Will I love again?

I was, slowly, being put back together: daughter, sister, friend, home-owner, teacher, woman. Remembering who I was; in some ways who I was before I lost him; in some ways who I was before I met him. In other ways an experience like this inevitably changes us and we are never the same person again. Some might say we owe it to those we have loved to be shaped by loving them and by losing them. By 26 I was feeling quite reshaped already (and there would doubtless be more reshaping to come).

A few short months earlier, I would stay at school as late as I could, to avoid time alone and awake in my rental cottage. James was achingly lacking from my house – a house has never felt so empty. In fact, the more I missed him, the more I loathed that space. The 1700s stone terrace that had been decorated for a tenant twice my age; I had never felt at home there and I’m not sure I had felt like myself inside it, since the late August day I moved in. The low beams, 1970s kitchen, patterned wingback armchairs with lace head rests and the pine…oh, the pine…everywhere orange pine. I didn’t want to be there, whether in the evenings or at weekends. Yet, ironically, the rent was bankrupting me. The only time I could tolerate the house was while sleeping!

I had to get out.

So, my little, modern, shared equity terrace sprang into my life at exactly the right moment. Once cleaned, painted and pared back, it was a blank canvas for me to express myself and create a space more my own. I had been to the ‘Libby Burton School of Architecture Appreciation’ and I discovered the truth of so many of my second sister’s architectural philosophies there in my first house. “Don’t allow anything in your home that you haven’t decided should be there.” “Choose contrasting colours or textures that are aesthetically pleasing.” “Ensure your design scheme flows, so that your house is one cohesive whole.” I listened well. And I did my best to improve my ‘2 up, 2 down’ property. It gave me a fresh aim in my life that was not inside my French and German classroom.

Then somehow, I woke up one day and realised I wasn’t sad. Not all day anyway. I had lost a lot of weight (over 2 stone) and was now at my all-time adult thinnest. Bizarrely this gave me a quality of self-confidence that I had never known before. I had to buy new clothes and I was looking good. Family said I had lost too much weight, but I was sure they simply weren’t used to seeing me a size 10.

People were noticing me. I felt male eyes on me in the street and at work. Teenage boys made inappropriate comments in my classroom. And when I was out with friends I got attention…I was not used to getting attention like this. That was when I realised there was one pair of eyes I wanted on me more than any other. I always knew where he was in the room (how is that even possible with the man who says so little?) Those soft, dark eyes burned into mine with no effort at all. And all the while, he had no idea of the effect he was having on me!

And then would come the guilt. Less than a year before I was in love with James. To the day he died we were in love. The odd thing about your lover dying is that you don’t stop being in love. It’s just the object of your love is no longer alive. I can’t really put into words how that feels…there is a strange conundrum hanging over your existence.

So, was this a deception? Was it betrayal? Was it unfaithfulness? How long do you have to wait before you can love again? How much time and pain are required for the heart to recover to the point of loving another?

While this melee of emotions rumbled around my heart and mind, a wonderful friend put me in contact with her husband – he had lost his girlfriend several years before. And I am so happy that she thought to do this. In the middle of our lengthy conversation, he spoke seven words to me that changed the course of the rest of my life:

“There is no rule book for grief.”

He was so right.