Truly, Madly, Deeply

I can’t sleep. I’m not sure if it’s nervousness or excitement that’s making me toss and turn tonight, but with just 24 hours to go before I set off on another Indian Slummer adventure, my head seems to be swirling.

You see, this time it’s different. This time I’m not running away from the shit-sandwich that typifies my life in London. I’ve actually learnt to tolerate the taste. And I’m not setting off on some kind of soul-searching quest for happiness. I’m pleased to say that I now have a few chinks of sunlight perforating my dark armour of woe. No, this trip promises to be something quite special. Something out of this world. This is why I’m in a 2am tailspin. Frankly, I’m bloody bricking it.

Let me explain…

Six weeks ago, I met this guy. A totally extraordinary, one in a million kind of guy. The moment I clapped eyes on him it was like – boom! Thunderbolts and lightening. He reduced me to rubble. A palpable, physical wreck. It was love at first sight. Not something I thought actually happened in real life. Much less happen to me.

I’d met him through work. He was the subject of a documentary I was keen to get my teeth into. He’d flown to London from India to meet with me and I was hoping he’d like me enough to sign up. Suffice to say, I pretty much had him at ‘hello’. Professionally and personally we just seemed to click. What followed was a high-speed romance. 48 hours of sheer, unadulterated bliss. And then he had to leave. On the morning of his departure we clung to each other like limpets, neither of us wanting to let the other go. It was then that he told me that he loved me. And for the first time in 6 years I found myself echoing those same words.

Since then, we’ve remained in constant contact. Surgically attached to our Skype. We speak at least a dozen times a day. We whisper sweet nothings, remotely canoodle and on occasion, have even attempted a dry hump. We’ve started to sketch out a shared future - marriage, babies…a small troop of Chihuahuas - the whole nine yards. And every day this man manages to delight, charm and surprise me in a colourful array of new ways.

But it was when he asked me to come out to India and move in with him that reality actually started to bite.

With only the briefest of courtships it seems like we’re lurching headlong into cohabitation and this concerns me on a number of levels. I mean, let’s face it - you really get to know a person when you live with them and I’m not sure I want to burst our beautiful love bubble so soon. What if I discover he’s an inveterate farter? Or has woefully bad taste in music?  Will I still find him as irresistible? And what will he think of me when my own mask of perfection starts to slip? Will he still love me when he comes across one of the rogue hairs that occasionally sprout out of my chin? Will an unforeseen and unprompted outbreak of spotty botty render me utterly charmless? And crucially, will this man be able to handle the pathological lunatic I morph into each month when a certain ‘red guest’ arrives for a visit?

Added to all of this is also the inescapable fact that I’m monumentally shit at relationships. My track record is really quite shocking. Pretty much every meaningful partnership I’ve ever had has dissolved into a baleful and toxic pool of disappointment. My marriage in particular being the most exemplary.  Since that crashed and burned, I’ve become quite deft at body swerving commitment. I neither need the headache nor the heartbreak.

So as I lie here in these wee small hours churning over the enormity of what I’m about to do, I find myself wondering whether I should be chasing rainbows again, at my age. Whether this man is my pot of gold or just another regrettable crock of shit, who knows?

Nevertheless, I’m taking the plunge. One giant leap. Because my heart is telling me I’ve found something special, something truly, madly deep.