awfully different without you

I don't want my friends or my family to think they have to be robots when I am around. That would REALLY make me uncomfortable. I have been hanging with all kinds of couples over the years, some of them made me and the mate crazy. Bickering teams, nit pickers, public shamers, plain old fighting in front of anyone couples have drifted in and out of our lives.

They would make us wince and look for the exits. We both hated conflict of any kind we felt was private being dealt with in public. Sure, we could get snippy with each other setting up camp after a long ride or over nothing on a bad day. When we really had a problem with each other we would look for a closet some place and deal with it, then go back out to play with our friends.

So yes, I had to leave early both days because of the love and communication I saw going on between the kids and the sis and her mate. There were places in the day where I would have caught the mate's eye and given him a look and he would know from the context of the events around us that I was referring to a joke or an event in our past or something and smile back at me or shrug or roll his eyes and we would both know just what we meant.

Or I would cue him to go out for a smoke and we would both just go, or he would look at me and raise an eyebrow just so and I would know the crowd was getting to him and he wanted to go home, did I want to go and fool around with him or stay longer. A nod or shake of the head or a slow smile and we would be out the door. No words.

All the years we spent together gave us the non spoken language and cues any couple devises after being together and trying to talk over the heads of their kids and families. Our own cartoons, movies, books, and the events in our lives gave them and the verbal cues we shared meanings known only with each other.

When he would hand me a drink at a party, then smile then add, "Never thirst" I would know he was saying he loved me and all his water was mine, I had only to ask and I also knew that he meant the water that made up his body. If I answered, "May our eggs share the same nest" he knew that I was returning his offer of his body's water with the commitment to use it, and mine if needed, to see that all was well with those we loved in our lives. And it implied on both our parts a promise to mate enthusiastically later if I smiled back and continued with, "grow closer". We grokked each other.

Now, all my codes are obsoulete. (intentional misspelling) All the inside jokes, the body language, the winks and yawns I knew are of no use to me. I could see the codes of the couples we had helped raise being used around me and I missed the mate. I had nobody to not talk to.

You don't do it intentionally. It is years of being together that integrates the private language of verbal and non verbal cues. How do you learn a new person? Time, I would guess is the correct answer and at my age there isn't enough of that to suit me. How do you teach a new friend to pretend you are funny and fake laugh at your jokes for you? You don't. Maybe they never will. Especially if you aren't really very funny and they don't get the jokes....

The road looks so long and the load seems so heavy from here with no mate to share either. It's a hard thing to look at and a harder thing to see as true. So I cower back and try to just get through today.

I am not resentful or envious of others love. I am thrilled to see it, especially in those we tried to teach it to after we learned it. There can never be enough love in the world or enough lovers to show others that it is there. If we have helped spread the rumor that true love is real then we have done our job well.

I don't want any of my friends to not touch or hug or wink at each other on my account, it helps me to remember what it was like. Your loving doesn't offend me. Take joy in your love for each other where ever you are. If I leave early just know I was missing my love and had to go be alone with my thoughts of him.

I know the sky is blue and the sun will shine but the summer is likely to be a long journey for me. Doing both parts of an inside joke just isn't as much fun.