Hi Guys, I am back
Sorry for the delay, I had hoped to get more written than I actually did and then I just didn't feel like I was ready to come back. But at the moment, I feel like I need a distraction from work to actually get the work done. Believe me, when you are watching 50 odd videos for one subject, writing 100 words plus of a chapter really helps. Doesn't mean I do it quicker but it helps.
For those who read Let Me Help You, you will see a slightly similar theme because I had both theses ideas at the same time. (Technically there was a third story that happened to be the first idea but that was forgotten about due to lack of ideas.)
Love
Love.
It is defined as a strong feeling of affection. It is a word that we are willing to give to the people that have earnt it. Our parent earn it because they will be there from the very start. They are the people that guide us through life. Our children earn it because they are a product of the love between you and your partner, whether it is your own or adopted.
Now to love a stranger. That is a lot harder. People do though. We find someone that we are attracted to or someone that we enjoy being with. We get to know them and in getting to know them, they earn our trust. You give them a little bit more each time until they know everything about you and you know everything about them. The greatest mutual trust.
Unfortunately, that trust can be broken.
My name is Clara Smith (for the second time) and this is my story of how I fell in love with two men, their only similarity being their name.
I just happened to fall in love with two people, both named John Smith. To differentiate between them, I will call my first husband, John, and my second one, Doctor. Don't ask about the second one and why I call him that. Everyone calls him that. It is just his name.
I met John (my first husband) when I was 13. He had just moved from Leadworth in Gloucestershire to Blackpool. He was in care and he went from foster home to foster home, never finding the right person to adopt him. His best friends had moved to America due to work commitments. I never really understood why both of them left him. But due to that, he started to rebel. Without anyone else, he didn't know what to do with himself.
And so he latched on to me. I was grateful for it when my mum died when I was 16. It hit me hard and I had no idea how I was meant to carry on without her guidance. I do still think that John was the only reason I got through it. He was my rock when I needed him most.
I had always found him attractive. I would not deny that. As we got older, the teasing turned into gentle flirting before I found the courage to tell him that we should just go out when we started year 13. I have no idea why that year. It was our last of secondary school. We would have headed off to university. I suppose that is probably why we both chose London universities and two that were close together. John always moaned that he could have done his course at my university but I told him that he had his heart set on going to Queen Mary and it offered the course that he wanted to do in astrophysics. He would have just had to do just a physics degree if he went to mine.
I don't know whether I was stupid or not but I married John at 24. While all my friends were out getting drunk, bring home a different man each time they went out, I had one and I thought that he was the man that I could spend the rest of my life with.
Thought is the word I would use now.
I became a teacher and now work at Coal Hill, a secondary school in Shoreditch. John got a job at the European Space Agency in Oxfordshire. He mainly worked from home and only went up for conferences or meetings to discuss results. Everything seemed perfect. He had his job all about space and I had my job teaching the next generation. We had a flat but brought a house because of the money John was earning. We had a good life.
Then John lost his job. We had only been married for two years and we had started to talk about children. We could have still had them. The redundancy package that John was given would have kept us going while he found another job. We could have carried on our plans. But we didn't.
John was never a drinker. When he turned 18, a group of guys that he was friends with took him out to celebrate. I had told him to have a good night. It was a lads night. The story went all around the school that he had taken one mouthful of beer before spitting it back into the glass. He hated the taste of it. It was handy for me though. I like a good night out. I can't remember half the nights that he would bring me back home or sitting in the bathroom with me while I was throwing up. Again, he just seemed like a stable choice. Someone that would always be there for me.
Something changed when he lost his job. Nothing seemed to excite him any more. He started to drink as a way to pass the time, I guess. I tried to get him to look at other jobs but I suppose it was different for him. There would always be another school looking out for an English teacher. There wasn't always a space agency looking out for an astrophysicists.
He started to drink and soon his redundancy package didn't seem like it was enough. The more he got bored, the more he drunk. I had never seen him like it before. John slowly moved further and further away from the man that I had fallen in love with. My teacher's wage was only just keeping us afloat. Even though it came throughout the year, it just wasn't enough and there was nothing I could do to make John see that. I ended up getting an extra job during the summer and Christmas just so we could keep the lifestyle we had become accustomed to. I wouldn't have minded going without but John...
I doubt I will never know or understand what happened to John. I will never know or understand what he was thinking. The sweet boy that I had met aged 13 had become this aggressive drunk.
And I will admit now. It scared me.
Clara shut the lid of her laptop as she finished typing. She leant over the bed and placed it down on the floor before pushing it under it slightly.
"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you." She said.
The Doctor chuckled before rubbing her shoulder. "I had wondered what you were doing."
She turned to him and leant into his embrace. She placed her head underneath his chin and closed her eyes. He rubbed her arm before giving her a kiss into her hair.
"It will get better."
"I know." She paused. "I do think that she was right. I do think that writing about what happened will help."
"So is that the first post of your blog?"
"At least a rough draft. I will read through it in the morning."
"I probably wouldn't change anything, just check the grammar and spelling. Probably what you have written just now was pure emotion. That is how you should write it."
"I will keep that in mind."