Thought I'd say HELLO

Have you ever opened up your email in the morning. Received a phone call. Walked into a place & seen a face - that makes you feel like you were just punched in the stomach. So hard that at first you don’t realise what an impact it’s had. Until you are sitting in a meeting and have to ask what agenda item they are now on, cause you just spent the past 10 minutes rehashing thoughts and memories you once held for that person. And hopes. And desires. And feelings that you had long since suppressed because, well because they had left your life.

They are not meant to come back, those people. You spend long enough moving on from not having them in your life. Whether friends or lovers. The emails between you two lessen. You learn to stop the need to see or speak to them. Eventually, they become some split-second grin-at memory. That is all. You were happy it happened.

Then there they are. You are so happy to see their name, hear their voice, touch their cheek when you kiss them “hello” again. You are also so nervous.

Obviously this happened to me this morning. Funny that I was thinking about that person just last night. Out of the blue. Maybe as he started to compose a message to me. Or apparently was tracking down my email address again. We’d given up on ever seeing each other again. Not only did he live in another distant city, and not only was he removing himself from a project that brought him here, but he was resigning from that whole job and moving to a completely other distant country on another corner of the earth. I appreciated that this change meant Jo’burg city was unlikely to be ever again on his career’s radar.

I was wrong.

He probably visits again next week.

I am at a loss & feeling just slightly bruised.