Weekend Away

This past weekend I went to Newmarket, near Cambridge, for the local SCA shire's Yule Ball. I had a great time and was able to wear my brand-new cotehardie, which I've been working on, on and off, since July. It turned out very well and was widely admired. I also managed to spill wine on it, but it wouldn't be me if I didn't. ;) It'll come clean!

The weekend also marked a milestone for me, in that I drove using my newly-minted British licence for the first time, all the way from London to Newmarket and back, in a big hire car, with 4-5 passengers and loads of baggage, over icy streets in parts no less! I was very nervous beforehand, and when we set off from my friends' house for the long evening journey to Newmarket my legs were shaking! But all went well, and I feel moderately confident about driving in London now. Not something I want to do every day, but if it has to be done, I can do it.

I'm the only driver of that group of people, and I have no doubt that I will be doing it again, as we as a group have formed an SCA household. It's been coming for a while, but we had an impromptu meeting in the car on the way home and got our name, charge, badge and motto established and talked a bit about what we want to do as a household. It's a true household of kindred spirits - some are actual kin, others just spiritual kindred. The level of closeness is amazing, and it spins me around that I'm part of it. I have several other friends that close in Australia, people I am completely comfortable and open with, but for sheer amount of time spent together I don't think I have ever been as close to anyone as I am to the couple who are the core of the household. The experience of complete loving-friendship-trust-openness is heady and wondrous. I've craved that kind of connection for a long time, and now that I have it I can't quite believe it. It takes my breath away.

And yet, as always it seems with me, the awareness of that connection leaves me wistful about an even deeper connection that I lack. I have a safer, more complete connection with these friends than I've had in any actual relationship I've been in. In fact these friendships characterise everything my 'love' relationships have not been. My whole dating history is characterised by sad, sour, unsafe, angry, dramatic, unloving, denigrating and ultimately short relationships. (The only former partner with whom I had a good, healthy connection is 14,500km away and may never live in the same city as me again, so although I think the potential for this kind of connection is there, I can't count on it ever being a regular part of my life.) With that one exception, I have never been able to relax and love and trust anyone like I love and trust these friends, and being in their presence, as much as I love it, reminds me of what I've never had.

And it hurts.

I want so badly to find my way to that deeper level of connection. There must be more wonderful, self-loving, accepting, dear, true people in the world! In London, even! But I don't know how to find them, and the odds of them being both free and interested in me seem so minuscule.

I'm still so full of doubt about myself, my identity and where I fit in the world. Finding one place that I fit, one set of hearts with whom I click, throws into stark contrast the emotional chaos surrounding the rest of my life.

Argh, I don't know... I want to just be happy about what I've got but the ache won't go away.

*sigh*