In keeping with the ongoing series of nostalgia triggers, while I was digging through old artwork for a piece to adorn the cover of this year’s V-Day CD, I stumbled upon a set of photos of myself and the Last Great Love of my life. Of course, I couldn’t keep myself from looking. What’s odd is that they didn’t make me despondent. What’s odd is that while I felt a pang – a not inconsiderable one – I feel better than I suspect I would if I hadn’t stumbled across them.
I know V-Day is supposed to be the day that I think about how I’m not out with someone I’m in love with, and that I’m supposed to resent all the happy couples in the world… and ok, yeah, I do resent them a little, but what those photos brought back is the memory of what’s worth waiting for. The archive was called ‘Retardeds’ – so named by the friend who took the photos (at mine after dinner one night), because, as he put it, “I’ve never seen two intelligent people so completely retarded over each other.”
And much as there are Sundays when I wish I had someone with me in Columbia Road, and rainy days that fairly beg for curling up on the sofa a deux, it’s also good to bear in mind that Retarded doesn’t come along very often. And that’s what it’s all about. That’s worth just about any risk (and I say this now even though that breakup put me, quite literally, on the floor) – even just five minutes of that kind of joy is reward enough.
So all you boring people? Y’all can fuck off. And retards, raise your hands.