Technically, I’ve been engaged to be married three times.
The first time was more an ultimatum than a proposal. There was never a ring. The embers of that relationship cooled to nothing shortly afterwards.
The second time was a rather dramatic apology for an affair. There was a ring made out of twigs. The next affair revealed itself while the half made wedding dress hung in the wardrobe.
The third time was more a polite request than a proposal. A ring came eventually to make up for the original offering of a brass tiger. It’s a long story that hasn’t ended yet: that engagement was to my husband who I’ve been married to for 14 years. The brass tiger sits on a shelf in the hall.
What I’m trying to convey here I suppose is I’m not the kinda gal that inspires grand gestures in the opposite sex. I’ve never been on the lists of most popular girl in the class. I’ve never received a mystery valentine. I’ve never received a valentine at all aside from the three relationships above. Nobody is going to write me a song or a poem. I say these things not because they cause me distress. It’s noteworthy because how the world engages with you does over the years shape a little bit of who you are. I am broadly happy with who I am and broadly have been most of my adult life. Things were, however, a little different when I was a little younger.
I didn’t attract any kind of attraction until I was nearly 15. A clumsy kiss. A quite sweet, awkward, very fumbly and ‘Rotherham’ moment in a subway, ‘I can’t find the hole, Abby’.
At 16, came a sort of awakening at a party. My boyish hairstyle had grown out. My breasts had grown out. My glasses had been thrown out, replaced by contacts and suddenly people in the room looked as I walked by. At 16 1/4 I met my first none-engagement scenario above. He was handsome, gentle, sweet, kind for the most part and I’m glad he popped my cherry shortly afterwards.
Now 15 and 16 seems too young a time to be dipping a toe into these things but back then I felt so behind…eternally trying to make first base. So silly. So sad to feel under that (self imposed?) pressure. I’m glad I’m over all of that.
I did have a very strange time for just one long, hot summer. I was in my mid twenties (the year I had the ring made of twigs) when I fleetingly, inexplicably became ludicrously sexually attractive. A man who didn’t know me crossed the road to say I looked beautiful; a man left me his phone number and a saucy message on the back of a train ticket; a man I was walking near for a while embraced me in a deep (reciprocal) kiss that seemed inevetable the moment I crossed the road towards him. We then went our separate ways without saying a word.
A vague work acquaintence declared his love. A female friend seduced me. A married man became far more a part of my life story than he should have. And everybody looked as I walked by. It wasn’t poems and songs. I don’t really know what it was all about. It was – if in parts shameful – fun.
That year gave me an insight into what it must be like to be the pretty girls, the beautiful girls, the quirky petite girls. Now as I approach 50, I look back on it more as a bemusing time than a time I crave to be back within.
How am I ageing? OK I guess. I have a husband who never judges how I look, what I wear, what I eat. Which should all be a given but as the man with the ring of twigs taught me, it isn’t.
I could take better care of myself. I need to exercise more. Make my hair appoitnments. Address the 1970s pube situation. But overall I feel not just at ease in my body but very much a part of my body. I am it, it is me and I’m proud and most of all privelaged at what I’ve been able to do, physically.
I don’t really care if I don’t light up a room when I walk into it. I’ve learned I can light up someone’s evening just by listening to them and looking them in the eyes. That’s the sort of thing most people are craving when I meet them these days. Is that an age thing or a sign of the time thing? You tell me….maybe via a poem, or even a song đŸ˜‰
Cogito Ergo Mum 