A Digressionary Love Story


Reflections


I'm an extremely self aware person... or at least I think I am... I might just be fooling myself.  

Nevertheless, I tend to overanalyze things.  Analyze them to death, in fact.

This is why before my 13th birthday, I apologized to my grandmother (who was raising me) for all the 
grief I would give her as a teenager.  Others at that age might protest and say defiantly "NO!  I shall 
not be like that!  I shall be nice and sweet until I'm an adult!"

This, I felt, was foolish delusional thinking.  Rebellion is a part of growing up, and unavoidable.  
When faced with that inevitability, isn't it better to simply admit what is going to happen, and do your 
best to ride out the storm?

This also why as I became interested in girls, I found a deep seated dislike, if not outright hatred of 
what is called "Romance" today.

Take Romeo and Juliet.  The greatest love story ever told.  Yeah, right.  It's about two whiny teenagers 
with raging hormones that are that same rebellious age that I had the good sense to warn my grandmother 
was coming.  Love?  What love?  Why?  They see each other across a crowded room, Romeo's on the rebound, 
Juliet's being courted by a putz.  What basis for love is there?  This is lust, pure and simple, 
super-fueled by Forbidden Fruit Syndrome.  Just about every movie or book I read had the same tired theme.  
Most movies tack on a love interest, and really it's a matter of the guy wanting to end up in bed with 
her because she looks hot.

Not that I could deny the impulse, mind you.  As a teenager, my crotch led me into all kinds of problems, 
and I never even got to first base for all my trouble.  Later it got me engaged to a girl who had had an 
unfortunate brain transplant with a turnip because she would let me get to first base with her.  Later 
still it broke up several promising relationships because I couldn't keep my stupid mouth shut from 
blurting out "I love you" even though both of us knew damn well it couldn't be true.  Such is the power 
of the male hormone combined with a deep seated need to be accepted by anyone and everyone.

Also, I think the problem was I really really wanted it to be true.  I wanted love... even if I didn't 
believe in it, even if I didn't know what it was.

---

Enter Gillian 

When I first met Gillian, I was at the end of one dissolving relationship and starting up another.  
We met on an online dating service.  She was in Vancouver, I was in Toronto.  A good 4000km distance 
between us, so I didn't immediately consider her a likely candidate... I still had plenty of potential 
relationships left to screw up in Toronto before I needed to go elsewhere.

We corresponded, chatted, flirted (I have a tendency to flirt with anyone sporting a double X 
chromosome).  But as I learned more about her, I considered her less and less likely to be the one 
for me.  For one thing, she was handicapped.  

Yes, yes... shallow, self-centered, etc... call me what you will.  But consider my reasons for wanting 
a woman who wasn't handicapped.  I envisioned in my mind someone who was my equal in every way.  Not 
just having similar intellect and interests, but someone I could go adventuring with, and that required 
some degree of physical capability.  

And so Gillian slipped down into the "maybe" list.

Okay, before you get any overblown ideas of this list, it's not some kind of giant black book.  It 
consisted of three people at most at any given time, usually only one of whom I had ever met in person, 
and another of whom I was quickly driving away with mad foot shaped emails that would be more 
appropriately placed in my mouth.

Allow me to describe a typical date with Noah, aged 20-25.  We chat via email or telephone for a while 
and get to know each other. I seem all nice and charming and stuff.  We agree to meet.  We meet.  I am 
still nice and charming.  However, I also promptly babble on about Babylon 5, Monty Python and (god 
forbid) Roleplaying Games.  We part company and never ever meet again (and if you are smart, change 
email addresses).  

If you were foolish enough to agree to another date, I would quickly find out where I went wrong, how 
I wasn't uncomfortable enough the last time, and redouble my efforts.  Any more dates than that and 
you run the serious risk of having me blurt out the "L" word at the worst possible moment.  Probably 
in the car just before the date ends.

