Reading my diary from that time, it appears that #1 experienced our living together as a depressing form of intimacy and her decision to live on her own as "waking up". This struck me, because #7 may have experienced the same feeling of depression, despite the short time we actually lived together. I also read that, at the time, my life was the result of an absence of positive choices. To an extent this still holds, although marrying #7 seemed to be a positive choice. Anyway, #2 came into my life by chance. #1 had paved the way. Our relation was opportunistic. We took what was on our way. And we enjoyed it!
#2 was French. This was a big thing for her. When we split for the first time, after three years, it had become an issue between us. She started hating everything that was Dutch, projecting it all on me. Actually, in a way I learned her to speak Dutch. Not the basics, she knew how to speak Dutch already, but the finesses, the subtleties of the language. All we did for three years, for at least two times a week, was talking and making love. We were passionate.
Our relation was no secret. People knew about it. Friends critized me, #1's friends. "How can you do such a thing?" Nevertheless, we took care to be discrete. We were discrete. Too discrete. We did never publicly recognize eachother as lovers. Our relation was anonymous. It seemed illegal. I felt like a secret agent. An agent of love. This deepened our solitude. When we finally broke up, after ten years, our relation appeared to have taken place in the dark. An obscurity that didn't leave room for memories, or anchor points, as if it had never happened.
The key to living with two women (apart together) is organization. Already living by the agenda, it took quite some planning to keep everybody satisfied. Fortunately, I had my work (painting and philosophy) to keep me busy in the intervals.
Emotional synchronization went surprisingly well, for almost three years. I loved them, and I was able to convince myself that what I did was right. Moreover, I managed to split my time and my emotions, without a shred of doubt.
In retrospect, the whole thing might be considered as a dream, for which I applied all strategies available to keep it alive. After three years, it lost its splendor, and all I could do was trying to rescue what there was to rescue. So I talked, but I did no longer believe in what I said. Slowly, I began withdrawing myself. Incidentally, that is when I started my career as a scientist. Ending the dream, I stopped being an artist and philosopher and I transformed myself into a man of science, which I still am today.
Ironically, our final separation immediately followed on our attempt at coming out in the daylight. #2 told her friend about us, in the hope that he would accept our relation. On the contrary, he made hell, #2 broke down and fell into a severe depression.
I saw her just before I went to Paris to get #7. I had this wish to reconciliate myself with my past before starting a new life. There was still a spark between us, but it was too sad and too dangerous to do anything with it. I didn't see her again after that.
(C) Æliens 2005
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