In Which I Realise Something SHOCKING About Murica

There has been the odd occasion in life where I haven’t displayed the best powers of observation or Thinking Things Through, in fact, amongst those nearest and dearest to me, the stories of my ‘lack of grasp of matters’ are rife*.

A thought occurred to me the other day, as I was mulling over my forthcoming (VERY EXCITING OMIGOSH *squeeeeeee*) trip to Murica to see some of the people to whose hearts mine has become hardwired over the years of our acquaintance, and it pulled me up full short and threw me into an absolute panic.

In fact, it was such a panic I nearly called the whole thing off!

Only for a milisecond, though, because then I realised that I love my people, and they (for their own reasons entirely) seem to think I’m worth their time, and so I AM GOING, forsure and for definite…

BUT.

The UNBELIEVABLY obvious thing I completely somehow missed, which shocked me to my very core:

My people don’t exist in a vacuum. They will have families there. Friends. Neighbours. Daily lives which carry on without the isolating-bubble of social media, where my egocentric mind sees them outside the context of their Real Life.

But that Real Life is what – or rather, WHO – I’m going to be inserting myself into, like a giant, English pass-the-parcel (a suggestion which incited one friend to remark along the lines of ‘If each person you stay with gets to unwrap a layer, at what point will you end up naked?’).

For almost every person I’m going to visit, there will be one or more fully cognisant, critically-thinking humans, who haven’t even met ‘online me’, and who (presumably) are still willing to allow me to come and gatecrash their lives…which is WONDERFUL and so kind of them, but it’s only in the last few days I’ve really thought about the implications of this.

I won’t have the years of history to fall back on. I won’t be able to sprinkle them with glitter (real or virtual) and have them automatically understand that this is A Good Thing. I won’t know any stories we share, or any of what makes them tick, or what makes their soul soar, or what delights their heart. Or what pisses them the hell off.

I will be staying in a house which is as much theirs as it is the domain of my Good Friend Who I Adore.

And I will be a stranger to them.

A peculiar, eccentric, adorkable, but definitely quirky, English stranger.

In. Their. House.

I know – how did I not see THAT coming.

(I’m amazing, right? Veryveryvery skilled at avoiding acknowledgement of the extremelybloodyobvious)

So…I have a plan. And the plan is MAN!

Specifically, VINCE (you know him, right?)

My best friend of 16 years, new flatmate, humour blogger, and all-round awesome dude, who is absolutely familiar with ALL the behind-the-scenes snippets you could ever wish to know about me.

The mask is coming off – YOU get to interview him (respond with your questions in the comments for his upcoming guest post) and uncover the details of what I’m like In Real…because if you’re serious about meeting me, forewarned is forearmed, lovelies.

*deep breaths*

GO!

I’ll just be here, panicking, hoping you still want me to visit after you hear the TRUTH!

 

*Like the time I stood on a twig and saw fit to remark upon it, because (apparently) it surprised me. Or the time I got SO excited about Vince being able to reverse in a car that I squeeeed out loud (even though he’d passed his test and was by then a fairly competent new driver). Or the entire five years of my marriage. Or any of the times I couldn’t even…