Non, je ne regrette rien

Without regret. Without remorse.

This is what I should be thinking as I sit watching the sun paint Canary Wharf with a whimsical glow that I'm sure the architects never planned. You see, I know that I ought to be grateful to this, my plan B.

Plan A, of course, was to hold things together, to not watch a (now) 21 year marriage disintegrate in a cloud of indifference and, somehow, at least, get some affection back. Anything. I'm not talking something wild and passionate, this is a marriage that wasn't consummated until six months after the event. But, you know, something where I could at least pretend it was worthwhile. And not just for the children.

But the reality is that it is not to be and, actually, I'm flogging the proverbial dead horse. Or is that metaphorical. Who cares? Ironically though, I can't see any reason to simply walk away, ask for a divorce, and find a new future. Because what I have found in the last couple of years is that the world is full of idiots as well.

I know my poor flatmate gets ever so exasperated as I wail of the lack of intimacy, contact and desperation for a kiss, by which I don't mean a friendly peck on the cheek, but that's part of the same irony, you want it, but only with the right person. And that moment has very much passed.

And I find so many places to find such stark, painful, reminders, of how empty life actually is, the look of lovers, the touching of knees, the hand on a thigh as you talk. Little things. Things you see a lot on train journeys, or in theatres, the cinema. Or indeed anywhere that people gather.

But I know, at least in my case, it can never be, so instead I draw close in to my safety shell and avoid unintended pain.

The thing is, I'm getting used to being alone, and I mean that in a romantic or intimate sense. I'm more likely to actively seek out my solitude as it at least avoids visual reminders of the sensations I can no longer have. And I actively avoid situations that will bring me in to contact with fuckwits. And that has to be a good thing.

But, somehow, that yearning is still there.

Over to you Edith, you say it so well...