I am unsure of what to make of my state.
Having experienced the unthinkable on Friday night - having R. spot me at El
I'm no less reassured. I still think we have a certain telepathy, but even if this wild idea had some truth to it, it's not enough and only leads to nothing - except more delusion.
Prat airport then follow me to talk to me saying "it's you, it's you" - my mind has had the requisite amount of time and space to drive me into a new kind of despair.
At the time of the incident - that could not have been more like a fantasy - I felt unimpressed, numb, mildly unnerved by the scruffy details of R.'s outfit (the slightly curled up tails of his jacket suggested a careless washing in a regular machine and certainly no ironing). It surprised me mostly because I remembered R. as perfectly and effortlessly turned out with expensive loafers and impeccably ironed shirts. But the signs of overworking, neglect and possible lack of female influence were all over him: the dry massive hair, unevenly cut, the crumpled appearance. His face, however, remained full of dignity - the careful, intelligent, apparently harmless dignity that is actually a mask of a man who is always looking to dominate and captivate his audience with that practically British accent. But the magnetism, the excitement, the attraction from my side of things - none of it was present.
I forget the stapled reused oversized envelope which he handed to me containing one of his workshop aprons (the one nobody would miss, but the one he stole for me).
I forget the stapled reused oversized envelope which he handed to me containing one of his workshop aprons (the one nobody would miss, but the one he stole for me).
This, I remembered, is how I've felt when standing in front of all the men whom I've become obsessed with from a distance (and who made it plain that they didn't want me - a fact that fuelled the fire): the encounters never rekindle desire but always leave me hollow and so surprised at how little I care or am attracted to them. The problem is, that as soon as they disappear again, the strange emptiness of having no one to yearn for makes me feel hollow, repositioning my focus on my actual life rather than in dreams of something better - and I allow myself almost irresistibly to dream again. And with the dreaming, the longing kicks back in. And sooner or later, I'm entrapped once again - longing, hoping and crucially, never hearing from them.
But on the spot, caught unawares, I saw how thin he was, how shabby - and my husband by comparison was younger and stronger and full of vitality. The blazer R. wore was almost the same style and colour as the one I had purchased for my husband some years previously - that made me queasy. He didn't look vulnerable or afraid or in love, nothing that made me feel - rather his expression was one of curiosity and surprise.
I remember thinking: there's nothing here, all these years I've made up a person who doesn't exist, and to prove it here's the man I fantasied about, following me across the concourse, standing in front of me, full of flaws even more embarrassing than my own, with nothing interesting to say. The fact of there being no genuine connection between us was the detail that discouraged me most - and for a split second the veil was lifted and I felt truth as well as saw it: I've credited R. with otherworldly intelligence, beauty and charisma that he simply doesn't have. R. only exists in my head. The only incredible thing about him is the sound of his name.
And the actual man? He's someone to whom I wouldn't pay any attention. In fact, I never even noticed him in the airport, even though I was probably walking around the terminal, spritzing perfumes and eating fries, thinking about him.
So right now, I should be ecstatic. I can get a rare opportunity to see that the man I never really stopped thinking about was truly, truly just a figment of my imagination.
But instead of feeling freed from a delusion, I feel abandoned. Reality feels flat. As if, without a fantasy bubbling in the back of my mind, there's nothing to live for. My immediate experience doesn't seem to, and has never seemed to, give me strong feelings - or at least the kind of strong feelings I crave. My mind gives me them probably because I am in control, and because I like impossibilities. It was more exciting to imagine R. than accidentally bump into him. Just in the way it's more charged to imagine R. that be an actual person in an actual relationship.
So here I am, a wife and a mother. I never thought I'd meet anyone - the stats back me up - my looks and personality hardly ever allowed any mutual attraction, especially as I set my stakes exceptionally high. I don't think I ever really accepted who I was - I assumed I could be scruffy, antisocial and gross and I could somehow still get affable, groomed, perfectly dressed guys that other affable, groomed, perfectly dressed girls are pursuing. How delusional is that? And when I got into my adulthood, I started becoming obsessed with absent people, which kept my attention - and disappointment - in check.
So imagine my surprise when one relationship, a real one, actually went from strength to strength. Although I feel overwhelmingly lucky to have even found someone who would even look twice at me, let alone love me, there's something weird going on in my head. It's like I'm permanently detached from real life. Living in my head feels like a stronger experience than being attached to people in reality.
But R. didn't just provide an objection of unrequited affection; he was unique in the long list of failures because he was easily the most expressive and sensitive of all. The memory of him allowed me to grow, develop my tastes, my values - but all based on his. I suddenly became much more able to access beauty, exquisiteness, joy - because I could imagine R. enjoying it. Imagining him and his pleasure allowed me to enjoy it, too. I couldn't and still struggle to feel it on my own, and his imagined joy actually sparked my own real sense of joy.
Now I feel the truth of the fake R. I have created. My mind is trying its best to trick me back into servitude - "go on, write to him, keep the correspondence alive, imagine that he secretly loves you, etc."). But the desire has never been so weak to actually do so.
With the loss, my loss of direction is ebbing away. Every location seems pointless. Every artwork seems empty. Every ambition is impossible. R., with his beautiful theatrical name and poetic looks was my missing ingredient. His memory made my daily life magical. I could bank on my otherworldly, charismatic and brilliant soul mate being out there and that someday, when the time was right, we'd get close and I would finally be a complete woman - the most confident, beautiful and accomplished version of myself, because I was under the influence of the most superior human being I had ever had the chance to meet.
I always marvelled how R. could transform the real things around him, people, landscapes, food, everything, and make them magical, memorable. How did he do it? Why is nothing real, powerful?
