Boo’s sister died last week.

It is neither as shocking nor as surprising as it may seem; she was ill for a long time, landed in hospital many times, and this time she just didn’t recover. The only unexpected bit was that she has actually been on the road to recovery, and then all of a sudden had a fatal cardiac arrest. Boo wasn’t in contact with her for years, but now is really hit him hard, and I completely understand and see why, and I try to be by his side as much as possible.

And I hate it.

It’s not that I can’t help him or that I dread sharing the downsides of life as much as upsides. I try and I do help; I listen to him, I make myself available, I cook for him, help him (as much as I can) with the funeral, I stay at his place every day since the news — in fact, today is the first evening I am spending at my own place since last Thursday. And that is exactly what the problem is.

I miss my loneliness so much more than I thought. I miss my guinea pig, I miss my cooking, my weird bathroom, my patio that I completed weeks ago and haven’t used once since. I miss my bed, my pillows, my growing pile of magazines that I bought and haven’t opened, my books, my cupboard filled with clothes (as opposed to having one or two t-shirts stuck in my backpack), my music, my computer, my blue wall, my Michael Jackson poster, my noise and my silence.

I miss being “me” rather than “us”.

It is ironic that his friends and family like me, and I like them too. I love Boo, and there is no other man in my life. I just wish there was more of me in my life. I am still busy discovering who the real Kiran is, the one who isn’t depressed, repressed, ashamed of himself, trying to please other people and being scared of failing them. The one who suddenly turned from having a social phobia into itching to meet people so hard that he’s thinking of working as a barman one day a week for no other reason than to talk to loads of people and observe them. And Boo is… security, stability and… and a man who said last Saturday that he wants to marry me. And that he’s very happy to have me in his bed every night and to fall asleep and wake up next to me. I just wish I could say the same, instead of being pissed off that on my one evening alone at home I have to do the laundry, clean my guinea pig’s cage, do some shopping (and throw away food that passed its expiry date in the meantime), do dishes and more or less force myself to relax a bit because next chance to read a magazine in bed will not occur until next week.

I honestly don’t know what to do. Am I just not the marrying kind after all? Or is it just the fact that we always meet at his place and that I don’t even have a shelf there for myself? But then, if I ask him to make me a shelf, I will get deeper into the “us” state, and I already don’t like it where it is now…?

Sigh.

Someone pass me some wine.