Going on a solo trip without my partner is wonderful. My friends think it’s incredibly weird
It was 32 degrees in Crete, and the sun was just starting to bed, which made lilac color. I kicked in my legs underwater, ocean salt clings to my skin and my hair. That’s lifeI thought, without irony. This was one of those moments when you forget everything – enamel, relaxation, invoices – and you feel really rooted in your body. And it was good to be alone – not just a moment, but correctly Alone, for hours.
As long as I remember, my partner and I have spent stretches from time to time. She was a musician on tour, accelerating across Europe or the United States in a mini-duties, while I am in Peckham, pulling a trolley of a cart around Lidl. Or it was at home while I throw myself into a lake, or bit a giant tomato in the sun. We spend much more time together – our bodies collapse in old withdrawals on our bed, our hands touching half asleep – but these moments of each other are just as important, I think. It gives you something to say when you’re back. It is as if you feed all the different parts of yourself, rather than the part of you that is in a relationship.
It’s not always like that. At first, I found time apart from anxiety. I would constantly check my phone, the view of a blank screen, which makes my interior tight and reduced. And if she forgets who I am? I think – unreasonable, given the fact that it had been even more lively in its absence. What if she falls in love with everything that is not me? I would go out with friends, but really my mind would be elsewhere.
I don’t know when things have changed, but they did it, and for the best. Over the years, I felt more anchored and safe in the relationship, and better able to enjoy the moments when we could miss. And time apart is fun for it too. She likes to close in a music studio for hours at a time, surrounded by smoke, wires and lights. She has a whole world of which I am not part, it’s just for her and her friends and comrades, who is a GOOD thing. I don’t want to be related to another version of myself. I would not be able to make a word in Edgeways – I will be fed up with it along all the Bravo franchises and the advantages of the muslin bed linen.
