On an unknown path
See that path running off before me
Lockdown has cost me a chunk of my spiritedness. Allbeit that I’m more industrious than before, and less frazzled, gliding through life and tasks interspersed with frequent lengthy walks, naps and moments of mental clarity. I used to get excited about people, seeing them, learning from them, interacting with them, hearing their stories. And - well this is a typical Jasmine thing I suppose - at least half my social life was made up of kissing strangers. I was going on dates pretty much every week and if he was any kind of cute I’d kiss him if he’d let me - but who wants to kiss anyone now? Or get within two metres of a stranger to do so? That shit’ll kill you.
Less than a month before the lockdown started I started seeing someone and although it was early days and there were some obvious issues things did seem to be going pretty well - he was easy to spend time with and created that calm, safe space that I just love, and we were affectionate, and talked a lot. It hasn’t survived the lockdown though even though we tried everything we could think of to stay in touch. There’s been an element of paranoia to being alone and misreading other people’s motives, being unable to judge whether they really care and (often erroneously, probably) assuming they don’t. I’ve gotten quite hard-hearted, I’m ashamed to say (the whole proposition was a bit nuts though, there’s no changing that). I am resolutely not ready for relationships and hated all this stuff about being told who I could and couldn’t see or talk to or what had been going on in the past or… all these questions. Perfectly reasonable but unanswerable questions.
And then when I did see him again and he hugged me and I just didn’t feel anything, couldn’t let myself feel comforted by it… I don’t know what the future holds but in ten days I’m going to be two months into another year of celibacy only this one could be the first of many… but at least I have done it before so know what to expect now. And there are people out there who wouldn’t let it go a year, surely?