The Sad Truth

Ben, 40s, reasonably attractive, well spoken.

Ben:

Chocolate cake with chocolate sauce, what does that say about our host?

We’ve all heard that women use chocolate as a substitute for sex. I think a more accurate comment on the matter would be that after a while, chocolate becomes not the substitute for sex but the reason you’re not having it in the first place.

I need to be physically attracted to my partner – let’s be honest, we all do. You can tell me looks are only skin deep as much as you like but, isn’t the skin an integral part of the human make up and therefore rather important in the grand scheme of things?

You wouldn’t buy a rusty car would you? Beauty may well be in the eye of the beholder but rust is rust, there’s no getting away from it! It’s a sad truth but there it is.

That’s why, when you are first getting to know somone you are not you, you are your representative; the best version of you. The truth will come out eventually, always does. It sounds counter-romantic but loving someone, for a long time, is all about knowing the very worst things about that person, the annoying things, the things that make you shudder in the street when you even think about them, things you didn’t even notice at first, and finding a way to ignore it all.  Its not glamorous, its just tolerance.

And that’s why people cheat…… I haven’t. Yet. Thought about it? Yes, and I would, if, I knew I could get away with it, that nobody, no-one, would get hurt… then yes, absolutely. And I’d challenge anyone who says they wouldn’t – they are simply not being honest with themselves. We’re all the same, dying for excitement and in the cold light of day after day after day, after day, monogamy gets boring.

It starts off great. You meet the woman of your dreams, who’s like no one you’ve ever met before and fall in helplessly love.  You have wild and passionate sex (for 8 months to a year) until the time comes when you become acutely aware that she’s probably the best person you’ve ever been with and if you don’t marry her she’s likely to walk away.

Now you have to think about mortgage payments and matching curtains, and suddenly the incredible woman you thought you’d die without, is starting to blend in amongst the ivory and the beige in your living room.  And one day, when the conversation has well and truly run out, and you don’t know what else to do, the only way to escape the monotony is to have a couple of kids. And that’s is, you’re well and truly done; no more surprises, no more excitement, just everything in its place, all the time. Life becomes predictable, regimented; I have a wife, two children and a schedule.

Scarlett’s nine and on Mondays I pick her up from string quartet practice at 5.40 while my other half takes Max to cubs, he’s seven. Tuesday Scarlett has brownies, which the Mrs helps run, so I’m in charge of dinner, bath and bed for Max. Wednesday they both have swimming lessons and on Fridays Scarlett has gymnastics which Max likes to go and watch so I get to have a drink after work. I can squeeze in two and a half pints and still get home in time for our Friday night take away.

I coach the local under 9s on a Saturday – for which Max is the reserve goal keeper, not quite good enough but a real trier. Then, if the Red and Whites are at home we go to the game and watch them lose more often than not. I got Max his season ticket for his fourth birthday, but if I tell the truth he doesn’t seem that interested.

Saturday nights is family film night and my turn to do dinner. Sausage casserole and mashed potato is my gourmet specialty.

Most Sundays the wife takes the kids to church with her mother and I get in a round of golf. I used to play of 8 before the kids were born but now my handicap is round about 15.

The kids go to bed early on Sundays and if she gets the ironing done and there’s nothing on telly, and we’re not too tired, so do we if I’m lucky!

I know it doesn’t sound like anything special, its not, but we have a good life. We have two nice holidays a year and the kids go to a good school. We eat well, drink well and live well.

Am I madly in love? No. Not anymore.

Am I happy? For the most part, yes. I’m content. And so is she.

We make each other content and that’s “okay”. Its been enough to get us through the last 13 years, I assume it’ll get us through a few more.

We get on well most of the time, our tastes aren’t so dissimilar. We both quite like university challenge, and Italian food. We’ll never agree on a radio station in the car but we don’t argue.

And we still have sex, sometimes … more than most as I understand it. So I don’t complain… too much. It doesn’t take long. We know all the short cuts and preferences that make it more like a strategic maneuver than a romantic communion of bodies.

Sometimes I wonder if she feels the same. I assume that because we have a good life, decent house, nice things that she’s as ambivalent to romance as I am. Don’t get me wrong, I get her a card on Valentines day, and so far (touch wood) in 13 years I’ve never been caught out by our anniversary.

I’ve never been one for romance. The last romantic thing I did for her, really romantic, Hollywood style romance was surprising her with a trip to Paris three weeks before we got engaged. I knew she’d think I was gonna propose and when I didn’t she was livid. I could see the sheer disappointment in her whole body from her eyes to her elbows.

Two weeks later, on a Wednesday over a chicken chow mien and a cheap Pinot Grigio, I finally popped the question, and surprised wasn’t the word.

