There is a biting wind blowing through the house. It's the kind you can't keep out with a door snake. I look at the houses of friends. So solid. So secure. And I wonder. Does the same wind ever blow through their homes, and do they worry, like I sometimes do, that the wind will one day blow the house down.
I don't know how he puts up with me. He is either an angel come to save me from myself or a masochist looking for a permanent thrill. I look at friends and I wonder whether everything is really as perfect as it seems with their chocolate box relationships, and if it isn't, would they tell me, because I need to know. Maybe we can whisper it to each other, just very occasionally, and tell each other it's okay if sometimes things are not perfectly perfect. If sometimes it's awful. If sometimes we want to run away and hide and be on our own forever, or at least until such time as that bloody wind dies down.
The last time I felt like this, the last time before now, we were down the country in the middle of nowhere. I had the map. We were driving to put a bet on the Grand National. I don't know where it came from, that chill wind, because the sun was shining down and if anyone had passed us they'd have thought all was right with the world. But, suddenly I was red-faced and fuming and the map was flung out of the window. I watched it fluttering down a country lane, managing to smile at the thought of a map getting lost. If we don't have a map, is it possible that we can still know where we are going? I asked him this at the time, but he didn't reply because it was a silly question and anyway, he'd had enough of me for one day. When we got to a place where there were pubs and people we put a bet on. We lost. Still, we smiled and that night lit candles to set along the side of a bath. Calmly came another day.
I met a woman a few years ago who out of nowhere started telling me about her husband and the cosy house they had. At least, she had thought it was cosy at the time. I stood there, embarrassed, not wanting to know, but not wanting to hurt her feelings by telling her to stop. She told me everyone else knew a gale was blowing through her house, but that she, wrapped up warm and smug in a cloak of self-satisfaction, couldn't feel it. When the day came and he left and she learnt about the woman he was in love with, her cosy house came tumbling down around her. She shivered as she spoke. I think of her when the wind blows.
Is everything all right? Yes, fantastic, you say. But, of course, often it is not. You have been with the same person for 10 years, for 15 years, or even for 10 months, and you might be a bit bored. The way she cuts the crusts off her sandwiches could drive you demented. The way he doesn't answer when you ask him a question has you wrecked in the head. Sometimes you might want to shake her. Sometimes you might want to rage at him. And actually there is another girl who gives you butterflies in the stomach, the way that she used to. Sometimes you dream of running off to a place with white sands and no ties, but then you remember you have to go buy a pint of milk and something for the dinner. That's what you really want to say.
And maybe that kind of honesty is the way forward. A way to look with more realistic eyes at the structure of our important bonds. I've been thinking about how these chilly times are just as important as the ones where we feel that warm glow in the pit of our stomachs. If we try, we might see that it all fits together somehow. I am trying. I am trying very hard.
Most of the time, trying feels worthwhile. Using love as a foundation, hoping for the best. But when the wind blows it feels as though the house is being torn down brick by brick. You remember a story from the Bible and all you can do is pray that this house isn't built on sand. That's the kind of detail you won't find in any title deeds. There is a biting wind blowing through the house. Is there such a thing as a permanent draft excluder? And if it exists, do I want one? Yes. And no.
u roisiningle@irish-times.ie