Switches · Noord, Amsterdam
Everyone I liked here has left, and I stopped taking it personally
Pinned as everyone_i_liked
- Wants
- a partnership for as long as we actually get
- Rope so far
- Thirteen years of rope, six here, four people I miss in four countries.
- Around
- Noord, Amsterdam
The four people who mattered most to me in this, across six years, are in four different countries now, and only one of them was ever a partner. That is the part I had not expected. Losing a relationship is something you are at least braced for. Losing the person you always sat next to, and the one who knew what you meant before you finished, is not a thing anybody warns you about.
Thirty eight, Noord, thirteen years of rope and six of them here. There was a particular evening about two years ago when I realised I was holding back from somebody new because I had already done the arithmetic on how long she was likely to stay. That was the point at which I decided to stop doing that.
Stopping did not mean pretending nobody leaves. It meant deciding that a good four years is a good four years, and that the alternative actually on offer was not a permanent version but nothing at all.
So I am looking for a partnership, one person, for as long as we get. If you are staying, wonderful. If you are here on a contract, tell me the date and I will still be interested, which is a sentence I could not have written three years ago.
I am still in touch with all four of them. That turns out to be the compensation, and it is not a small one.