Reflections

Well bugger me it’s late. Not just late in the evening or rather early in the morning, but late in the week; what I mean is, I had a lovely evening with a special friend on Sunday and I haven’t even mentioned it yet. Anyone who appreciates good writing or good people will by now have read Cerys’s’s’s Thought Bubbles, which mentions the fact that I paid her a visit, and she even manages to describe it in proper joined up sentences.

What she said was true; we sat down to eat at 8pm and the next thing we know it’s 3am and we are still sat there nattering. She said nice things about me, lovely, but it makes me feel the need to be brutally honest… (Cerys gulps!)

I see myself in some way an emotional chameleon, perhaps a personality chameleon. If I am confronted with someone quiet, shy, loud, outgoing, I see myself acting in the same way, it may sound false, but it’s never contrived, never intentional, it just happens. If you meet me and think, what a twat, be very worried! I am so pleased to have met Cerys, she is such wonderful company, and if she thinks that I am too, then it’s all her own doing. I am no fun unless I am in the company of someone else who is fun to be with, and Cerys just is. She has described me in such a touching way, but she is really describing her own image in the mirror. Psychobabble aside, it takes two to have an enjoyable evening, and basically we just get on. It’s special.

Someone else I seem to click with, as you are probably bored with hearing about, is Pippa, ohh the lovely Pippa. Friday today (just), which means that tomorrow we will meet again. The second time I met Pippa was at the Trans-mission party in Manchester, she couldn’t get a hotel room but I had a twin room already booked so was more than happy to have her share. There’s a blog about this somewhere; as soon as she arrived, something clicked, we were sat on the bed within minutes talking about make up, nails, and what to wear. All of a sudden, and I mean this, it felt like I had a sister, like we were both looking in the mirror. It was wonderful. We’d met a month earlier along with Cathy, also in Manchester, just a quiet night out really, but real fun. Something instantaneous happened when I first met her; NO not love at first sight you shmucky romantic old fools, just, I don’t know, I guess it was the underlying sisterness that we were to discover next time we met, in simple terms, we just got on. Bloody hell that’s two people that I just get on with….

Pippa looked in the mirror and saw me, and I was no longer just a reflection. I simply cannot say what it means to have such a friend, because the right words haven’t been invented yet. I love you my Pippa, thank you.

Anyway now I’M being a shmucky romantic old fool and all this came to mind because tomorrow is TM party night in Manchester again. I long to feel Pippa in my arms again, but I have other needs too, and recently have spent little time getting out as myself in public. Why should that be a big deal? I can be myself at home but I’ve been doing that for more than 10 years; I need to feel like a real person, not like a mirror that no-one looks into.

Don’t want to sound blasé, but the fact that it’s a TM party is irrelevant, I’m just happy to be venturing out again, but it is still quite special to be at an event where I am surrounded by people who in some way feel the same as I do. OK so it’s not totally irrelevant, but what I mean is, for me to get out, interact, be me, for the public to see me for who I really am is all I need. I need to be me, and I know there is no chance of survival by continuing to be the actor in this long-running soap opera into which I seem to have found myself mis-cast.

I AM looking forward to a big party though, and the chance to dress up a bit, maybe in something a little different this time, who knows? And I am looking forward to meeting sisters old and new. Almost exactly six months ago, I’d never properly been out dressed and no-one had ever met the real Lucy. What a difference.

Soap operas can be so dull.