Another weekend.

Again, staying in the house. The house that’s really the ground floor of quite a big house.

It’s nice but it has that ‘unlived in’ feel as it is, really, not lived in.

It may have been almost 11 months but I am still wary, still not wanting to rock the boat, still not wanting to say all that I feel, all that I want, all that I need. I hold back. I wait, patiently, for him to say things or suggest things or do things. I feel ‘temporary’, as if, any moment, it will all finish. It’s not really good but I don’t want to be imposing nor, to be honest, am I unhappy about just drifting along. After all, we don’t live together. If there’s an escape (and it applies to both of us) then it’s an easy one to be made. Although it is all good, I don’t feel the commitment and, so, don’t feel quite committed, even if I don’t want nor feel that I want anyone else.

But I don’t feel that there isn’t commitment either. I don’t feel that it’s temporary when I’m with him and yet, I do. I guess I don’t really think about it. We’re not young any more. We don’t have our whole life in front of us – only part of our life even if that may be half! Not that I want to be young. I’m comfortable being old although I’m still waiting for the ‘feeling old’ bit to really kick in.

F said, last night, that N would be 50 today. I thought: Oh, that’s old – before I checked myself, having already passed that milestone. But that isn’t the first time that’s happened. I know that, not having children by which to measure the passing of time, the ageing process, means that it doesn’t really catch up with you. Most of my friends are my age, even if they are considerably younger. They’re my friends and so, my age. The only exception to this are the people that are half my age or less who are obviously more like children than real, grown-up human beings.

For the last few weeks, while we’ve been down there, he’s been talking about renovating the house, making it more habitable, more homely. He needed to discuss it with his brother who, as time goes on, I realise is not F in any way and I would not swap what I have for Johnny Depp even if I like the idea – it’s on a very superficial level only.

He discussed it. They discussed it. They aren’t the same person even if they are twins. They are twins in that they came out at the same time (more or less) but they have no special connection as twins sometimes do (or so I’ve read).

Johnny favoured one single house from the two flats. F says he couldn’t live with him (but he didn’t say this to him, only to me, several times). I’m sure that is true. Then again, I’m not sure who F could live with or, even if that person would be me!

When F suggested it be kept as two flats, Johnny suggested that they turn it into three flats. He was just being stupid or pretending to be so. F has ideas for his part of the house. Some changes he would like to make, that he could make now by taking a mortgage (not even a big one) and doing it and paying it off within 10 or 15 years so that, when he retires it will be done. I’m not mentioned in this picture. At first, I wasn’t even sure I was in this picture. That’s OK. Remember, I’m just drifting through; I’m just temporary. Sometimes, I almost feel like I’m not really here anyway, like it’s all made up and the next moment I will be somewhere else – in a different time, a different place, a different world with different people; unreal in my silent life.

But then, later, when he’s talking to someone (I can’t remember who) he says that he wants to get the place ‘fixed up’ so that we can come here more often; so that we have somewhere nice to go. He doesn’t say but he also means somewhere that he can make as he wants, with his furniture and his ‘stuff’ so that it will be more comfortable for us.

I don’t say anything. I never do. I hear but, maybe spoilt by my time with V, I wonder how much is true and how much is ‘just being said’ for someone else’s benefit, of course, not mine. I wonder, idly, on our way back, at what point will I feel ‘real’, permanent, a fixture rather than a cloud. I wouldn’t swap where I am and the problem is me and not us nor him. I should feel really happy with the ‘inclusion’ of myself in this future with the house, with the plans for Christmas and, although I do feel really happy, it still feels like ‘Sure, if we’re still together then’, even if I say ‘That will be lovely’ or ‘Yes, that’s a good idea’.

I said, early on, within the first few days, or, rather I wrote, that I don’t come with any baggage but I do come with two dogs. I recognise, now, that this is not entirely true. I come with the baggage of 20 years. Not bad years but years all the same. I can’t erase that and nor would I want to. I come to care less and less about V and, by his actions, I recognise that I have already been relegated to ‘someone he knows’, soon to be ‘someone he knew’. It doesn’t anger or upset me since it is where I want to be too. But I’m not yet in that state of belonging to somewhere else or, rather to someone else and I want that even if I don’t say that and instead say ‘we each have our lives’ since, really, I don’t want that at all.

But, then, I never wanted that although now, after two relationships, I don’t have the jealousy of ‘excluding’ anyone else from our ‘inclusion’. Our inclusion should not be exclusive to us. But, still, I want our inclusion. It’s not like he does any of this purposefully – at least I think not. He, too, comes with baggage. He, too, is wondering – at what point do we say – next year; the next ten years; a lifetime? I think. And I’m ‘the silent type’ – from his perspective. Not silent here, just silent in ‘real life’.