Renewed

It's a strange feeling that I feel inside and of course I want to credit some of it to Hitomi coming home to me once again but it's more than that. Imagine you had been walking for a few weeks and many kilometers in a foggy place and no matter which way you looked everything was slightly indistinct and blurred. It just felt like things suddenly came into focus or perhaps I finally put on my eye glasses. "The mists are clearing" the fortune teller whispers as she waves her hands over the crystal orb.

Monday was a good day. I had to go into work for a few hours but in the early afternoon I met up with someone special, someone who I hadn't seen since... breakfast!
Hitomi met me outside the agency office and we went to feast carnivorously at the steak house as her treat. It was a small affair and just the two of us on my birthday lunch.
I'd like to thank everyone from the net who kindly sent me birthday cards and greetings. Thank you very much for kindly remembering me.

Strangely one of the topics that we discussed over lunch was infidelity. Let me reach for my indigestion pills!
The rumor around the club and everyone knows that the value of unsubstantiated rumors, is that our friend Azami has left her partner Kuri. I had felt that there was some problem between them last week and look at me talking is if this was already established fact! Oh the lure of speculation.

I don't believe that monogamy is a natural thing and although we all want to be faithful and most of us think that we have a line which we won't cross, some people don't care and will take sexual gratification at any chance that comes along. Others are just tempted into it by circumstances and weakness of willpower against desires and then in suffering pangs of guilt afterwards may seek to hide it or confess to it. Despite the obvious flaws of humanity I like to think of us in our best moments that we are basically altruistic and most of us would help others without desire of reward. Think of all the acts of people in the rescue services and even bystanders who would help strangers in distress. This co-operation and want to help seems to be instinctive.
The media like to report on conflicts and hatred and cheating and usually end with a by-line of a local hero who did well. We are collectively quick to condemn the cheats even if we are detached observers. Fairness matters a great deal in a co-operative society and so we want transgressors of even unspoken rules to be punished harshly.

Of course this topic expanded into 'what-if's' and the feelings associated with it.

Does having a flirtatious relationship on the internet have the same impact as one in real life?

I think most people would agree with me that it is and it can damage real life relationships. I had thought she was inferring some of my behavior online. Oh am I guilty?

It is not so much a modern phenomenon as much as it is an evolution of the secret correspondence of past eras. Such love letters passed covertly between far away lovers that told of desire and the imaginings of what could be if things were different. We spoke of opportunities that arise based on lonely feelings when partners are away for long periods. As we sat with our white wine, we decided that infidelity is more of the psychological act and is truly about what is said and what is shared and we should forget about the medium in which it is conveyed. Trust is something both she and I have and we are determined that no such similar speculative gossip will be spread about us. Of course it could be made up if there is no real drama to whisper about!

We spent my birthday evening in my young brother's apartment with his and Rina's company. It was nice of my eldest brother, Tokutaro, to phone me a birthday greeting. He is a man of his word and we have talked more since his promise to me. My other brother, Kenjiro and dad both phoned me earlier in the afternoon so it had been another good day.

The fog burning away in the morning sun...

She lights my day of course but like an added birthday gift I had some really good news on Tuesday morning.

It was one of those hope inspiring moments that you want so much to be true even after having resigned myself to what I had already considered as inevitable!

I'll leave that in a silent world for the moment.