What annoys me most is the age at which this happened.  If it was between 15-20, I wouldn't feel so 
bad... those years are supposed to be awkward.  But then, I've become convinced that I'm five years 
behind everyone else in terms of intellectual and emotional development.  C'est la vie.

Now, my father lived in Vancouver at this time, when he wasn't working in Papua New Guinea.  So one 
Christmas he flew my brother and I out for the holidays.  I took this opportunity to meet Gillian in 
person for the first time.  I had never seen what she looked like before, but her description seemed 
hard to miss.  Five-two... short, platinum blond hair... and a distinct limp because of her disability.  

Waiting at the coffee shop outside of the library, I saw her well before she saw me.  This was not 
very hard.  After all, she had a noticeable limp, and I had gotten there first.   I was crafty and 
snuck off, planning to be cute and sneak up on her, maybe surprise her with a "Boo!"... yes, it would 
seem I was already plotting on how to ruin this relationship.  Since Gillian is nearsighted, and never 
EVER wears her glasses except to read the subtitles of movies, it was incredibly easy for me to do.  
I need not have utilized all my stealth ninja techniques for something that could just as easily have 
been accomplished by walking right up to her.

We had been corresponding for several months now, by email and phone, and were quite comfortable with 
each others personalities... of course nobody shows their true selves in these early stages, but I come 
close.  I figure if you can't stand me being myself early on, why wait until you're stuck in a 
relationship with me to find out?  Gillian, while always sweet, never really opened up online... at 
least, no more than anyone else did.  Still, I felt comfortable talking to her, and while our interests 
weren't identical, I did get the honest feeling that she had a wide open mind of wonder, and that was 
common ground in spades.

Our first date went something like this... ah, I remember is as if Gillian had just given me a play by 
play account of it and was wondering why I had asked her about it...  she was sitting on a bench.  
Fortunately I beat down the part of me that wanted to sneak up on her, and settled for pretending not 
to notice her, only to look at her in feigned shock.  

Right away I gave her a present.  A small (real) box of chocolates and a small (real) rose being held 
by a small (fake) bear.  I figured, if each of these on their own constitute a good gift, then a 
combination of the three must have triple the impact!  Okay, logically I didn't think that way, but I 
did figure it would go off the scale on the cute-o-meter.

We settled down for a coffee outside the library, which had that wobbly nature inherent in most coffee 
shops and grade 6 desks.  I used the same trick I from grade 6 to solve it as well, some folded up paper 
placed in just the right spot.  Though I didn't know it at the time, Gillian thought it was a clever and 
sweet thing to do for her (foolishly believing I had done it simply so she wouldn't spill her coffee rather 
than the more practical reason that the wobbling was annoying as hell).

We were met by her chaperone around that time, a friend of hers from school, and little did I realize that 
somewhere in the distance, her mother loomed, keeping a watchful eye from a distance.

Well, come on, who can blame her?  I mean, we had never met before, only on the internet and short 
telephone conversations.  Considering the media these days, who wouldn't be filled with exaggerated notions 
of imminent danger?  I could be trying to kidnap her and force her to work at a Keno Club in Vegas only to 
be locked away at night with dozens of other hapless victims.  Maybe the kidney supply in India was dropping 
and I was looking for fresh donors?  Maybe I was going to enlighten her about the ways of Scientology?!?

Gillian survived, however.  We walked in the library for a bit, and before we parted company, I kissed 
her hand.  Another risky manoeuver.  After all, it could be seen as romantic, stupid, desperate, or 
even (as I found out much later) as an unwillingness to go for the cheek.  

And that was that.  Christmas came and went, I jumped in the Pacific Ocean on New Years Day, we went back 
to Toronto, and I continued more or less with my life.  A life that included working for a university 
degree I would never use, getting the runs in medical experimentation for cash, getting my ass fired from 
being a security guard, and getting my bike stolen as a bicycle courier.  I didn't see much of a life for 
me in Toronto, and as the winter so gleefully reminded me... our feelings of hatred were mutual.

