When I was a lot younger, I had this ideal that I was going to marry my next door neighbour, he was everything to me and I think I was actually in love with him. It must have only been from the age of 5 until 9, but time goes so slow when you're younger.
I often wonder if it's meant to be like that becuase as a child you have so much to learn and to process, how could it be possible for them to learn if the days where going as quick as they seem to be now?
So for my eternity as a child, I was obsessed with my nextdoor neighbour. I'll call him the Captain for the benefit of this post.
Most evenings before I went to bed, I would put my white laced petticoat on and pretend it was my wedding dress and dream of the Captain and I married, having sex and having our own children; bearing in mind I didn't know a lot about sex, just what I caught on late night tv and what my older brother taught me from what he had heard from his friends.
My brother was best friends with the Catain, and he always used to tease us about us fancying one another, I was so embarassed becuase, growing up surrounded by only boys, this was not condoned, so I never did tell him I was in love with him.
There wasn't a single day I didn't think or fantasize about him and I can't describe how much I felt for him, I can only say, I probably loved him as much as my mother, and for a child, that's a lot of love for someone who isn't related.
I'll never forget one day, when we were playing with my brother outside, he took me to the hedge that was separating both our gardens, pulled me close and kissed me on the lips. My first ever kiss from a boy. I had no fucking clue, I fucking ran away and left him there in the hedge. I ran upstairs and washed my face convinced he'd left a mark.
'I will be prepared next time' I say, feeling stupid, of course he couldn't leave a mark on my face. I was hopelessly waiting for him to kiss me again, I was now convinced he felt the same way, I kept thinking that we must be destined to be together. We
will get married, he
loves me! ...
He never tried again.
It broke my fucking heart when I had to move away, it was literally only 10 minutes away, but it might as well have been half way around the world to me. I knew I wasn't going to visit him and I knew I was going to be enrolled in a different school aswell.
Time is good. But for healing wounds? I don't think so. Time just pushes feelings and memories back one space from the list of prioroties, until it get's too far back to think about in that day. Some times, it will be triggered and all the files and folders that contain these memories get looked at again with new eyes however it won't have the same raw emotion like it was the first lot of time the files where looked at, it get's blunter with every peek, it will never be completely blunt, that's just being human.
You wouldn't be able to cope with life if every bad experience that happened to you was as fierce and new as the day you experienced it. We rationalise our emotions and thoughts to help us cope.
Time by itself hasn't healed us at all, we have healed
ourselves over time.
I think reasoning and maturity stopped my pining for the Captain. After about a year, he never crossed my mind, unless it was triggered again. But like I said, each time I thought about him, he dulled in my mind a bit and the love gradually became lifeless.
I proceeded to fall in love with another guy who lived in the street I moved to, this one was was a bit more difficult to shake off as my previous little fantasizes of weddings, children, bunnies and candyfloss became extremely peverse and sexual. But that's another story.
Tabby
