“To love someone was not what she had expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together. ”
Today is my birthday. Believe me, I do not say this as a cue for a mass outpouring of 'huzzahs', but rather to remind myself that the sands of time are running ever swifter; and with respect to those people who say 'oh, don't be silly, it's just a number!'?
I shall remain lady-like, and just say this.
Bite me.
It's less of a grab the champagne occasion, than grab the momentum and run with it. (Although if you are going to grab the momentum, then a glass of champagne will always come in handy. Just saying.)
Which, I suppose, I am doing over my momentous birthday weekend.
Each of us reaches a point in life where we finally, finally, start to get at least a little bit of a grasp on what the hell we should be doing with ourselves in terms of relationships. If you are very lucky, it's sooner rather than later.
If you are like me, it takes a bloody long time.
I have found that my very twisty path through life, love, the universe and everything so far has been like that much-used metaphor of the jigsaw puzzle. You know what I mean. You sift through the pieces, trying to work out which ones fit. Sometimes you are absolutely certain that you have built an entire corner, or a piece of wall, or even managed to construct that mythical blue sky; but then you try to shove and twist two pieces together that aren't meant to be, and the whole puzzle needs to go back in the box...
And you start over again.
If you are playing by the rules, you put the pieces in upside down and go in blind.
In many ways, I feel as though up until not so long ago, I was constructing my own jigsaw with the pieces turned permanently upside down, and somebody had swiped the lid with the photo of the finished puzzle on it. I didn't know what the picture was supposed to look like, so how could I possibly make the pieces work together?
I was wearing the emotional equivalent of a blindfold, and my personal puzzle looked as though Jackson Pollock and Salvador Dali had tossed a coin to see who could make the biggest mess.
Thankfully, somebody was kind enough - and some might say brave enough (actually, most people) - to walk up and say 'is this the picture you were looking for?'. The fact that they vaguely resembled a person who once climbed in and out of a TARDIS for a living is neither here nor there.
Of course, they also handed me that elusive missing piece, which me being me, I had never even noticed was absent.
Some people feel a sense of regret when a truly tricky jigsaw has been conquered and completed. In this case, there is, and will be, nothing but elation, and thankfulness.
Not surprising really, when that missing piece you've been handed is the other half of your heart.
So I may not be singing Happy Birthday to Me, but I will definitely be humming 'Happy Puzzle Solving to The Man Who Vaguely Resembles David Tennant and Myself', a weird new song that strangely works perfectly.
I guess that makes me Official Companion to the Doctor. Or Mrs David Tennant.
I suddenly feel some birthday fervour coming on.