Six months before that winter, however, Gillian came to visit me, and we went on our second date.  Well, 
our second REAL date.  The fact of the matter is that our relationship online had only gotten stronger.  
I had created Virtual Dates with my fledgling skills as a web designer to create trips to Paris, and Tokyo, 
and other places around the world.  I had poured hours into poetry and stories often of a sweet sentimental 
nature and occasionally a bit more suggestive if not downright risque.  I had even blurted the dreaded "L" 
word that had remained a mystery to me, only to have the sentiment reciprocated. 

But then there are very few people in the world Gillian doesn't love... she is that kind of person.  Someone 
whose heart sees the world as cotton candy when it's really fiberglass.  Who would give the world a hug if 
she could even though what it needs a swift kick in the ass.  She cares.  Even though she is prone to the 
same negative feelings everyone else is, she cares more than anyone I had ever met.  

We had gotten as close as you possibly can online... which in retrospect is something akin to how close 
you can get to your imagination.  It's as real as you want it to be, but ultimately it's not really there.  
The feelings we had might have been real, but without a body to back it up, it was all fantasy.

On our second date (does that first one even really count?  It was really more like formal introductions 
when all is said and done) we went to the house of a friend of her family's, and got a bit excessively 
friendly out of sight of everyone else.  

Don't ask me why, but Gillian had almost no qualm about us making out with her parents obliviously chatting 
away in the other room.  Maybe she was afraid of scaring me off if she said no, and would have agreed to 
just about anything (within reason).  I don't know.  To this day she insists she doesn't know, either.  If 
Gillian has a fault, it's that she tries to accommodate everyone all the time, even at the cost of her own 
personal happiness.  Of course I didn't know this about her at the time and just assumed that we were both 
having a rockin good time. 

Now this rockin good time is a dangerous path to tread... I had been down it once before.  The woman with 
the brain transplant with a turnip, remember?  I am being excessively harsh, of course, because a) she 
broke up with me, b) nice isn't funny and c) turnips aren't that dumb.  They have underrated powers of 
intuitive logic that are go undetected by modern science.

However, because I had let my Dick tell Tom and Harry what to do before, I had ended up with a woman who 
ultimately hated me for being me.  She hated herself as well, but took that out on me as well for the sake 
of convenience.  And the worst part was I didn't want her to go.  Part of me always felt we could work it 
out, and an even bigger part of me absolutely despised the notion of not being liked.  Call it a foible.  
You can insult me to my face in a thousand different ways and I won't care, but if I think for a moment 
you actively dislike me, I get totally bummed out.  So when she left me, I felt this strange feeling of 
freedom, and utter and complete loneliness.  If she couldn't stand to be in the same room with me, who could?

It wasn't until I had biked a thousand kilometers to Halifax and chucked her engagement ring into the ocean 
that I got that monkey completely off my back.  

(Well, actually, I had gotten over her long before that, but the symbolism was just too good to pass up.)

Since then, I had continued to make the same mistake.  Associating physical feelings with the futile wish 
that they were connected to the corresponding emotion.  Logically I knew this was crap... but I was also 
smart enough to know that logic can only take you so far.  If I somehow managed to become a Vulcan and view 
everything logically, then things like love and happiness would no longer have any meaning.  The best I can 
hope for would to be a smug git who pities people for their foolish emotional failings.  Then what's the 
point of living?  Yes, sir, I'd like to buy a shotgun and one shell, please.  

Still, you'd think after the third time something like this had happened, I would have learned my lesson.  
I would have learned to play the game and dance the dance.  You see everyone else going on dates, making 
out, and having sex and stuff and not trying to force the relationship forward because of it.  

Well, you see it on TV at any rate.  I don't know if it happens in real life.  If it does, frankly, I 
don't know how they manage it.  "Hey, Cindy, you and Tom have been going out and having sex every night 
for three months.  Are you going to get serious about this?"  What?  NOW you're talking about getting 
serious?  But like I said, I couldn't break the connection between love and lust.

