Since Jeremy and I first met I've been counting. The months until I see him; the days until we say goodbye; the hours of sleep lost waiting until his day overlaps with my day and we're both home and awake(ish) at the same time and he can call...
There's a trick to the counting - when I'm waiting to see him, I skip the day I'm on and the day he arrives, but reverse the rule when we're saying goodbye - I've named this Love Counting, or artless delusion to the less romantically minded amongst you.
Today, I sat on the tube amid the crush and clamour of London, returning to work with a bump after the peace and warmth of Spain, and counted the days left at TimeBank (38 - not including the weekends. That's called Lie-In Counting).
As I sat there, trying not to breathe in swine-flu germs, I considered all the time I had counted away. An ex-boyfriend who was trying to impress me with his philosophical lyricism and grasp of existentialism once told me I could never kill time. At the time, I found it flattering and enigmatic. Now looking back it seems like cringeworthy claptrappery and somewhat ironic. Because as time-killers go, I have to be the grim reaper. Always looking to the next challenge, the miracle around the corner that's going to make things brighter, easier, shinier.
If I'm the Grim Reaper, Jeremy is the Angel of Life (ok, maybe I'm sounding like the cringey ex, but bear with me) - no one lives in the moment as much as he does. Often I find it intensely irritating because he doesn't worry about anything - he like IS the lilly in the field, not worrying or spinning and yet coasting through life as if he were a ordained by Satre himself with the art of living in the now. I on the other hand see worrying as a way of warding off bad luck, like if I don't stay alert then bad things will happen - I refuse to sleep on airplanes in case they crash while I'm not looking. I worry and I anticipate and I kill time like all there is is tomorrow.
But that has to stop. Firstly because I'm not getting younger and I don't want to wish time away while all the while wrinkles are encroaching. Secondly because it's bloody tiring and I'm pretty sure it makes me, on occasion, very annoying. There's only limited time left living in London, (which for all its fumes and commuter germs is full of people I love and will miss) and I can't will that time away by missing Jeremy. And then once I'm in America we have a marriage to grow and a life to build and something tells me I'll be doing us a disservice if I'm waiting for the next trip to England or visit from friends.
I have to start Love Counting as if every day were a day with Jeremy (be assured that I'm not always on clouds when around him, we've been together over 6 years afterall - I'm just sticking with the theme), where days aren't skipped but celebrated. In short, I have to become worthy of the cringeworthy claptrappery bestowed upon me all those years ago. And maybe in the process I'll start to understand the inner workings of my beloved's (Jeremy, not the philosophising ex) mind in all its momentary brilliance.
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