ROSEMARY MAC CABE

So I’ll say it here instead. Ain’t the internet grand?

I wish you weren’t going, but I wish you all the best. And, hopefully, I’ll see you soon.

There are moments in life when everything seems to be on course; everything is right, everything is clear. And there are other moments, when a single decision throws everything off-kilter and you’re back. Back to square zero, back to ground zero, back to a confusion that you don’t think should exist any more.

I had ideas about how my life would be by now, but I learned early on that, if life can throw things in your way, things you didn’t expect, things you didn’t see coming, it will. So the moral of that story is, don’t have any preconceived ideas. Don’t think too far ahead, don’t worry about what should or could be. It is. I am. This is. Now, we deal.

“Don’t be too nice to me, okay?”

“Why not?”

“It makes me nervous.”

A friend of mine says that she will never live with someone she is in a relationship with; statistically, she says, people who co-habit before marriage are more likely to divorce. Besides which, she uses the same knife for butter and jam, which is surely a dealbreaker – although not, perhaps, a marriage-breaker.

I’d been having a housemate issue for a while. Not an “I licked your cheese” scenario, but something smaller, quieter, and altogether more disturbing. She would get up in the morning, pour herself a bowl of cereal, and blowdry her hair, at the kitchen table, cereal spoon in one hand, hairdryer in the other. Apart from the fact that I had a grudging respect for her awesome multitasking abilities, something just didn’t sit right with me.

My mother wouldn’t allow me to brush my hair in the kitchen (in the days when hairbrushing was something I did; the days before hair mousse and embracing the curls and hairdressers who actually liked me and didn’t want me to get picked on at school). She said it was unhygienic. The hairs, she imagined, would fly into the food, not to mention whatever dirt said hairs had picked up during the day.

It seems that we inherit more than genetics, so; the sight of my housemate blowdrying her hair in our otherwise not-particularly-clean-or-tidy kitchen would drive me into a mental frenzy, so abhorrent was the thought of hairs in the food. It didn’t really matter that there was no food on our counters; they would surely lie in wait, until I took out a bowl of porridge or of semolina, something sticky for the hair to really attach itself to.

It took a while, I’ll admit, to bring it up. Life is about picking and choosing battles, and though I maintain that this particular one did, in fact, pick me, I resisted the urge to bring it up for weeks. Until one day, I was caught unawares (read: slightly inebriated) and decided that this would be the perfect time, the perfect place.

“Well!” I said, slightly breathless at the thoughts of the impending fist-fight that would surely ensue, greasy chip in hand (when house-hunting, if your house is on a street with a chipper, find another house, FYI). “I-have-something-to-say-and-I-don’t-think-you’re-going-to-like-it!”

There was a pause. Housemate, ever benevolent, looked slightly . . . bemused, if I recall correctly. “Go on . . .”

“WELL!” I had by now reached fever pitch, treading a fine line between panic attack and heart failure. “I-REALLY-HATE-WHEN-YOU-BLOWDRY-YOUR-HAIR-IN-THE-KITCHEN!” Another pause. “IJUSTWORRYTHATYOU’REGETTINGHAIRINTHEFOODI’MSORRYI’MSOWEIRD!”

She laughed (laughed! – as if this hadn’t taken WEEKS of buildup!). “That’s fine! It hadn’t occurred to me, but it is a bit weird, now that you mention it.”

The relief was palpable, unless what I was tasting was liquid adrenaline. “Oh, great!” Big breath. “Well, do I do anything that annoys you?”

To be honest, this was more a gesture than anything else. I’m rarely there, I thought. I’m very tidy. I don’t really leave food lying around, and though I don’t do a huge amount of cleaning, my not being there does, I feel, excuse me from cleaning duties. Sometimes, not always. If anything, I suspected she might be displeased with the amount of time my clothes lie, sodden, in the washing machine. I awaited her reply.

“Well,” she said, without a sign of the anxiety I had felt when relating my very rational weirdness about the hairdrying, “you do sniffle a lot. When you’re watching TV, or reading. Yes, you sniffle.”