Fact is, I never seem to learn from History.  Well, I do, but it's at an astoundingly slow rate.  I just 
seem to swim along, do my best, and hope everything works itself out in the end.  Not a bad way to live 
life, actually... but it does require a lot of faith in Providence.  And that I have astonishingly little of.  

So, back to Gillian.  This time, even though I was making the same or similar mistakes, I had managed to 
do so with a much more open mind.  Translated: I was getting involved, but part of me was keeping its distance 
too.  I was trying to be objective while simultaneously succumbing to my more primal urges.  Strange 
combination, that.

All of this changed on the third date, however.  Really our first.  I mean, the first one was just 
introductions, and the second one was just some making out in the living room of somebody's house.  
Neither of these constituted a date to me.

This time it was different.  We saw a movie, had a nighttime stroll, then back to my apartment for dinner 
(which I made), and wine (okay, white grape juice, I don't drink alcohol... but the bottle looked like white 
wine).  

To be honest, much of that evening is a blur to me.  All I remember is just how comfortable I felt around 
her.  I'd like to say "like an old pair of shoes" but really, is that the kind of analogy you want to make?  
Comparing someone to faded, scuffed up, worn out articles of clothing that you keep your smelly feet in?  
I think not.

Maybe a warm cup of hot chocolate is a better analogy, since in the cold winter months there are very few 
things that make me feel more comfortable than that.  Of course you could go all Freudian on me with 
devouring complexes and God knows what you'd make of the melting marshmallows.  

Let's just say that when I was with her, it felt like she belonged.

---

Fast Forward

Now we have to go six months to a year ahead.  I had attempted (and failed, giving up after one miserable 
day) to bike from Toronto to Vancouver.  This was a defeat that gnawed at me for quite some time, until I 
biked across the entire country coast to coast a couple of years later.  But despite this setback, I still 
planned to move to Vancouver.  I would just take the eminently more practical route of air travel.

Awwwww, you're probably thinking.  He's going to move there so he can be close to Gillian.  How sweet.  

Get real.  If that was the ONLY reason, I would never have gone.  The logical side of my brain constantly 
reminded me that moving there for that reason only was incredibly stupid.  What if things didn't work out, 
after all?  Then what?  

No, the MAIN reason I moved to Vancouver was because of my previous visit there at Christmas.  You see, 
Vancouver gets almost NO snow.  While in Toronto I was staying holed up inside for the better part of two 
months, out in Vancouver it was just cold and damp.  Granted it rains a lot in the winter in Vancouver, but 
to me this is vastly more desirable than snow and frostbite.  This was the biggest reason.  Vancouver was a 
place I wanted to live, regardless of any other factors.  Also, my dad lived out there, so I had a chance to 
get closer to him, I figured I might have a better chance at finding some work, and maybe go back to 
University for a creative writing course...

...but there was still Gillian on my mind.

No, she wasn't the ONLY reason... but deep down inside, I knew she was a big one.  Nothing ventured, nothing 
gained.  And if it didn't work out, Vancouver itself was one hell of a consolation prize.

At first I lived in Chilliwack, helping out where I could until I found a job and an apartment.  The apartment 
ended up being on East Hastings... the worst part of Vancouver you could possibly live in.  During my time 
there I saw a guy get the crap beat out of him by six youths who then quickly drove off, a prostitute being 
beaten and harassed by her pimp, and was conned out of 40 bucks at Christmas time (don't ask).

I worked as a telephone interviewer at the Angus Reid Group... basically conducting surveys and market 
research over the telephone.  Now first of all, let me tell you the one job I will never ever take.  
Telemarketing.  I absolutely REFUSE to lower myself to that and use pressure tactics on old ladies to try and 
get them to buy some crap they don't need.  It will suck out your soul through your nostril with a very tiny
straw. 

