It's my life (I tell you).
I've become an internet stalker; the kind you read about. Trawling through social media sites, scrolling through endless photos; trying to find that one, elicit thing to make my beating heart still. Remember when you were 16 (and again at 27), when you would wait for hours on end for your beloved to text you back; never putting the phone down in case you missed it? Actually, rewind; when I was 16, we didn't have mobile phones. I wasted hour after hour stood by the phone that was attached to my living room wall, hoping it would ring. But that's another story for another day. Back to my current day indiscretions.
It is making me feel ill, this stalking lark and reminding me of a relationship I had before I met my husband, Pedro. We communicated mostly online, which felt new and exciting in 2006 but sometimes, ypu can't beat good old fashioned, face to face conversation. Anyway, I would often wait (literal) hours for a reply; my finger poised on the refresh button. So overwhelmingly time consuming did this become, that when we split, I went to the mobile phone shop and asked for a downgrade, Give me a phone, I cannot stalk my ex boyfriend on.' Alarmingly, the sales assistant did not look too surprised. Now, either I have an air of crazed stalker, or this happens more frequently than it ought to.
But hang on I hear you cry, you're married; who are you stalking? Is Pedro straying? Have I fallen for the charms of some young internet sensation? No. I am stalking my son, Fox Cub.The (almost) teenage boy is a mystery to me, one I cannot quite fathom. I realised this for the first time when I discovered he had learned to wee sitting down on the toilet. In the absence of a man to show him, he had copied his sister and me. That was the first of many heartbreaking moments I have faced trying to make sense of a boy. That I made. Fox Cub is a lover of the ladies and keeping track of his girlfriends is a full time job.
My detective work has allowed me insight into his romantic nature; lots of instagram selfies with sweeping declarations of love (and for some unknown reason, fingers held up to mimic duck beaks???). I can handle that, at least he can articulate his feelings and is not afraid to commit (future score). What keeps me awake at night is the fear that derives from what else I might see: Cigarettes; booze; spliffs (I'm so old, I've forgotten of that's how you spell it 😞). Big Girl shares my passion, my loyalty. Fox Cub shares my wild abandon, my two fingers up to the system that's trying to oppress him. Except that system, is me. And those duck beak fingers are his rods of freedom.