[Laughs]

We should do that again. Probably wouldn’t work now though. Things are different. Love changes, it normalizes. And I’m okay with that. We should probably make more of an effort to spend time just the two of us, but our baby-sitters keep finishing school and going to university.

We do go to book club on the second Thursday of the month, although its should really be called wine club for all the reading we get done. It’s nice to be around adults for the night and pretend we are still modern and ‘hip’.

[Laughs].

I’m not a big reader and I prefer a cold Guinness to a glass of shiraz but book club is my guilty pleasure for a different reason.

[Pause]

Amanda Shepherd. Single mother of Alfie, four and Daisy two and a half.

She is divine.

[Pause]

She’s got short red hair that falls across her face when she laughs and the kind of figure that says she’s a woman who enjoys life to the full but still cares about how she looks; all curves and nail polish. She’s got a little scar just here, under her chin, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, just imperfect enough to make her perfect.

I have this dream where we are together and I’m kissing that scar and it tastes like nothing I’ve ever tasted.

[Pause]

I woke up the other day and Max had come into our room crying He’d had a bad dream……..and I tell him what I tell myself: it was just a dream.

I wouldn’t risk what I’ve got, which is real, which is okay – it is, for something that doesn’t really exist.

I remember that nervous, butterfly feeling, it was great… it was exciting. But suppose I’ve got security instead. And that’s better I think.

I wear odd socks

My socks don’t match and my room is untidy,

I can’t find my keys, or my purse or my left glove.

I fold my clothes inside out and leave them in piles

On top of heaps, on top of gathered things

On top of fallen leaves and discarded receipts

From the forgotten buys of yester-week.

My heart thinks at a thousand beats per minute,

Jumbled words and complex equations.

My brain pours emotion into empty jars for safe keeping

And labels them with question marks and dot, dot, dots.

My writing is illegible and my speech: borderline.

I can’t remember your name, or his number or their age.

I know the rules of the game but I hardly ever play:

I’m a spectator bystander, observing-outside-critical eye.

I’m a grown up, grown child, grand gestures and medium ideas.

And now is the time to stop thinking, start feeling:

Now needs to be organised, prepared and set ready.

Because if I carry on and don’t stop, mismatching my socks

Mislaying my way and messying up my world,

I might never, almost find the one thing I don’t know I want.

Blurry nights

There is a feeling in your knees like they just don’t want to work

Because they remember last night better than your brain.

Wondering, you scrape the back of your mind

Exploring every morsel of memory trying to get a proper bite.

You remember being somewhere, somehow,

Without knowing for sure how somehow you got there.

Your face searches to the left, willing a flash of light

And you bury your eyes in your hands again hiding from the unknown.

Something is vivid but only for a second,

Too soon it’s gone again leaving just the whiff of a clue,

And that aching feeling in your knees;

a reminder of a fuzzy night.

Beautifully stated

~anonymous~

“As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that 

wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will.

You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time.

You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken.

You'll fight with your best friend.

You'll blame a new love for things an old one did.

You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love.

So, take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.”

No-one likes hospitals

There is a solemnity to the people you see in hospitals.

You see someone and don’t know why they are there,

Those people you see in hospitals.

Boredom seeps from the yawning mouths of

The people you see in hospitals.

Loss and blame writhes through the hallways,

While questions are answered and unanswered again

For the people you see in hospitals.

Pain and worry is shone like a light in their eyes,

Contagious fear rips through the healthy and patient .

Sorrow rises like smoke from the building, a beacon to all,

Reminding us how much we all hate, being

The people you see in hospitals. 

If the world owes you something............

If you don't like your life, simply burn it down

So you can start again from scratch,

From ashes and mud.

Attack the school that tried to teach you right from wrong,

To teach them a lesson they'll never forget.

Charge the church that offered you peace

And the club that volunteered to keep you warm and dry.

Rattle lampposts and up turn bins

To hammer home your well rounded argument.

Intimidate the buses that get you around,

And torch cars you dreamed you'd own,

If only life was “fair”.

If you are angry that your life didn't turn out exactly as you wanted,

Go straight to the source and make them pay:

The shops and businesses of your own sorry community.

Show them the injustice that bears down upon you

As you bear upon them, with violence and hate.

Stand up and take what's yours - an eye for an eye.

Take terror to the streets you live in,

Until they know exactly who you are.

And when you are finished, and you've made your case,

Stand up in court

And get just what you deserve!

Tomorrow is the 8^th of August

Tomorrow is another day, another year, another moment I have lost with you.

Tomorrow is a reminder that you’re not here and you should be.

It has come around again, too fast to believe.

And still, too long ago was the last time we smiled together.

Tomorrow will be yesterday soon and we will keep moving on.

Forward without you: it’s hard but we try.

Tomorrow is another day, just a day in the long, long year,

Tomorrow will come and go but Muv, your memory is always here.