Integration

Funnily enough, my shoulder pain was gone by Saturday morning (thank G-d for having a body that generally recovers quickly!), but C had spent Friday afternoon playing backyard cricket at work and his shoulder was sore exactly where mine had been. Personally, I like to think it was one of those sympathy pain transfer occasions and he just didn't want to see me suffering and took on my pain. Ha! Well, it's a nice thought.

It ended up that the go-karting was scheduled for the exact same time we had to be at C's nephew's 7th birthday party, so we couldn't go. Nice co-ordination happening there between C's brother and sister who organised both events! Pity, coz I would seriously have kicked C's butt in the sorry state he was in. And Brad, no problems with the 'drive like you stole it' thing - I already do!

I met dozens of C's family members and friends over the course of the weekend. I do remember a few names at least, but it's going to take forever to work out who's related to whom and how. Typical Catholic Irish family really - and they all get on really well with each other. They welcomed me in like I was one of them, which was nice. So far removed from my own family experience - polar opposites.

I still haven't quite fully explained the dynamics of my own family to C yet. He thinks I'm waiting till I'm fully entrenched in his life before I give him the full rundown. Really, there just hasn't been an opportune time so far. We're going on a picnic tomorrow. Maybe then.

C's son, A asked me again (for the third time), when we were staying at C's sister's place, if I was C's girlfriend. I said yes and asked him if it was ok and why he asked. He said, "because E (C's ex) comes down here in the beetle (C's car) to stay as well". I said, "well she doesn't anymore".

A bit of history here. C's car started off as E's car. It was her car, but, to show he was committed to the relationship, he got it on a lease through his salary. She was making the payments to him. When she left, she dumped him with the car and the payments. So he sold his own car (last night) and is keeping the cabriolet.

E and I have very similar names. She was also blonde. She and C broke up only a couple of months before I met him. C thought that A understood what had gone on because when he said he'd broken up with E, all A said was "she talked a lot", and that was that. We think maybe A thinks C is still going out with both of us, because while we were in the car on the way to C's sister's place, A had already asked if I was C's girlfriend. About ten seconds after that, he asked C if he knew about Henry VIII. We have no idea how that related to the boyfriend/girlfriend thing, but we don't think it's because A thinks C chops the heads off all his girlfriends...but you never know...

I also finally got to meet A's mother - C's ex. I've been looking forward to it, because I figured I should just accept the situation. Funny, in a previous life I would have been horrendously jealous of her. She's a nice person. We got on fine. I didn't know how she'd react seeing me playing with A (at his request) in her house, but she was cool and got into it too, which is nice.

C sent me a text message last Thursday, saying 'hurry home, we haven't seen enough of each other lately'. Taken literally, that doesn't make sense, because we've spent every day together - every weekend, every evening, and I've stayed at his place every night except one in the last three weeks. But I know what he meant. We just haven't had time to sit and stop and talk. We go walking most afternoons and we talk a lot then and we talk a lot over dinner and things like that, but we haven't just stayed still in a long time. So in a strange way, it really does feel like we haven't seen each other. Hard to explain.

I can't believe how well we've merged our lives. We both still have our things we do for ourselves. I have my gym and my net stuff and he has his volunteer emergency stuff. We've just managed to balance everything else around those things so that neither of us feels as though we've sacrificed anything.

If it all died in the arse tomorrow, I wouldn't regret getting involved with him. I'm just enjoying the moments and hoping they continue.