At Least We Have Good Weather: A Life of Love and Loss

Chapter 40

As all the faces I had known for the last five years of my life began to disappear from the company, I focused solely on my work. This was everything I had worked for, and with promises from my management that they intended to send me overseas for a few months, I put all my eggs into my dream basket.

I tried to ignore the pain of loneliness, knowing it was a necessary side effect for long-term happiness. I had been given a timeline by the new management as to when I would be working for the overseas team, although nothing had been promised in writing, I was happy to commit myself to the company who had turned down my voluntary retrenchment. They had plans for me, and my plan was to be loyal back to them.

For the last few months I had been talking about nothing but New York, and I knew while that was something I needed to achieve on my own, I also wanted to share the experience with someone else. As my money situation had improved overall, I felt that a holiday was in order and decided to take someone with me to The Big Apple to share in my love for the city.

So I began vetting contenders who deserved such an experience. Sure, a bit of an arrogant mind-set, but I didn't want to waste this experience on someone who didn't appreciate it. I wanted someone I knew I was going to have a good time with, and maybe, just maybe, as a bonus, someone who would see me in a new light. It was a deluded expectation, but at this point I just needed to know someone - anyone, wanted to spend time with me.

In my own whimsical way I ran an online contest called Burgy Wonka's Golden Ticket, I thought if I'm going to take someone, they at least have to earn it by showing they know at least a little something about me. What a big mistake that was, as I realized that nobody had a clue about me, because they were simply not paying attention to me. It was a bruise to the ego for sure, but certainly made me realize that I was, to a great degree very much alone with my ridiculous expectations that were unfair on everyone including myself. I decided on my new approach, and rather than have a winner, I decided to look for someone I actually liked and could imagine spending time with, and of course, someone who had not ripped my heart out in the last few years.

I made a short - very short, list of people I wanted to share the experience with, but it was always one name that stood out from that list, and I decided to ask her how she felt about it.

Her name was Loey.

I first met Loey back in 2005 when she and a few others guests appeared on the TV show I hosted; they were all contestants in the Miss Earth event and had come on to not only promote it, but also bring awareness to certain environmental issues. Beautiful girls with a mission statement were my favourite kind. I had a lot of respect for the organizer of the Miss Earth brand, and would gladly help her and her team promote their events in any way I could.

We hit it off as we had a similar sense of dark humour, and I always hoped I would see her again, but it did take almost a year before we would begin chatting on a regular basis.

Other than the occasional meeting for coffee, we had never really spent much time with each other, and for someone reason we always just seemed to disappear out of each other's lives and then return just as suddenly.

This was the case when, after not speaking for about a year, I received a call from the office reception one day, only to unexpectedly find Loey waiting for me there. Warm surprises were so rare in my life that I remember exactly how I felt when I walked out to see her standing there. She was always one of the most uniquely beautiful women I had ever met in my life, and the kind of girl that you just know could have any guy in the world she wanted by just flashing that dazzling smile of hers at them. It was hard not to fall for her in an instant, but I, being a trooper, tried nonetheless.