Gillian didn't believe me about that fact.  Much later, when she was looking for her first job, telemarketing 
was all she could find.  I warned her about it, but she got all huffy because it was all she could find and 
said I was holding her back.  I simply smirked and said "suit yourself."

After a week, she begged me to let her quit (Why would she need my permission?  I never wanted her to start 
in the first place!).  After a hearty round of "I told you so"s, we took her one and only paycheck to the 
bank and went shopping to buy her something nice. 

Fortunately, this job was not QUITE telemarketing.  I never sold anything, and when I got to do political 
surveys it was quite interesting.  However, asking people about what brand of shoes they prefer could get 
annoying for all parties involved.  Let's face it, if I'm calling you at dinner, and I'm not a friend or 
relative, do you really care what I have to say?  Still, I got to choose my schedule a week in advance, which 
gave me the perfect opportunity to visit Gillian in Victoria.

Yes, that's right.  Victoria.  She was no longer in Vancouver (damn my luck).  Now she was going to UVic for 
her B.A..  This meant when I wanted to see her (once or twice a month), I had to take a half hour bus ride, 
a 2 hour ferry, and another half hour bus ride to do so.  As a result, I made a point of staying with her for 
3 or so days at a time.  Only problem was, she lived on campus, in the dorm.  With very small single beds.  
Not my idea of a good night's sleep, let me tell you.  Still, you take what you can get.  

This continued for a year.  Strangely enough, I was quite happy in my crappy hole in the wall apartment.  
The place had character.  The nearly toothless matriarch in the apartment next to me loved to watch Judge 
Judy on a 13 inch TV with virtually no reception, and a homeless person once slept just outside my door and 
raided the fridge of the guy who lived above me.  The bedroom had a tile floor for some damn reason, so I 
eventually stitched together the discarded remains of a church carpet that was being renovated nearby.  For 
a bed I had some kind of futon like device.  I like futons, I know what futons are like, and this wasn't one 
of them.  It was like someone looked at the elegant simplicity of the modern western futon and said "let's 
use foam and springs and leavers instead!"  The end result was a contraption that was equally uncomfortable 
both as a bed and as a sofa.  For entertainment, I had a Playstation with one game and one music CD, and 
eventually I borrowed Gillian's laptop so I could get some internet access (she had a desktop at the dorm).

This was my status quo for a long long time.  

---

Things Change

Later that year, I came into a fair bit of money (don't ask).  Enough to consider an adventure I had been 
wanting to take for years into reality.  To bicycle across Canada.  

You'll notice that bicycling has come up a few times now.  It's just one of those things I like to do.  I 
don't have a driver's licence and I hope I never do.  Life is hard enough without thinking about gas, 
insurance, repairs and the rest of that stuff.  Besides, when you travel from city to city by car, it's DULL.  
You might as well be flying, and the windshield is a big screen TV showing the most boring in-flight movie 
imaginable.  But when you travel by bicycle, you feel like you're a part of everything you've passed through.  

Anyways, when I was little, Terry Fox made me want to travel across Canada under my own power... but even 
then I knew there was no way in hell that I would jog.  Bicycling was by far the most practical mode of 
transportation for such an adventure in terms time, speed and cost.  I figured it would take about three 
months, and began making my plans that winter.  

Now, since I couldn't just take three months off from work, I knew I would have to quit.  This meant when 
I got back, I wouldn't have a job, and would have to start over.  This was the perfect opportunity to make 
a fresh start somewhere... like in Victoria.  

It was the perfect solution.  I was going to start my bike trip from Victoria anyways (from Mile 0 to Mile 
0 was the plan), and starting there would save me some time and effort.  

And of course there was the added bonus of having the perfect excuse to move in with Gillian.

