About Her.

I know this post will come in parts.

Even now there is still pain when I think of her. Actually pain is too strong and raw a word to use now that time has passed, I just feel sadness, sometimes it is a hum, sometimes it engulfs me and pulls me right down with a thud.

We met towards the end of 2003, in a brief work meeting, but it wasn't until the January of the next year that we came to know one another. That is the time that I always feel I first met her.

A week away for a work residential and she was leading it. Quietly leading it in her clever and humble way. 

I was late, and she came over to me, crouched down at the chair where I was sitting, and said a few words. She was dressed in a navy woolen jumper and jeans, and those few words touched me more than words usually do.

Sometimes I think that is one of those past moments that I DO romanticise - was it really that meaningful? Was it anything more than her saying some words that showed an empathy and thoughtfulness that impressed me to think I was going to like this woman. But something about that moment has always stayed with me, the detail in which I have remembered it, the depth that those words sunk. Maybe it was my soul knowing that in that moment I had met someone that was going to be powerfully consequential in my life. I believe everyone we meet adds something to our experience of life, even someone that we meet only once, but with her that day, I think I knew that the reason our paths had crossed was to have a lot of bearing on this one of my lives.

As I write this I notice I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable as it sounds like I was falling in love with her, even then. I have struggled so much to try and understand and define what my feelings were for her, because it has never felt it fits in to any existing box for love that I know. I didn't feel for her as I did for my girlfriend of 8 years, I didn't ever feel I wanted to ravish her or be ravished by her, sometimes I didn't even feel very comfortable around her. And yet there was always something. A quiet knowing, a strong sense of wanting to protect her, a thrill at being in the presence of someone who was starting to understand me. There was a gentleness between us, an intrigue, an affection, a fondness, sometimes I think I was in awe, and sometimes I think she may even have been in awe of me.