You and I (Part 3 - the end)

Tuesday, 31st of August 2021

Time for the last part of my love story. Sorry to keep you guys waiting, but my weekend was rather busy with dancing and visiting friends. Let's dive straight in!

As promised I was driving back home very slowly indeed. The phone was silent, but I decided to stop at the petrol station to get a drink and wait a little longer. Soon after the phone rang and I was over the moon to hear that he did miss his flight and rescheduled it for 3 hours later. That sounds a little mean I guess, but I was really happy to spend a little more time with him. The crew advised him not to leave the airport, but luckily for me he didn’t listen. Soon I was picking him up a few minutes later and we headed to McDonalds for a coffee. We spent the remaining hours counting Toyota Prius’es coming in and out of the carpark and talking nonsense in general. I tried just enjoying this moment, as I thought I won’t see him again until fate throws us at the same congress again in some distant future. 

He didn’t miss the second flight, but I was driving back home with a huge smile on my face anyway. It’s not everyday that a gorgeous man calls you his Cindyrella and misses his flight because of you. He didn’t make me wait for long and reported his arrival at home soon after I got to mine. Next few days we were on skype for hours. 3 days later I accidentally said I was in love with him! It wasn’t premeditated, I just spilled out the beans while talking about my housemate. He was shocked and said this never happened to him so fast before. What can I say? I was lucky enough to be in love a few times in the past, so it was easy to realise it when it happened again. 

We moved from chatting about everything to planning the next time we see each other. He decided to visit me in my house, coincidentally on my birthday weekend. I mean, what a birthday gift! I planned many salsa parties for that weekend, but we went to only 1 of them. The rest of the weekend we spend mainly in bed, only leaving my bedroom to eat and smoke. Turned out he was a salsa DJ and he knew SO much about music. Me? I can barely name a couple of instruments and can never remember names of artists or titles of the songs. He also knew a bit of Spanish, so he would play some of his favourite songs and translate them for me. 

I remember these 4 days as pure bliss. They went by way too fast though and before I knew it we were back to chatting on skype and counting weeks and days till another visit - either his here or me going to the Netherlands. 

A year later I decided to get a few lodgers in my house, packed my bags and moved to little Dutch town where he lives. I didn’t think too much about it. It wasn’t the first time I was leaving one country to live in another one. I was super keen on starting my happy ever after.

It sure was happy at first. I was spending most of my days with the love of my life. Sunsets viewed from the top floor apartment were breath-taking too. P was mainly working from home, so we literally spent all our waking hours together. Weirdly enough I never really had enough of him. I started running and we were dancing at home a lot, as P wanted to work on his leading technique. We also signed up for modern dance classes, but only attended a few of them, as he injured himself badly and we couldn’t continue.  I didn't fancy doing it on my own.

The arguments started about going out to parties. Or rather not going out enough. Back in England I was used to a busy social life. Weekly classes at Alchemy once or twice per week with social dancing afterwards, topped up with one or two salsa parties at the weekend and being surrounded by many friends I could visit any day. All this was reduced to barely 1 party in 2 weeks, as my love was super picky about which parties to attend. We lived barely 30 mins drive from Amsterdam, yet we only attended a salsa congresses there, which was happening once a year. 

Somehow I didn’t predict that my social life would take such a huge hit nor that it would bother me this much. Dutch people, even in the salsa world, didn't seem to be as friendly as people in England and even though the majority of the population speaks English as well as Dutch, most would frown upon you if you didn’t speak Dutch. P’s best friend was a young girl, who also danced salsa. I liked her at first, but later I started to like her less and less when she was taking our whole Sundays and was talking to P in Dutch, clearly excluding me from the conversations. 

Instead of enjoying my ‘happy ever after’, I was finding more reasons to travel to England. My house was still there, so there were always good reasons to visit. I would make sure to plan my visits around the parties I wanted to attend and included as many friend’s visits as physically possible to catch up for the months spent in NL without anyone, but my love. During one of those visits I went to my bank to re-mortgage my house and discussed a few other financial matters. Afterwards I decided I wanted to build an extension to my house. I wasn’t keen on looking for work in NL, as my Dutch was still non existing, so I decided to go back to England for ‘a few months’. P wasn’t too keen on letting me go, but he knew that I wasn’t happy living in NL and he also agreed that extension of the house was a good idea. A few months later he arranged with his boss to work from home all the time and joined me in England. The extension however never happened, as we couldn’t quite agree on how it should look etc. 

We moved from England to the Netherlands and back many more times, but I would lie if I said my love story has a happy ending. As much as we both loved each other and still do, our views on pretty much anything are so different, we couldn’t agree on simple things, let alone on which country to settle in. I didn’t mind travelling between the 2 countries. As a Gemini I love being on the go. Living in NL permanently was not really an option. Brexit and pandemic didn’t make things any easier either and this year eventually it was time to end my love story. 

Am I sad that it had to end? Of course I am. Above all I am however grateful that I could experience it. While it lasted, it was better than any romance novel I read as a teenager. Now it’s time for another new chapter in my life. 

Until next time 💙