Very few people reading this will remember Ildiko, life has taken many turns since we were together and even the friends of friends have fallen off the radar.
poignant reminders

She’s been reappearing in my thoughts a lot lately, not unusual for a retrospective kind of bloke like me. But even though it’s been 5 years since I saw her and 6 since we had anything that could have been described as a relationship, I think I am understanding what went wrong and why it was mostly my fault.

Some people live their life in reverse, starting out all mature and responsible and gradually becoming more childish and random as they get older.. if they are rich they are referred to as eccentric, if they aren’t they usually jump off a cliff. With the various twists and turns I’ve managed to perform on my life over the last 10 years I’m beginning to believe that I am one of those people. (bank account is still at a reasonable level so don’t worry this isn’t a suicide note, call the cops not)

Sometimes being good, solid and dependable isn’t enough. In fact in many cases it is the worst thing you can do. Ilidko and I got together when she was 20, i was 27, she was stunning, naive but smart, aside from the usual set of insecurities about mother’s was reasonably secure. She transplanted her life and attached her future to me. A sound choice at the time, i was moving up, had a plan and the wheels spinning along its path. She loved me, I certainly loved her, we started off happy, really happy, I’d buy her a rubber chicken for her birthday and she thought it was the greatest gift ever bestowed upon a mortal. (if that’s not happy i don’t know what happy is)

After 3 years or so, things started to fade. That solid dependability, that need to be serious and lead had gradually choked the spontaneity out of the relationship, she was young and needed to do young things and make some massively stupid mistakes, i removed that right from her life by planning everything and always being there. As a result she had to plan her mistakes more meticulously, make them more grand to ensure that the ramifications were irreparable.

With the aide of a work colleague’s penis she eventually achieved this, twisting my respect for her into a profound and beautifully constructed contempt that still wells up within me from time to time. I had no idea why she did it at the time, i couldn’t understand why she didn’t just pack her stuff and go if she wasn’t happy, after all its what I would have done.. it would have been the sensible thing to do.

Looking back from here, i can see that the foundation and support I thought I was providing her, was in fact a complete house and land package, complete with an Ikea Catalog interior, it was the complete package, it didn’t allow for input, even though part of my self-appointed role was to ensure that she was an “equal partner” in the relationship, My efforts to do so had already been corrupted by the deeper need within me to “do the right thing”.

Passion isn’t just for the bedroom, in fact it should only get there after it has been applied to other elements of your life. It should permeate what you do and who you are. Part of being passionate is allowing for randomness and spontaneity, it factors in a likelihood for error and cherishes them when they occur as they inevitably lead to new experience and self discovery. I stripped this from Ildiko, and that’s why she left, not cos she didn’t love me, not because she didn’t want to share her life me, not because she found a better option, but because she had no option.

And the irony that I have to deal with is of course that now, today, I spend most of my life avoiding routine and allowing myself to float on a current of ideas.Aint life grand?