Rope bottoms · the city centre, Manchester
Away six years, back in February, and the cast has been replaced
Pinned as back_after_six
- Wants
- one partner to build a couple of years with, from a standing start
- Rope so far
- Twelve years, then six away, then about six months back.
- Around
- the city centre, Manchester
Six years away, none of it to do with rope: a parent who needed me, a house move, a job that ate the rest. I came back in February expecting the same faces and there were two of them. The other eighteen have been replaced by eighteen people who have never heard of me.
Forty five, the city centre, twelve years in before the gap. What is strange is not being a beginner, because I am not one. It is arriving with a body that remembers everything and a social position that has been wiped completely clean. A decade behind me and no standing at all, and it was a few weeks before I could tell whether that annoyed me.
It turns out to be mostly a relief. Nobody in this room carries an old opinion about me. The version they meet is the current one, and the current one is considerably better company than the woman who left.
What I want is a partner rather than a reintroduction. Two or three years to begin with, an evening a week that belongs to us, and enough time that the six years stop being the first thing anybody knows about me. I am patient. I am in no rush whatsoever, and one careful start suits me far better than five polite ones.
If you knew me before, say hello. If you did not, that is honestly the more appealing option, and I would rather be met than remembered.