When I First Met Her

Chapter 7 When I first met her

When I first met Eira I thought of her: "How safe you seem. You are a person to be trusted.»

Together with her I feel I can relax. I can be myself.

We can talk. I know what to say. What she talks about is what I can talk about. I think that's one of the most important things in any relationship. For a relationship to work, both must be open and talk about what matters in life.

And then there is more, there is an affiliation, and there are attractions. I do not quite know how to describe this in words, but it is one of the most important things I feel inside me when I see her. I feel well and I know it will be good to be with her.

What does it mean to say that she is good to be with? What does it mean to say that I am good to be with? Isn't it a bit the same, be at home and be friendly? Give yourself away and be open.

I know that I am not perfect. But she also knows that she is neither, and here we have a good foundation to start. We both realize it.

You like to think that you have realistic expectations, but in the midst of falling in love and the intoxication that comes with it - when you see everything through the glasses of love that colour everything with optimistic feelings, it is important to have realistic expectations. Otherwise, we can quickly dream about things that are not real. Then we can easily be disappointed, and we can easily disappoint the other.

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What does it mean to be free? Is man free? Am I free in my life?

Yes, that is the question I have asked myself. I am now beginning to understand and see some things that I would like to have done differently in my life. I cannot help it, but I sometimes think back on the years I wasted with my ex, the woman I was with before Gunvor. I won't even mention her name here, because it's so weird to think about her and remember what happened. I think too much back to that period in my life, and it's a goal for me to erase as much as possible of what I remember from being with her.

When I finally managed to leave her, there was a lot of chaos, a lot of messages from my ex that upset me and made me feel down. I should not be surprised. I knew very well it had to be like that. Although she for years in the past had expressed her discontentment with me, she didn't want me to go. When I wanted to go and told her so, there was a huge crisis. Days with crying, yelling, and accusations.

My ex had always been very up and down and variable in the mood. On a normal day, in my previous life, I never knew when I started the day how it was going to end. When I was on my way home from work to her, I felt anxious because I expected something unexpected to occur. Either she was in a good mood, or she was down. Or irritated and aggressive towards me. I could never know how the day was going to be.

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A note from the author:

The novel "The Love We Had" is made up of three parts, where the three main characters tell how they experienced what happened.

Part 1 The Longest Night -chapters 1–3, told by Lars

Part 2 The Light Inside -chapters 4–17, told by Aslak

Part 3 Save Our Secret Love 18–48, told by Eira