We had been discussing this possibility for a while now.  Gillian felt some resistance to the idea because 
of her parent's morals (funny, I've never let my family's morals bother me before).  Even to this day when 
we visit her parents, we have to sleep in separate rooms... as if they are holding onto some faint last 
strand of hope that I sleep on the sofa at home.  Despite her objections, I managed to make a sound financial 
argument that won the day.  Paying only half the rent is a hard argument to counter.

However, we were only together for a month before I left on my adventure, pumping my legs klick after klick 
over the Rocky Mountains, through the Prairies, across the Shield, and into the Maritimes.  The days 
stretched into weeks, and the weeks into months.  And yet, never once did I wonder if she would still be 
interested in me when I got back.  

Already, I fear, I was taking her for granted.  It is the double edged sword of being so completely 
comfortable with someone.  

One night, in the Prairies, as I sat under the stars, looking up at the full moon and wondered if Gillian 
was doing the same thing 2000 kilometers away.  Then I thought "wow, that's a romantic thought, I should 
write that down" and so I did.  Then I thought, "What if I only thought that because I wanted to sound 
romantic so you could write it down, and not because I actually felt that way?"  Then I thought, "What if you
 are thinking that only to try and convince yourself that the first thought was genuine... or fake, I forget 
which now...?"

I told you I overanalyzed things.  

To me, I've always longed for the spontaneous explosion of emotion, that last wall being torn down and a 
flood of happy tears bursting forth (on both sides).  I've never had that... and it's mostly because I am 
always so damn analytical about everything I think and feel in these situations!  Every feeling I have is 
instantly dumped into a chair in an interrogation room, the lamp shone straight into its face, and is promptly 
given the third degree.  It gets to the point where I wonder if ANY emotion I have is genuine anymore, and 
not simply there because it seems appropriate.  

You can blame Mrs. Luke on that one, I think.  Mrs. Luke was a nice old woman who lived across the street 
when I was a kid.  My brother and I visited her every once in a while, as she was a friend of our grandmother's.  
One time when I went over, I was told that she was not well.  She was dying.  

I was dumbfounded.  I was dumbfounded by the realization that this news had no emotional impact on me 
whatsoever!  I liked Mrs. Luke, yet I wasn't upset about this news!  But I felt I SHOULD be.  So, to break 
the news to my grandmother I wrote down "she's dying" on a piece of paper and handed it to her.  I wasn't choked
 up with tears, but I felt I should be, dammit, and this would be the "right" way to handle things if I was.  
And all the while I was fully aware of what I was doing and why I was doing it, and feeling miserable about it.  
Bloody hell!

I don't think I've trusted my feelings since then.  

I've told Gillian about this distrust of my own feelings before, but I don't think she gets it.  Which is all 
well and good, because I sure as hell don't get it myself.  The unfortunate thing about it is it affects 
everything I do in life.  It's something I accept, and tune out like background noise, but it bugs me that it's
still there.  That part of me that always whispers "Did you mean it, or did you say it because you felt you should?"

During the trip, I kept in touch with friends and family via email with my mini-computer.  I think I got more 
email from Gillian than anyone else, which certainly kept a smile on my face.  Most of the people I know have a 
tendency for single sentence emails... the modern day equivalent of "Fire bad!"  At least I could count on Gillian 
for a thousand word letter I could read and re-read by the soft green glow of the computer's backlight.  

Not that she's a great writer, mind you... which is a shame.  I had always imagined myself with someone who shared
my love of telling stories.  But sometimes a good audience is as good as a colleague.

In the end, the trip took over four months.  I figure there were only 60 days or so of actual bicycling, but I 
spent a week at my dad's house (doing bike repairs and several other things), a week with my aunt Elaine in Alberta, 
a couple of weeks with my friends and family in Toronto, and a couple of weeks with my sister in Ottawa.  Then 
after my victorious and largely uneventful return from St. John's, I spend another couple of weeks with my brother 
before flying back to Victoria.  Finally getting my bike and gear back to Gillian's new apartment (she had moved 
while I was gone) was more difficult than I had expected.  And when I finally got there....

