I lived with Ian for three years in my early twenties and our dating caused a bit of a scandal as he was 23 years older than me – 45 when we got together. We had some ferocious arguments, but Ian introduced me to lots of things that are still important to me today. Kink. Paul Simon. And learning to stay true to your dreams.
Ian got frustrated with me a lot of the time, because I struggled with self-belief like he did his own. He was always frustrated living in the UK and for the last eight years had been living in Bulgaria in abject poverty by standards in the UK, but this was where he belonged (in Bulgaria, not in abject poverty, although he may disagree with me on this last point!), not surveying uPVC windows in Birmingham worrying about his tax bill. He did eventually sort HMRC out after I nagged him enough (he did it after we split up) and he thanked me for it too, said it helped to take a lot of worry off his mind.
I’d only seen Ian twice in the last ten years, once the day before he left and again about 12 months ago for a drink. I was going to see him next week and take Mylo to meet him because he never did get the chance. I found out messaging him through Facebook and his sister picked up and asked me to give him a call.
My undiagnosed autism made things hard for both of us, but we kept in touch and worked through the stuff that made us separate.
I am going to miss Ian very very much. He loved a drink, and a smoke (of various kinds) and we had some wicked house parties when we were together. He liked wearing ladies lacy topped stockings, which he won’t mind me telling you about now but would have killed me if he was still alive.
Ni-night babe. I love you and I’m going to miss you so so much.
