embarrassment, but don't forget that you exist too - not just behind closed doors.

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    2. I trust that these are rhetorical questions because I am not going to attempt to answer them here. Love is a wonderful thing and I am pleased that both you and I have found it with our respective partners.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. Yes - what we we do without them? I am more frightened by that thought than my own death, that's for sure.

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    5. I never venture down that road.

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  6. The farmer and I have never had a cross word in our twenty two years together - I think it is because we are both tolerant people and are prepared to live and let live. Some folk call this boring - I prefer to call it common sense.

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    1. I call it good a old-fashioned marriage, from when the vows used to mean something.

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  7. We all do the best we can with what we've got

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    1. That's what I told all the Amazons I went out with.

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