Love, From the US

I've spent the last week and a bit on the West Coast of America. Home for the holidays and all that. Coming back always invokes an array of emotions and a review of life and inevitably love. If this time of year didn't bring that about all on its own, home is a sure fire catalyst. My life here was different for certain, but I don't know that I would say better or worse. Most of my loves originated in the sun, rain and snow of the West Coast. Food, wine, art, writing,music,sport,friends and men are all the first to spring to mind. Love of food and wine only improves with age and time. Musical infatuation builds on experience, while art and sport are dynamic by nature and therefore always evolving. The missing obsession from the list is travel. "Oh the Places You'll Go" was likely my first travel guide and therefore my preoccupation with new lands and languages was most probably incubated in the 714. Directly or indirectly. Friends and men,of course, being the wild cards have seen the most investment, loss and return. Two of the major men in my life are from here so all the places, faces, smells and noises remind me of my successes and mishaps in love, lust and everything in between. I have forged some of the strongest friendships here and learned one of the most devastating lessons of all. Losing a friend hurts much worse then losing a lover. Every trip back, which now seems to only happen once a year, inevitably brings out a side of me that indulges in all the things I could never entertain on a regular basis in my London life. Microbrew beers, great local wines, many late nights in succession, long talks over martinis and excessive flirting with men that could never break my heart. At least that's what I like to tell myself. There's rarely much reality in my trips, save the occasional runny nose or torn ligament from sports. This trip however has seen a mix of harsh reality and fluffy fantasy.
Harsh: My options (according to my mates mum) are having babies with my mate (who as it happens is a woman) and living happily ever after as a gay couple. Sans the sex of course, given that neither of us are actually lesbians. Not that there's anything wrong with being a lesbian, it's just not my thing.
Fluffy: 22 is hot. Enough said.
Harsh: Unfortunately not only boyfriends come and go, friends do too
Fluffy: Everything is half price! It's great!

So with the life review and a new year ahead, I am proposing that I remind myself (and you can hold me to it) that only certain people are worthy of being in our lives. The criteria are many but in the end the pay off is big.