The next evening, my girlfriend Nicky said, “Well, what’s come over you?” We were cuddling on the rickety old couch and I wanted things to go a bit further, and this hadn’t happened for quite some time. I hadn’t been up to it, even though I knew she always was. But they did go further that night, and for many nights to come…
Everything started to change, my attitude to work, to Nicky, to my body, to how I felt about each day. Within minutes of my arriving home after the day’s labour, the beloved DVD was on, and there was Carol smiling away, and her students shyly standing around her, preparing to start the class. But they were no longer just Carol’s students, they were my friends now, weren’t they? And Carol wasn’t merely a friendly Yank pepping up some sluggish fellow citizens, she was my Muse, my inspiration, my …new love!
IJ (sourly, sceptically): Hmmm… so how long did this last?
Me (triumphantly): Well, Señor Cynic, it has never really ended, it’s still going on! Though there was an involuntary pause, one sad intermission, you might call it.
A few years later, now trim, taut and certainly terrific, I realised the time had come to shift house. Nicky and I were going to live together, a big thing for us both, but during the shift some of the DVDs, including Home Fitness Made Easy, somehow got lost. When I began to fear what had happened, I opened every taped-up cardboard box, upended every rubbish bin, checked everything I could, ransacked every room. I’ll never forget the moment, never, when I faced the appalling prospect of never seeing her smiling face again, never again feeling the impact of her joyful personality, losing touch with my fitness buddies! It was too much for me, I’m only human after all! I yearned, I languished, I sank into a profound depression which lasted for months.
(A brief, melancholy pause).