...nothing.  She wasn't home.  The apartment looked nice, though.  Bigger than the last one, more light from the 
windows.  It was also neat and tidy... which was a bit of a shock.

You see, Gillian is easily as big a slob as I am, and don't let her tell you otherwise.  After my most recent 
bike trip in Japan, I told her I would be coming home a good 12 hours later than I actually was.  When I snuck 
into the apartment to surprise her, I nearly tripped over a pile of clothes and bowled a perfect strike on the 
ten empty bottles of Diet Coke lying on the table.  Oh yes... in terms of general slobbiness, I have met my match.

But there I waited for a half hour for her to show up... she was at school after all... and I realized that this 
new place, although it had a lot of my stuff in it, didn't really feel like home.  I felt like I would be moving 
in with her all over again, somehow, and that I didn't quite belong here yet.

Then, a soft cough down the hall betraying her presence, I heard Gillian come.  

I would like to insert a video montage here, with sweeping melodramatic music, as we rushed into each other's 
arms... but it never happened.  For one thing Gillian can't rush.  She has two speeds: hobble and waddle... and 
I honestly can't tell which is faster.  One just seems to have more hip action than the other.  For another thing 
the reception wasn't of the Hollywood kind.  Perhaps she was shocked by my being there early, but I ended up 
getting the same "Oh, Hiiiiii" that I've heard her use on just about every one of her friends and relatives she 
hasn't seen in a while.

I curse Hollywood that it would infuse in me this belief that a meadow should somehow be involved.

But despite the completely anti-climactic reunion scene, one thing was for certain as we hugged and kissed.

I was home.

---
Onward

Life in Victoria was good.  We had good friends, and roleplayed at least once a week.  Being the only guy I know 
anywhere ever to be the GameMaster of an all-girl group has made the envy of male geeks worldwide.  I worked at 
a video store, and Gillian had that awful stint at the telemarketing company I mentioned earlier (snicker snicker).  
The winters in Victoria were even better than Vancouver, because most of the rain passed right over us and got 
dumped on the mainland.

Still, there was this need to do something more, and long ago Gillian and I had talked about going to Japan to 
teach English.  In fact, she had gone to Saskatchewan to learn to be a professional English teacher.  At first 
we applied for the JET program (a government sponsored teaching assistant program), but that fell through, possibly 
because Gillian and I listed ourselves as a couple, but not married.  Then, thanks to Gillian's keen eyes, we ended 
up getting a contract with Berlitz, and moved to Japan that fall.  The job paid well, and things were really 
starting to look up.

Gillian quit after six months.

Well, I can't say I blame her... there were a lot of little things affecting her, not the least of which was an 
hour long commute in both directions.  But the bottom line was it turned out she didn't LIKE to teach.  Hell of 
a time to find that out.  Fortunately I enjoy it... I get to lord myself around like some grand all knowing guru 
and get paid for it.  What's not to like?

Fortunately, within a few months she found a new job as an administrative assistant.  It didn't pay quite as much, 
but her job would look much better on her resume than mine (I suspect "ex-English Teacher in Japan" carries the 
same weight as "Burger Jockey" at most North American companies)

We moved closer to the heart of Tokyo shortly thereafter, into a smaller but quite frankly MUCH nicer apartment.  
It cost more, but it truly was worth it.  The neighborhood was inspiring. 

My writing career had been struggling along lately.  I had for articles published in the Globe and Mail, one in 
the Vancouver Province, and now started getting some magazine articles published in a magazine called Knights of 
the Dinner Table.  Then, one of the first presents Gillian gave me took on a whole new life.  

Mossfoot is an 6 inch high green teddy bear, with mossy corduroy footpads (hence the name I gave him).  Gillian 
gave him to me shortly after I moved to Vancouver.  Which was lucky, because at the time I only had a 13" screen 
TV, no cable, three channels, and no books at the time (not even a library card).  I was bored silly.  I ended 
up making Mossfoot a cardboard house, a realized he had his own personality (I would not go so far as to say I 
created it), a cross between Paddington Bear and Indiana Jones.  I even sewed him some khaki adventuring clothes 
and a knapsack.  I even bought small Mossfoot sized books, tools and other odds and ends for him...

