I really am going to get around to writing one final post about Enigmarch - which has now finished - at some point. It was brilliant, and I learned so much from doing it, and there are still about 10 puzzles I haven't done a 'behind the scenes' piece for yet, so plenty to write about. But this is not that post.
This is a different post.
Because it occurred to me that, having accidentally used this blog (more than a few years ago now, and in a very round about sort of a way) to document the utter sadness of a deep deep heartbreak, I should probably take the opportunity to document the complete opposite of that. The giddy, glorious and unbridled joy of realising you might be... Yes. That. For now, let's just call it 'meeting someone new.'
( I'm not quite sure yet if I'm going to publish all of this post, or an edited version of this post, and even if I'm going to publish it at all. But either way, I've been going back and forth on exactly what language to use here. If I'm really honest with myself, I think I know what is happening, and that thought is scary and terrifying and wonderful and exciting all at once. And despite all of that, or maybe even because all of that, I should take this opportunity to capture it in writing, or try to at least, even if I'm not quite ready to give it a label just yet.)
Except...I'm not going to write about it.
Usually writing about things is a way of getting them out of my head. But it has occurred to me that maybe I don't want this to be out of my head. Not just yet. Maybe I want to grab this feeling which keeps bubbling up and spilling out - by way of the permanent, ridiculous grin plastered all over my face, a compulsion to read and re-read WhatsApp conversations every few seconds, and a complete inability to focus on anything else for more than about five seconds - and hold onto it for a while. Because as inconvenient as all of that is, it is also rather lovely. And it has been a long, long time since I've felt it. In fact, I'm not quite sure I've ever felt it. At least not quite like this - so quickly, or so easily or so convincingly. And now that I do, and I realise how rarely, if ever, in life you do get to feel this way, I'd kind of like to keep feeling it for a little while longer.
And then there's another reason I'm not sure I want to write about it. On the one hand I want to shout from the rooftops about this rare, beautiful wonderful and extraordinary thing which has arrived completely out of nowhere, and taken me by utter surprise. But on the other hand, I want to keep it, for now, as something which belongs to just the two of us. Over the past little while (and it's a ridiculously short little while, in the grand scheme of things) we have somehow managed to build an entire little world of our own to play in, full of jokes and references and new discoveries and call-backs. (We have our own shorthand, and running gags, and there's a whole supporting cast of characters. We even have a house band. Seriously. It's been... busy.) I love being in that world so much. It already feels like a second home, of sorts. An escape from the rest of the world, at the very least. And that little playground is ours. Just ours. I don't think I want to share it with anyone else just yet.
Anyway. While we're building and playing in that gloriously silly little imaginary world, at the same time, we're also building something else, here in the real one. I don't quite knows what it is yet - I don't think either of us does - but as we frolic together in this wonderland we have co-created - quite by accident, it sometimes seems - I picture the two of us surrounded by bags of cement and planks of wood and, ropes and nails and um...whatever else it is you build things out of (I'm no expert). Standing side by side, and both gently exploring the idea of building. Nailing planks of wood, and gluing things, and tying one pole to another with bits of string, and untying them again. Tinkering with things, and seeing what fits together, and what doesn't, and working out what it looks like when they do. Imagining what this exciting creation that we are gradually building might be, without making any sorts of decisions about that just yet.
Maybe this is a treehouse we're building. Maybe it's a raft, or a sailing boat. A fort? How about a space-ship. I've always wanted a space-ship. No, a time-machine! Wait.. a TIME TRAVELLING SPACE SHIP. The possibilities are endless. And it's fun, but also a little scary sometimes, to imagine them.
Because this thing we are building - well, perhaps it will become a circus tent. Something which will stand strong and tall and proud for a period of time, and be bright and bold and full of joy and excitement and adventure while it's there, but will eventually need to be taken down again one day, and packed away. Or who knows - maybe (and again it's only a maybe) it could even end up being a more permanent structure. One to invite other people into, and fill with memories and stories and happy moments. And some sad moments, and all the million other moments in between. Or, you know. Maybe we'll just keep telling ourselves it's a time travelling space ship. With lasers, and a whole lot of other cool stuff.
It could be any of those things, it could be all of those things. It could start as one of them and turn into something else. It might end up being something else entirely. We just don't know. Not yet. And I don't think we need to know. Not for now. For now, I keep reminding myself, we're both just building. And for the first time in a long time, I'm remembering just how nice building alongside somebody else can be. Occasionally I get the feeling that one or the other of us - or both - has stopped for a moment to stand back and squint at it and try and work out if we know what it is yet. And that's when it can get a bit scary, when faintest glimmers of what it might look like gradually come into focus, then fade away again. It's hard to say whether the knowing or the not knowing is the scariest part.
It's inevitable of course that any building project, no matter how careful you are, might involve a few accidental scrapes and bruises along the way. But we both seem quite mindful of that, and are looking out for each other as we go, to try and avoid too many of them. We're building this thing - whatever it is - out of conversations and new discoveries, shared interests, and common values; curiosity and small moments of vulnerability, and patience and honesty and care; serious moments and silly moments and laughter (SO much laughter). And mostly, I think, with kindness, and trust, and hope, and a willingness, sometimes, to take a few risks. Because what else do you build a relationship - any sort of relationship - out of, other than that?
We're building quietly and slowly, and carefully, with no particular agenda, or outcome in mind, other than, maybe, that no-one gets hurt or too badly injured in the process. (And so far so good, on that front). We're simply enjoying this process, of mucking around with some building materials. Building simply for the sake of building, with no rush, and no pressure - just gradually discovering what this joint construction project is going to turn into.
So, yes. This is me, writing about not writing about this extraordinary, unexpected, scary-but-by-god-it's-worth-it, pinch-yourself-to-make-sure-its-really happening, one in a million chance process of... meeting someone new. That's what I'm still going with, I think.
( I'm not sure it's any more useful to read, for anyone else, than those 'being brave' posts were. But like those, it has certainly helped me to write about it. Or more to the point, not to write about it.)
Postscript.
And now I'm really glad I wrote about it. Because, as it turns out, what we were building became something more akin to a pop-up tent - it provided a temporary shelter to play in on a rainy day (or in this case, during the course of a particularly rainy few weeks.) But rather than pack it down again properly, my co-builder decided, in the heat of a moment, to lob a hand grenade at it from a distance (the day before we were supposed to take it on its first proper outing) and then swiftly ran away to hide from the fall-out.
(Now, if you've ever tried to pack an actual pop-up tent away I know what you're thinking and yes, you're absolutely right - throwing a hand-grenade at it would be a perfectly acceptable thing to do, to avoid facing the horrendous, breaks-all-the-laws-of-physics near-impossible process of attempting to pack it away again after you've used it. It's a lot less acceptable to do that if the pop-up tent is a metaphorical one, and there are other people still inside it, though.)
Anyway, it was a pretty cool tent. One which deserved to be at least packed down properly - so that perhaps it could have been brought out again at some better time, or at the very least some of the pieces salvaged and re-used to make something else. Sadly, hand-grenades don't leave a lot of room for that, and sometimes no matter how hard you try, and how wrong you know their reasons for throwing them are, you just can't stop other people throwing hand grenades.
I couldn't have written about it now the way I wrote about while we were still building it, so like I say, I'm really glad I did write about it when I did. It helps to have managed to capture it to hold on to, and look back on eventually. Because as sad and frustrating and completely unfair as that final outcome might have been... there was also, and will always be, the building part. And that part? Well. That part really was quite something.
Additional Postscript.
It turns out, building something with the *right* person is even better still, and a whole lot less scary.
