I’ve known Commando since we were both in our late teens. We met in the White Swan pub in Mansbridge, a place I was frequenting in an effort to forget a disastrous past, hiding out from people who hurt me badly. Back then the pub car park was always filled with motorcycles, that was what drew me there. My Dad had motorbikes, my cousin too, I grew up with a strange, slightly dangerous attraction to them and the men who rode them.
To be honest I wasn’t in the best place back then. I was a girl with a horrible past, almost my whole life had been a tale of loss, lies and hurt. Maybe I’ll tell you about it some day, then again, maybe not it doesn’t make for pretty reading. Inside the young woman was a broken little girl. A great deal of alcohol was consumed most nights.
Commando and I went to the same parties, the same days out on the bikes, sleeping in tents in the forest or in heaps on the floor of someone’s flat, but we somehow never got together. It was probably a good thing because I was avoiding relationships, they hurt too much. The bikes and the booze were what it was all about back then. I hated the taste of alcohol but anything that stopped me feeling was good. The thrill and the danger of two wheels going fast did the same trick. It would never have lasted.
We stayed friends, although goodness knows why he wanted to be friends with someone as messed up as me. Time passed, we both moved on and lost touch for a while. Then we met up again… I was still quite broken. He mended me.
So here we are thirty odd years later, still friends but so much more than that. We have walked together through joy and tragedy, good times and bad. He’s a very special man, one in a million. Kind, loving, thoughtful, sometimes romantic, he works hard, he cleans anything that doesn’t move fast enough, he runs like the wind for miles and miles and today it is his birthday.
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Happy Birthday!
Thanks you. He has had a good day 🙂