Let me repeat: I was really, REALLY bored...

Mossfoot became my mascot, and my online personae.  He went with me across Canada, and flew with me to Japan.  
And through a series of events best explained elsewhere, he became the star of a comic strip, along with his 
girlfriend Violet (I gave her to Gillian shortly after she gave me Mossfoot).

Thanks to this comic strip, I now had what could be considered a degree of fame... though the only people who 
might recognize my name or want my autograph were thousands of kilometers away.  That was okay.  I figured it 
would keep me honest.  This way the fame wouldn't go to my head... well a little fan adoration would have been 
nice... sigh...

But I did have one fan here.  My number one fan.  


---
And now...

I don't know if there is such a thing as love.  

Part of me is convinced that it's just a myth.  Something to justify our selfish desires of one form or another.

I think, however, if love does exist, it must exist in many different ways.  We talk of platonic love, brotherly 
love, passionate love, patriotic love... but I don't see anyone trying to french kiss the flag... I think there 
is an amendment against that or something. 

And so here I am... five years after we first met.  I look back upon this story and ask myself  "Do I love her?"

Now, if you didn't know me already, you would look at that line and say "Good God!  If he doesn't know after 
five years, he must not!"  But remember... I tend to overanalyze things.  

This time, my overanalyzing actually worked for me instead of against.  You see, for a while now I had been 
overanalyzing my relationship with Gillian.  Trying to find flaws, trying to find out how I didn't love her, 
trying to see how things were somehow false, trying to prove to myself that it wouldn't last and that I was 
foolish to try and hang on.  And what happened surprised me.  

Nothing came to mind.  

The only things I could remember in the five years we have known each other was warmth and friendship.  I found 
nothing "wrong" whatsoever.  No massive arguments.  No serious bitter moments that showed the first cracks in a 
relationship.  Nothing.  

And while I may never have felt the passion we see from Hollywood (which is what made me think that something 
must be wrong, cause we all get that run through the meadow, right?), what I did feel for her was... odd.  If I 
had to put it into words it would be like this:  the consistent desire to drape my coat over her shoulder when it 
rained.  To hold her close when it was cold.  To smile at her when she was sad, until she smiled back.  Ever 
since we first met, I only wanted her to be happy, and to help her any way I could.  Not to protect her like a 
knight in shining armor, but to work with her as a partner, an equal, a duo.  

I know Gillian is not a woman who can make my dreams come true.  She can't hike with me in the woods, or bike 
with me through the countryside.  She can't provide me with competition as a writer, or critique my work aggressively.  
She cannot do any of the things that I at one point felt were essential in a woman.  I thought as I went over my 
life to nitpick at this that it would matter more to me.  It did not. 

I am with Gillian because if I wasn't, it would be, on some level, completely wrong.  Your first reaction might 
be to think that I'm talking about a comfort zone.  This isn't about comfort.  I was quite comfortable at home 
in Oshawa, and in Ottawa, and Toronto, and Chilliwack, and Vancouver, and Victoria.  If all I wanted was security 
and comfort, I would have worked at GM and never have left home.  Besides, Gillian has her share of ways of making 
me uncomfortable... such as her butchery of common English expressions...  never have I heard so many innocent 
turns of phrase die such horrible deaths by her hands. 

But if love is more than just our interpretations of a biological drive (be it reproductive, to protect the family 
unit, or keep together society), then it must be something like this.  

Nothing to gain, no angle, nothing up their sleeve. 

To want to be with someone and to help them for no other reason than to make them happy.

To know you are at the right place, at the right time.  

Always.



And when I look in her eyes, I know she feels the same way about me, too.


The End