Tea is served

“No matter where you are in the world, you are at home when tea is served.” – Earlene Grey

Every morning Michael brings me a cup of tea in bed. It is a sweet and thoughtful gesture. He knows I am not good at waking up/getting up and I think this is his little way of making it just that tiny bit easier to start my day.

We have, since moving to my new house, settled in a new daily routine together that seems to work well. We now have plenty of space so everyone has their own room and it turns out that we seem to like living together. We enjoy each other’s company. He can always make me laugh no matter what kind of mood I am in and he gives great hugs and foot rubs as well as excellent morning tea service and I will be honest with the pandemic and not really being able to get out much it has been lovely to not be totally on my own.

Despite always saying I am happy on my own it turns out that as I age that seems to have shifted somewhat and I like having a person, a companion. I am an introvert by nature. I like people and socialising until the moment I don’t and then I just want to go home and be quiet but I admit to enjoying sharing that quiet with someone. Even if, like now, we are doing totally separate things in different parts of the house I know he is there and he knows I am here. There is something safe and comforting about that.

Who knew that Floss’s first SWAP prompt of mugs and hot drinks would get me thinking about this stuff but actually it shouldn’t be a surprise. Making each other hot drinks features a lot in our day/life. He always makes me a mid morning cup of coffee and when I make myself a cup of tea in the afternoon I will often make him a coffee then if he wants one. In the evening there is coffee (decaff) again for both of us. Who makes it? Depends who gets to it first but mostly him. He likes doing it. Making things for people, food and drink, is one of his way of expressing his care for someone. I guess in some ways it is a simple act of love.

We have been on an interesting journey, Michael and I. There have been some really horrible tough times in the last two years but it seems with time we have worked through that and found a new way of being us that works. I have written about how much I hate Covid and how fearful it has made me but it has in some weird way it has also been a blessing. I suspect without it Michael and I would have gone our separate ways at the time when things were still hugely unresolved for us and that is how it always would have stayed.

Who knows where we would both be now or how that would have changed the course of both our lives but that is not what ended up happening. Instead we have been forced to stay together. There have been times when we have both struggled with that. Really there were some truly dark challenging days for us especially towards the end of 2020 and into the early parts of 2021 but then things started to shift and there was less dark days and more bright ones until one day we realised we like living together. We like each other. We are best friends. I very much doubt without the pandemic we would have got to that realisation and so whilst Covid is a fucking nightmare I am glad that it made us work through things and find a new place of happiness together where I get tea in bed every day.