pasta and pain

it's that time of life again - the time where i eat a big bowl of pasta and cry. And soon i will pull myself out of my pit of self pity, deal with the rage by trying not to break anything. And harness the energy that comes from “i’m hurt and he’s an asshole”. Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. And i’ll show you you fucker. I’m fabulous. I love you, but i’ll live.

pasta choice this time. Orrechiette with chillies, garlic, tenderstem broccoli tips and prawns. Simple. Tasty. Clean. I bought a bag of handmade orrechiette from Sibilla who had a stall at the Portman street party and made me wait 20 minutes for a mouthful of pizza fritte. It was unbelievably worth the wait. It was that night i had indulged a chair fetish and gone to see the chairs being displayed at Timothy Mark as part of the London Design Festival. I love chairs – the good ones are sexy – they represent what good design is – gorgeous to look at, cheeky, fun and functional. Cant’ do without functional.

but i digress. Orrechiette and broccoli. Like a bad marriage gone good. It doesn’t sound right. But it works so well. Little florets of tenderstem broccoli – i used only the tips. I’m in pain, i’m allowed to be self indulgent and just use the tips. Sautéed in lashings of lovely olive oil, crushed cloves of garlic, and a whole chilli in a brunoise-like proportions. I say brunoise-like because i just wanted to use the word brunoise. It was no where near the uniform 1/8-1/8-1/8 inch perfection classical cutting requires. I like perfection. I’m anal. But this is real life – cooking for real pain. Not a place for perfection. A handful of prawns added to the swirling mix, tip in the al dente ear shaped pasta. Season, Swirl and Serve. I cooked all this in a wok. Italian food in a wok. It’s how i roll.

i don’t suppose anyone will read this rant and so i feel free to indulge. i’ve neglected this blog for long enough so no one reads it – which suits me. Blogging has never been about the readership, the attention – it’s just been a place for me to write and rant. A place for me to write about the things i love. This is part of my cathartic process. Writing has always been part of my cathartic process.

I’m showing clear signs of a deranged woman – i know that too well myself. The crying. The rage. The more crying. Waking up in the middle of the night with the incredible urge to hit him. The repeated double sessions of spin in the gym. The eating of pasta. But i will do anything to get the pain out of my system. To get him out of my system. I no longer care. I’m task oriented. I’m focused. I just want to get back to ‘normal’. To the even keel that life was before i ever met him. To the way things were before i met him that one fateful evening i decided to stop crying about losing george and go out for dinner. I should have stayed at home crying about george. I should never have met him. I ended things amicably – or as amicably as i could – waiting till the end of our evening together to say what i had to say- quickly, succinctly, gently. i planned to say it. Say it before he did. Because we’re both giant ostriches and awful at actually having the conversation we should have. Then crying all the way home on the tube, and for the rest of the week. Thank goodness for my own office – that in between writing the article on derivatives and project finance, the sobbing has gone hopefully largely unnoticed by the rest of the world. He doesn’t have to know. He will never know. And it’s best that way – i’d like to think i’ve left this whole episode behind me with some dignity. To counter the indignity of having been told in various permutations, intended or not, that i’m not pretty, smart or conversant in current affairs enough for him.

The thing that gets me seething right now is his accusation about being a current affairs ignoramus. So i’m not christiane amanpour. And granted, i take the point about always being able to be more up to speed, to be thinking deeper, to be more aware of what goes on in our world. I am a great proponent of having a view, taking a position, even when sometimes that position is – i need to think more about this before i take a position. I am a lawyer after all – i usually have an opinion about things and you usually have to stop me from arguing my case. But perhaps consider this, we don’t talk about our view of which milliband should have won, the impact of the equality act, the middle east peace process, the dire state of the british economy, whatever it is that ticks his current current affairs boat – we don’t’ talk of those things because we talk about him – we talk about the issues he struggles with, or his ex-girlfriends, or just him. We talk of life. I would talk about the politics, the legislation, the economy – but I don’t’ need to listen to his defence (or attack) of trident, or his views on the credit crunch to know that he’s intelligent. I know that already. I would talk of those things, but oh well, we’ve spent the last few conversations talking about his ex-girlfriends and his gripes with them – turning the talk to trident and the british nuclear defense position just seems, well, incongruous. And he’s not so good at listening anyway. He thinks i don’t have a view because he’s never asked for my view.

 

i’m not christiane amanpour (who i think is clever, even if her ABC ratings have dropped). But i’m clever. Clever enough to walk away from this right now and stop the hurt and confusion. Stop being in a place where i’m being told i’m not pretty enough, not smart enough, not interesting enough. Fuck you asshole. I’m not perfect, but i am who i am. I deserve someone who’s brave enough to accept me for who i am and love me as i am. I took my head out of my ostrich hole long enough to realise that was what i felt about you, but you’ve responded by pretending i don’t exist.

You love someone – you consider his flaws, you wrestle with the thought of those flaws, you see his strengths and you decide, you love him and accept him as who he is. But now i have to un-love him. And say it out loud to myself each time i want to cry for the loss of our friendship – he’s an asshole and he’s hurt me. I don’t like doing this – but my strategy now is to argue against myself, convince myself that his flaws outweigh his strengths and that it’s cosmic luck in my favour that things have turned out the way they have. It’s not easy to stop loving someone. But for my sanity, for the sake of moving on, for the goal of getting back to normal, i must. But right now, it’s back to the bowl of pasta. I’ll try not to cry.