userdefinedlogic

…Doesn’t always run smooth, but it does have its funny side.

As I have mentioned, I think, I am in the bloom of love. Every day I am astounded by how good this feels. Jill’s thoughtfulness and love is enough to strike me speechless. I am truly fortunate.

Valentine’s day is approaching. Being a valentine is a new experience for me and I am having fun with that too. In passing conversation, Jill asked what sort of sweets (candy) I happened to like and I replied about liking things spearminty. Lo and behold, in the post I receive a box with a yummy Guylian chocolate bar and another BIG box with a great big bag of Spearmint chews and another bag with gummy bear type chews in it. Also there was a bazooka Joe style bubble gum (seventies flashback!) and a lollipop a la Kojak (seventies flashback (slight return!)). Awesome! An important note to mention about these sweets is that they are sugar free. This is because I am diabetic. So, two examples of Jill’s thoughtfulness. It *is* the little things that make these things more special.

Being a good boy, I told myself I would NOT pig out and, you have to trust me on this, I honestly didn’t. While Jill was wending her way home from work on the other side of the world, I settled down to watch a movie. I would tell you what film I watched but as you will see, I was… distracted.

I sat back, munched a couple of sweets and enjoyed the opening credits… I munched a couple more… Ten minutes in, I’m enjoying the movie and have another sweet. They are very yummy. I shift slightly in my seat, feeling… something. No matter, I carry on watching the worlds greatest film ever! (Sadly doomed to obscurity now.) Another ten minutes go by and my ability to concentrate on the movie has dissipated rapidly. For some reason, I cannot sit still and my stomach is beginning to feel queasy… maybe it shall pass. I try and concentrate. A minute goes by and spears of discomfort are hitting my stomach. A certain… insistence begins to make itself known. It appears to be my stomach’s internal monologue saying “Er, dude, heads up?” A sudden terrible realisation hits me that I have to move *fast*. I get to the place of salvation just as, to paraphrase a saying, the world falls out of my bottom. (I know, TMI but reality bites kiddo.) The next ten minutes are redacted to spare you if you’re having yer tea. Suffice to say, the last time I had an… episode like that, was when I had proper food poisoning.

What the fuck was that? I am puzzled, I hadn’t eaten anything out of the ordinary..? Except! I head back to the scene of the crime and examine the evidence. There, on the label of the sweetbag is a warning “EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION MAY HAVE LAXATIVE EFFECTS”.

You don’t say? J. Bliimin’ Christ Esq. Now, I rarely eat sweets. I used to have them as a kid, I remember having these very types of sweets back then. This never happened before and I am pretty sure, as a kid, I would have guzzled a helluva lot more in one sitting than I did this evening. So the only difference I could see was that these were sugar free and presumably have “other additives” to make them ‘tasty’.

Now I have a dilemma. How do I tell Jill? I hold off a day or two, well, just because. Do I demonstrate how capable I am by saying the next time I have some I will eat some gravel as well, drink some masonry paint and pebble dash the house? I think not. I make the mistake of asking my friend Glyn for advice. I swear he was about to descend into a catatonic state he was laughing so much. Cheers bud. As it happens, I am able (after remembering some lines from “Roxanne” (the Steve Martin movie)) to explain how she has moved me in unexpected ways but, she might be equally amused and horrified when I explain how…

This is all cool, I still love the gift (the choccy was terrific!) and I think I love Jill even more…

So. Theory goes you should know certain things by a certain age. How you are meant to know these things if no-one actually tells you is something that… no-one actually tells you.

I have never been in love. Of course, I have loved people, things, stuff… but I have never *been* in love with another human being.

Until now.

Finding myself in this position, at my age, is an odd, but hugely enjoyable sensation.

I am lucky enough to be falling in love with a wonderful woman.

I have determined, despite the lack of pointers given to me by people in my past, that I am falling in love partly because of the following criteria:

I am excited by this lady,
I am stimulated mentally by this lady,
I laugh so much with this lady,
I think about this lady continuously,
I want to be a better man for this lady,
This lady is interesting,
This lady is creative,
This lady is smart,
This lady likes to be silly,
This lady is not afraid of emotion,
I know I can trust this lady,

(The above is by no means exhaustive, just for reference, not valid to residents of Ohio.)

It isn’t as if I haven’t felt some of these things before, so what makes this different?

Well, this is where I think I finally realised *why* they don’t tell you stuff. It’s because it’s almost impossible to describe. It’s a sense that everything suddenly makes sense.

Things that caused you uncertainty in the past, now don’t give you a moments pause. The fact that the person is 3,000+ miles away is a mere inconvenience — you’ll make that work.

So, yeah, you can still learn stuff at 49. Trick is I think, just like when you were at school back then, you have to be willing to want to learn it.

Jill, I love you.