breathing space

Tonight is the first night I am alone for more than one and a half months. And it's quite nice, having this little quiet place called solitude to myself.

Since AJ and I got together in the last week of July, we've spend every night together either at his or mine, bar one weekend where I went to Stockholm for a friend's wedding, and I shared a room with a colleague. So I haven't really had the space and silence to allow my thoughts to form, much less to write.

Having been a swinging single for seven years, I'm used to my being alone and independent, and yet, I don't feel suffocated by this sudden perpetual two-some, which is strange enough. Even stranger is that I've had two very different relationships (albeit very short term ones) in the space of the last three months, and yet have been happy with both. While I was with BT (French boy 1), we wouldn't email, text, or call usually. Our communication usually comprised a succinct email once during the week to suggest meeting up during the weekend, and maybe a follow-up text/email or two during the course of the week. On the occasions I am able to leave early during the week, I would meet him for dinner, and then we would spend a day or a day and a half on the weekend together. And during my three weeks' travelling in Pakistan, he never texted/called me once. Most people find this shocking and weird. But I was perfectly happy with our level of communication and I cared very much for him. Then came AJ, where we see each other almost 24/7, both at work, given that we work in the same team, and also the nights which we spend together, and on weekends - and I've taken to that like fish to water as well.

I went to Brittany to eat (signature Breton crepes, lunch at Olivier Roellinger's three-Michelin-starred Maison de Bricourt at Cancale), visit his country (Dinard, Mt St Michel, Quimper, Benodet), and meet his parents.

I'm really glad we went to Brittany. Meeting his parents and sister, seeing the house he grew up in, looking through the photos of him from babyhood through to adolescence really reassured me by giving me a more nuanced insight of who he is and where he comes from. His mom is a tiny, petite little woman, and his sister is a night beauty - in a dark satin top that night we met, all dark hair and pale skin, with a shy smile, and a tendency to steal sideways glances at me. And they were all quite lovely and friendly, and, thanks to the boy's good work, didn't put me through an Inquisition. I feel more stable now, and if all goes well, I'm hoping to bring him home to eat, see my country, and meet my parents come December.