Letter number 19: Zen Bert

Dear Alexandra,

The little flurry of texts we had over the last couple of days have dried up. I’m okay about that, in truth. The message thread still sits ominously with your comment that Apple are assholes for not inventing smell-text. You’d said you missed the smell of Sonic (he does smell delicious), I said if I could I’d text you a whiff but as yet Cupertino HQ haven’t developed that option.

Obviously I still think about you, because otherwise I wouldn’t be writing you this letter — but I find myself in an oddly calm and considered state of mind. I’ve actually had something approximating a really good day today.

I read some more of the book I talked about this morning — I left a little later for work as I was waiting for a delivery, which luck would have it arrived right at the start of its hour window. Things are looking up! It was my HelloFresh order — so I quickly unpacked it and popped the perishables in the fridge then headed into work feeling pretty energised and awake.

Work was good — there weren’t many of us in the office but I had a really productive morning, I’ve not felt particularly productive since the shit hit the fan, present but absent all at once. Not everyone at work knows what happened but my boss, his boss and my peers do. I think before I’d have been horrified to be exposed as so weak, so vulnerable — I’m okay with it now. They’ve all been brilliantly supportive.

Started to have the ‘what comes next’ career-wise conversation with my boss — we had a meeting walking around the car park outside as the sun was out and you could actually feel it. Last week if I’d mentioned the sun I’d have thought of him and got upset. Clearly I still made the association to have mentioned him, but well, I can push the need to make it evoke pain and jealousy aside. I can’t live my life unable to bear mention of sun or moon can I? I feel like I have a decent idea of what the next year looks like for work — but then would be interested in trying to step up I think.

Of course I’m also waiting to hear back from the interview with the other place — I don’t think it’s very likely I’d take a job from them if offered, but it’s good to explore opportunities as they arise.

I know from the texts I exchanged with your Mum — oddly in tune with you in starting to text after a break at the same time — that you’re not working tomorrow and are planning on spending some time with her. I hope you do, I hope she can hold back on how pissed off she is with you and be supportive, perhaps somehow break through that mask you’ve perfected and coax you gently to open up and talk about what’s happened. I think it will help you make sense of things more.

It helped me when I was able to do that. Increasingly I think re-hashing what happened repeatedly isn’t helpful, but certainly doing so at least once at least helps you to process, to take the opportunity to review as dispassionately as possible what transpired, and get some clarity. Writing these letters helped me to do that as much as anything — reading back through what happened in black and white helps to take the rawness from it. Then you can engage Logical Alexandra. Logical Alexandra is very shy, so you need to be gentle with her and let her be heard.

Sherlock Bert remains in a stupor somewhere, he’s probably resorted to getting his violin out or finding another case. Tonight would normally be one of your streaming nights, I’ve no idea whether or not you’ve gone live or not — it was only writing just now that it even occurred to me. I’m not going to look, I’ve not done any sneaky Twitter trawls. You’re still very quiet on Facebook although you did post an Instagram story earlier saying you were feeling better, you looked great on the photo that accompanied it. You do know how to take a good photo though!

I wouldn’t have seen that had I not got a notification about it — I’m not really an Instagram kinda person (despite having an account, ha!). I hope that you are feeling better though. Forgiveness isn’t quite the right word for how I feel toward you, that would imply a clean slate, an opportunity to resume old roles — that’s not right, but I guess acceptance might be more accurate. I’m ready to draw a line under us as a couple I think. But I would like to retain a friendship, and I do have an enduring worry for you.

I also worry that this strange Zen Bert might yet encounter bumps in the road — how I feel now is a significant step change compared to last, the week before that whilst not seriously considering it I was having suicidal thoughts. I wouldn’t say I’m where I want to be mentally, not at all, but I feel like there’s a route to get there. That’s really comforting. I’d love for you to get to a similar place — it’s not quite peace of mind yet, but I’ve worked out ways to nip the darkness in the bud before it takes hold.

But yeah, I was talking about having a good day. After a decent day at work with some good company I played football (shock, horror! — I think that’s game 11 in 15 days — I’m amazed I can still walk but actually feel physically great!). It was a good game, great to be amongst folk and lose myself for an hour. We won, too! Then back home after Sonic had some time out, I got showered and eventually he went to bed I cooked myself one of the HelloFresh recipes.

I do enjoy cooking, not so much a fan of shopping for random ingredients so having them provided in the right quantities is perfect. I made a Thai Pork Salad, it was really good! I was well behaved and boxed up the second portion (why don’t you do single person portions, HelloFresh?!) to take into the office for lunch tomorrow. I’ve cunningly deployed my car as a fridge as it’s still pretty chilly out. I’d forgotten how they make you use all the kitchen stuff when you actually cook properly which I’ve been really bad at lately! I was good though, I tidied up after myself, the dishwasher is running. I did make a bit of a mess of the hob, I’ll have to sort that out before the cleaning ladies come!

Now I have a bit of time to chill, I’m still working my way through a WW2 series on Amazon Prime — I appreciate you’ve not cut me off from your assorted streaming accounts, and I’ll be heading off to bed soon. I’ve arranged to go and see K. and J. at the weekend, J. will undoubtedly try to feed me up, haha. I’m looking forward to it. Another group of old school friends have arranged a meet up too for the weekend after next, I’m looking forward to that too.

Another K., from my last job, messaged again today, she’s been reading through these letters in a random order — I’m not really sure why I shared them with her, it just felt right in the light that she’d gone through something similar. She said today that some of it had been helpful to her, that’s a huge bonus. This is an entirely self-indulgent project for my benefit, but if it helps others along the way then that’s fantastic. I shared it with A. and S. when I was in a less positive frame of mind because I was finding it hard to talk about what actually happened and it was a useful shortcut.

It’s a bit weird writing about people I know will actually read these, haha. Hi, A., S. and K.! (Ask!).

But yes, another diversion. I really hope you do spend some time with your Mum tomorrow, get outside in the fresh air. I also really hope she doesn’t ‘flip her shit’ as you’d say and confront you about what happened. I think that would be damaging for both of you, you’d close up and be resentful, and it wouldn’t take Sherlock Alexandra to work out how she found out so selfishly I worry how you’d react to me. I don’t think she will though, I think she knows you need some nurturing.

We both know quite a bit more than you know, and that does feel dishonest. I’m not proud of some of Sherlock Bert’s actions — but it was really the only avenue open to me in the absence of you even being prepared to talk to me. I’m not sure whether talking so openly with your Mum was the right thing to do or not, again, I was in a darker place — but my primary motivation even then was to try to get through to someone close to you how worried I was for your state of mind.

But, well, in the spirit of all of this — I’ve done what I did, I can’t take it back now, there’s not much point in trying to decide whether or not I would if I had the opportunity via some kind of time travelling ability. I really want things to work out well for you.

I love you, Bert