My mother said something to me once.  Well, she’d burbled something to me in a somewhat slurred sounding voice with the half closed eyes of a mad, drunk woman, while trying to pick herself up off the floor. (It was a delightful sight)

“Sometimes in order to move forward, you have to go back to the beginning again.” *Hiccup

At the time I’d paid her no heed. I never did. I thought the words were nothing more than the intoxicated ramblings of my liquored up mother, the actress who talked incessantly, but never said a single thing. At the time she’d said it, I thought she was just trying to justify the fact that she was being dragged into rehab for the 5th time, and the 2nd time that year. Especially since she’d said it as she fell out of the stationary car and tumbled into the parking lot of the rehab center, all very dramatically of course.

But now, holding a ticket to Thailand in my sweaty hand once again, almost a year to the day, I got it. I was right at the beginning all over again. I smiled to myself; this was the first thing my mother had ever said to me that actually made any sense. Everything else that came out of her mouth needed to be taken with a mountain of salt.

The trip had been a very easy sell to my family and friends this time- they practically pushed me onto the plane when I told them what I was doing. I think Val and Sue both breathed a collective sigh of relief that was a year in he making, no doubt they were bored of my Damien induced conversation- although they would never have said that to my face.  They’d been very supportive, although at the beginning, I they didn't really know what to make of the whole situation.

As all good friends would have done under the circumstances, they’d tried to convince me that perhaps my feelings for Damien were just fleeting. A rebound thing. Born out of the obvious trauma of being left at the altar.  And I don’t blame them, if my friend came back from her husband-less honeymoon in love with a stranger she’d just met, I too would have erred on the side of caution. But I hadn’t waivered once in my conviction that Damien and I were real. It was real love. And as the year progressed, I think they realized it too. And I’m sure that right now they were downright thrilled that I was going to do something about it.

Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky with those two- my girls. I met them when I was thirteen, my dad had just gotten custody and I’d moved in with him and started at a new school. I was the new girl once again and I was also a complete basket case, from years and years of living with my mother I think. I was a bully’s best friend back then, I practically had a sign around my neck saying, ‘pick on me’.

For starters, I was new and from out of town, I was going through a bit of a ‘puppy fat’ stage, I had horribly large boobs which were hard to conceal, and my mother was semi-famous, well, famous enough to have grabbed a few headlines over the years, unfortunately not for her award winning theatre work, but rather for her roles off stage like, “The drunk”, “The sexually promiscuous” and my favorite, “The jail bird” after she and one of her many suitors were caught in a compromising position in a movie theatre.

It wasn’t long before the bullies descended, practically on the first day. And while they rallied around and called me names and the cool girls stood watching from the sidelines laughing, Val cut through the crowd, she was a real fire-cracker even at that age, and single handedly warded them all off.  And that had been it really, she and Sue had taken me under their wing and from that day onward, we were BFF’s.  

Now, I’m not Kevin MD with evil wooden voodoo masks on my walls, but I don’t think it takes a psychoanalyst to figure out that I’ve needed a lot of rescuing in my life- that I’ve been protected by everyone I know. That somehow people felt it necessary to do so…

But not anymore.

Walking through the airport again felt strange- familiar, and yet it was totally different this time. I was different. For starters, I wasn’t wearing any sleeping garments, but most importantly I wasn’t scared shitless that my life was falling apart and that I was adrift to God knows where.  I was no longer a mess, paralyzed by the scary, uncertainty of my life. This year had taught me a lot. It had taught me- the hard way mind you- about expectations, and how easily your well -made plans can change in the blink of an eye.

How life is a game of improvisation; how you have to adapt to unforeseen circumstance and roll with the punches, the blows, the trip-ups, the kicks in the ribs and the painful Kung Fu chops to your broken heart. But as you go, you learn to defend yourself. Until you get stronger, and faster and better.

I felt better.

I managed to get onto the plane this time without causing delays and incurring the dirty death stares of the other passengers. Bizarrely, I was sitting in almost the exact same place I had sat in last time.  I buckled up and immediately looked down the aisle in the direction that Damien had been sitting last time, on the off (far, far remote off) chance that fate would have brought him back to me that easily, but she hadn’t.

