Lights and shadows
Watson's POV
Life has lights and shadows. When you think you know someone, it is actually not true. You can't even say you know yourself, because there are moments in which your confidences collapse and you can do nothing but watch how your world is destroyed and you get lost. The essence of life is changing, and your task is to accept the fact that the identity you build everyday with experience and fatigue is often not exactly what other people expects from you. Ready or not, you have to push yourself harder and going so far where you didn't think to go. Even if sometimes you don't think you have the strength to do it. But you make, it, someway, and the huge effort you put in the painful task pass unnoticed to other people, who are simply too busy with their selves to note you. I met a young lady, some years ago, we had a short relationship and I had the chance to deepen her acquaintance: apart from her physical aspect, she was always very kind with other people and so calm that I admired her for her capacity to be so polite, even if I would had understand if she had lost her balance in some occasions. When I said it to her, she explained me that I was not the first one to tell her. But that was not true. She actually felt the opposite: if the physical reaction to stress was minimal, her psychological life was tormented. She lived in the mercy of her emotions. This dualism was a heavy burden to carry every day. When I am a little blue, I still think of her and how sweet she was and so brave. But it was not possible for us to be together. We both knew and accepted out fate.
When I met Holmes, I think I loved him from the first time. As long as our relationship developed and changed, I learnt many things about him; I managed to stay with him without losing my mind, I tried to be calm even when he was unnerving because I understood that a relationship built on a stormy daily routine would had left both exhausted. I accepted my role of peace-maker, I took care of him when he was ill with motherly care and offered him my help while he worked on his cases, even if sometimes I was tired from my own profession. When I moved in the apartment of Baker Street, I thought I was prepared to live with him day and night. I thought I knew him very well and I willingly change my life style to be with him.
Despite I don't regret my choice, sometimes I think I was not ready. The Holmes I discovered was not as I had expected. I thought we both would had changed someway but I was actually the only one to change. Or so I believed. More than once I thought about leaving him and find a place for myself alone. When we are not working on a case, I find very difficult to handle him. If going to the theatre or going for a walk together was a pleasure, now I do it as a social duty, but I cannot say I enjoy my time with him. I have this growing feeling of detachment, it seems to me now that what we share is just a boring daily life. I cannot remember the last time I said "I love you" to him. He does it, a lot. I know he loves me, I know he wants me and I love when we make love. I feel guilty because I cannot feel him like I used to do before we decided to live together. It seems all the enthusiasm I had before devoting my life to him has vanished.
It would be easier for me to choose the way of the retreat, telling him I was not ready and leaving him, hoping that we could at least still work together and go out together. But I could never do that to him. He would not accept it and would suffer because of me. I can tell for sure he doesn't know my real feelings for him, for I make certain to smile at him when he smiles at me and I behave like the old myself. But I am profoundly changed. I want to find the way back to him, because I know I love him.
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