There was just nothing to say – and, in the following hour, which I spent watching The Sopranos and, naturally, sulking, I attempted to breathe, very slowly and very calmly, through my mouth. It was near impossible, therefore now I must find new housemates. Kitchen hairdrying fans need not apply.

Via Blanaid

I don’t think there are perfect moments for anything. I don’t think there are rights or wrongs; I don’t plan on doing X or Y, although I don’t just “let things happen”. I believe in taking chances, in taking leaps, in making choices. The right choices? Who knows.

So this is for you; this is our time. Because really, why the hell not?

You don’t know this yet, but things are over between us. Is this my Minnie Driver / Oprah moment? It may just be except for the very great chance that you will never know about this letter. But still – I digress. The point is this: it’s over. You and I, we are no more.

Things started out so well; sick and tired of a bank whose internet banking was – and is – stuck in the 20th century, I signed up to your purple-themed world and, in that sad, romantic way, I thought you were the one. I thought that was it for me. I smugly listened to people’s stories of changing banks and I thought, much in the style of someone who is in a comfortable seven-year relationship, “thank God I don’t have to enter that world again”.

I gleefully transferred money here and there at the touch of roughly four buttons. Twenty euro to you, and twenty to you – and oh, hurrah! I can pay off my credit card quickly, painlessly, happily. (Not quite happily, I will admit.)

Were there problems? Sure there were. Nothing in this life is perfect, and I couldn’t help but wish you would be slightly more easygoing. My direct debit bounced? Sure, it was hardly my fault, and the money was there the next day – couldn’t you waive the €10 fee? But, much as I was determined to bounce my way through my direct debiting life, you were determined not to waive any fees. I could respect your decision – I respected even more the fact that you stuck with it. You were unwavering (and unwaiving).

But things really started to sour when, and it makes me laugh to write it down, I decided I wanted to take things to the next level. I wanted to buy a house with you. I wanted a nice two-up, two-down in Ringsend or Stoneybatter. I wanted to decorate it in DIY loveliness (Cadbury’s Roses wrappers over a feature wall in the entrance hall, I thought, laquered to a high sheen; an Ikea kitchen; perhaps raw, unvarnished wooden floors).  I wanted us to grow old together, you and I – me in my cosy cottage, you with your strong arms around me.

But it wasn’t to be. I wasn’t dependable enough for you. You didn’t even want to do it with my parents’ backing; it just wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. (My freelance status made you nervous, I think; in the world of media there are no guarantees, and no amount of pleading would entice my company to sign me off as permanent.) So I adapted. I accepted my role in a renter’s world, and we went on about our business. Paying credit cards here, transferring money there.

Then there was today. I want – no, need – to buy a car. Mine is from 1996 and is determined to let me down at every juncture but, in a great twist of events, I am entitled to scrappage. €3,000 off a brand new car. Shiny. So I go to you and I say: “Let’s do this. Let’s buy a new car. Let’s do it together, and in two years, I’ll be on my own. Two measly years. Nine thousand measly euro.” You smile and you play nice and I sign on the dotted line, and then you come back to me, less than 24 hours later and you say no. And that’s it. You just say no.

There are no niceties here. There are no explanations, no hugs, no kisses, no gentle lead-ins. You’re “not in a position” to offer me what I need.

Well, I’m no longer in a position to offer you anything, either. I’m leaving and I’m taking my wages. I’m taking my two savings accounts. I’m taking my credit card, which I pay off in full almost every month – and usually a day or two late, so that not only do you get the payments, you get the interest, too. I’m taking my transfers and my bill payments and my waxing lyrical about your easygoing nature and your efficiency.

I’m going back into the world of signing forms and photocopying passports, because I’m sick of being here for you when I know you won’t be there for me.

AIB, you’ve given me great pleasure. But I just can’t bring myself to regret leaving you.

via Ciara and the Cupcaketologist

And the winner of the competition to win a Nokia 6700 is (drumroll please) Gary @ 27

Gary, email me rosemary.maccabe [at] gmail.com with your postal details and we’ll have it winging its way to you, pronto!

And for the rest of yiz, check out Nokia’s new pop-up store at 11 Grafton St. And thanks to Nokia, obv!

I can’t remember if I posted this before, but either way, I kind of heart it . . .