I looked around at my fellow travelers. To my left were obvious honeymooners, desperate for a horizontal surface, or perhaps waiting for the toilet to become conveniently unoccupied. Across the aisle from me sat an angry looking teenage girl and her parents. I didn’t envy her, you couldn’t pay me enough money to relive my teenage years again; the pimples, the confusion, the low self-esteem and desperate need to fit in and be cool. In front of me sat an old couple that looked like they were in there seventies. I wonder if Damien and I will ever be like that one day?

Everyone around me settled in quite nicely by the time the plane had reached it’s cruising altitude and the first round of drinks were served. People were reading books, or watching whatever movie was busy playing on the tiny TV screens. But I was playing a totally different kind of movie in my head, over and over again.

It went a little something like this.

I arrive at Burning Moon- looking gorgeous of course. I immediately go to find Damien, no doubt he would already be settled into his moon watching spot. I would walk up to him confidently and then call out his name. He would turn, our eyes would lock and then he would smile at me- a smile that I’d been thinking about for the last year. That slightly crooked, sexy, sideways, naughty boy grin that is his trademark. I wondered what he would look like. I imagined him wearing black, faded, torn and slightly creased black. His hair would have grown a bit; no doubt it would be messy. I would smile back at him, and then I would run and jump into his arms. We would hug, and tell each other that we loved each other and we no longer wanted to be apart. We would kiss and it would be amazing. The Moon would be going red again and we would make love (and not for Jess) and that would be it.

Simple. Damien and I would be together.

End of movie. Roll credits. Applause.

I played this through a few more times in my minds eye, each time adding a little something extra here and there as I went. By the third re run Damien wasn’t wearing a shirt and by the forth, he was completely naked - and several other variations of that, which I’m not sure I should share with you. Just use your imagination…it was a very long flight okay! But somewhere around the sixth rerun I think I managed to fall asleep.

**

I woke up with a fright after a series of X-rated dreams about Damien and the feeling that my stomach had just fallen onto the floor and rolled to the other side of the plane. I opened my eyes and looked around to see fright and shock plastered across everyone’s faces as the clutched onto each other and looked around wide eyed.

“Please would everyone go back to their seats and buckle their seatbelts, we will be experiencing some turbulence as we approach the airport, due to a large storm. There is nothing to worry about, so if everyone could please stay calm.”

Great!

Now this, right here, is why I’m not a fan of flying. Sardine can in a storm, not a very reassuring thought is it? I don’t care how many fancy buttons and beeping lights and switches it has. I braced myself for what can only be described as a rollercoaster of hell; we bounced and dropped and shook and shimmied. And then I did it, it’s human nature, I started to imagine my untimely death, nose-diving out of the sky, or being hit by a bolt of lightening.

But, if I was ever in doubt that I was doing the right thing by flying across the world to find Damien, the turbulence and fear of death cured that, because I knew that if I died today, I would only have one regret.

And that would be Damien. Or more specifically, not being with Damien.

I’m not sure what I believe in, but I threw some prayers out into the universe and vowed that if I was spared, I would give more to charity, not throw my old clothes out and rather give them to the homeless and of course, I would find Damien and never let him go again.

We finally landed safely and the whole plane, including myself, clapped enthusiastically. You could feel all the passengers sigh with relief and the mood changed instantly- the realization that you are no longer potentially going to die can do that to a person. I looked out the window, holy wow, they weren’t joking when they said it was storming. The rain was pelting down in thick, heavy sheets and the whole world was wet and glistening. It reminded me of my first night with Damien in the storm. I had thought about that night so many times over the past year. I hadn’t wanted to forget a thing about our time together, and about Damien. I’d often imagined him down to the minutest detail, the tiny scar he had on his eyebrow, the cluster of freckles that were sprinkled across his shoulders, the twirling lines of his tattoo and the dark depth of his inky eyes. Perfect.

The plane came to a stop and I jumped up and grabbed my bags speedily this time, eager to disembark as quickly as humanly possible. My destiny was out there after all, and I needed to go find it and claim it.

The airport was exactly as I remembered it, but this time, as I walked past the guards they smiled at me, no one pounced or took my photo or pointed or started. I went through customs without incident but just as I was about to exit, I heard a familiar voice call my name.