Once I had a friend. A real, real friend.

We had worked together for 4 or 5 years, during which time we were merely colleagues. But after we had both left Higher Ed Systems – at different times – we became friends.

I think it was that she had recognized in me a soulmate: an intolerant and impatient bitch, basically – because that’s what we had in common, to start with.

But our friendship grew and lasted, so there must have been more to it than our peccadilloes. I came to rely on Diana for sensible input on anything I was unsure of; and she to rely on me for solutions to her knitting and/or crochet problems.

While I was still living in Sydney, she would come down from Brisbane to visit – i.e., check out and look after – her mother, who lived in a house sort of next-door to Diana’s brother Victor and his wife, out in Richmond. Bloody miles away ! Diana was a good and dutiful daughter, and bore the entire load of her mum’s care, organizing and arranging and .. well, everything. I benefited from this, because she would always come and spend a few days with me when in NSW.

She was a control freak, admitting it but stating that most of the people in her life needed controlling.  🙂   For reasons I never understood, I let her control me, too: it was necessary to her functioning and it never hurt or offended me. We got along really well.

She was a dedicated .. erhmm .. walker ? I was tempted to say bushwalker, but that she travelled all over the world – sometimes alone, mostly with a friend – to undertake walks. By far her best and most loved companion on these travels was Eril, who  was able to put up with being organized/controlled mostly happily – and probably for the same reason as mine. When Diana was away she would email me photographs almost every day: her travels were mine, vicariously, and she never failed me.

She would sometimes come down to visit me after I’d moved to Victoria, on more than one occasion arriving on one of my many moving days; and these times were when I appreciated her most – for she would unpack me. Oh, it was wonderful: all that stuff wrapped in butchers’ paper – neatly folded in a pile and the contents arranged as she thought best .. mostly remained there, too.

We used to talk on the phone a lot, exchanging opinions and whingeing.  🙂  We both liked a good whinge and shared many and many an opinion on the status quo – the tradie of today and his absolute unreliability being a favourite, along with the attitude to their jobs of today’s youth.

She loved the theatre and went often – movies, too. I valued her opinions enormously: I recall being frightfully disappointed when she said I shouldn’t see “The Lost King” because I would find it superficial and irritating. I’m quite sure she was correct; Richard III is my historical hero, and I wouldn’t want the discovery of his remains made into a kind of light-hearted romp.

I’m bereft without Diana. Why would someone who didn’t smoke come down with lung cancer ?! Familial, I suppose. She was diagnosed in June, Eril said; but she didn’t tell me until July, by email, saying how much she hated having to tell me. By then the various annoying little problems she had been experiencing were rapidly coalescing into one: still she had hope, and undertook to do everything they advised.

She had five and a half months to live. She was 67.

I find it impossible to write about her truly, as the interesting, intelligent, good-looking, thinking woman she was, who never forgot to call me on January 29th every year. I find it impossible to believe she’s not still up there in Brisbane ..

I miss her though, most dreadfully.

It was, I’m fairly sure, only a couple of days ago that I suddenly understood what’s been hovering over me for longer than I can point to; a kind of mysterious miasma of .. something.

Out of nowhere it came to me that I’m absolutely starved of affection, let alone love.

I’m not a person others can easily feel affection for, I think; they like me, and they can even be happy to see, hear or read me. But I do tend to alarm people – in a friendly kind of way – and while I may amuse them, they’re probably somewhat relieved when I leave (or finish).

It’s a grim situation for an ancient, especially for one who is entirely alone – and MOST especially for one who was loved absolutely and unquestioningly for 31 years by the husband she considered as others might god.

Why did I never realize this frightful lack before now ?!

I do have an answer for that question: it’s because I recently came across a person whose brain is admirable, whose ethics ditto, who’s responsible and even occasionally reliable, and who tells me “don’t overestimate my intellect lest I fall short of your expectations”. This combination writes an irresistible siren song for me so that I have, being me, immediately handed over my wrinkled old heart in hope of not having it returned in disgust: it is a young person, after all .. and how much more alarming must I be to one such ?!

There are three women in my life who I can call dear friends; but the one from longest ago is in Sydney, one (the next longest) in Brisbane and the most recent in Geelong. I have a dear male friend, also living in Geelong, from years and years back, and another man who was once my boss in Melbourne but who now lives in Perth. All have full lives, unlike me. All are people I would be deeply unhappy not to have as friends, even at those distances. I love them greatly. Who knows ? – maybe they love me. But I can’t hug them and give them loud kisses on their dear faces and clutch their hands.

Was I ever this demonstrative when I spent time in their company ?

Probably not.

Would I be so were they to haul up over the horizon tomorrow ? – definitely !   🙂

I also have three family members left: an older sister who was living in Paris but is now disruptively back in Oz, a younger sister who lives in Tasmania and a nephew who lives in Perth (my home town). With the eldest I never developed a meaningful relationship; I and my younger sister were once very alike in temperament but she is ageing gracefully; I love my nephew very much, but I never see him.

So you see my problem with regard to this so much younger person: there’s possibly nothing more I would like to do than demonstrate my regard in the timeless manner I described above. It wouldn’t be anything more than me saying “I think you’re ACE !” in the same way as I would my extant dear friends; but it would bring on a panic attack.    😦

And were I not so badly in need of some utterly harmless demonstration of affection returned, it might never have occurred to me to even think how delightful my display would be — to me ..

Sighh .. What a silly old fart I am.

Here’s a photo S took of herself the moment she’d sewn on the buttons she bought for the cardigan I knitted for her:

I do not for a moment criticise her selfie: I’m unable to produce a selfie that doesn’t look as if I was falling over at the time.

The buttons are all identical: it’s just that the bottom two aren’t in the same fill-light that the top ones are ..

I am never going to knit in stocking stitch again. I have spoken.