Wither

“If a relationship cannot move forward… it withers.”

Sara Sidle, CSI

This episode of CSI made me cry. It resonated…

William Petersen has said that what Grissom loves about Sidle is her tenacity. “She’s a bulldog. And he always saw that in her. And he always knew that subconsciously the only person who’d be able to give him a second look is someone who’s not willing to take the first look for granted.” On her side, Jorja Fox has said that “The story of Sara and Grissom is a little like a fable. And most great fables don’t really have 100 percent resolution.”

Their relationship is not an obvious one from the outside. How would two such very different people be attracted to each other? And yet they are. Sometimes it’s opposites that attract, in some cases, it’s just that the two halves complement each other, despite what other people might believe.

As well as the fact that they work together and there could be problems if their involvement became common knowledge, there seem to be commitment problems from one or both sides in the Grissom/Sara tangle. This means that their relationship remains a secret, even from their closest friends and Sara finally reaches the point where a decision has to be made because the intensity of her professional life means that she needs more from her emotional engagement. So, a few episodes after this statement, she leaves Las Vegas… and Grissom.

It is her departure that provides Grissom with the catalyst to make him emerge from his comfort zone and do something about it. He misses Sara. She brought something special to his life without him even realising. So he leaves the ordered, predictable safety of his bugs, steps out of the security of so many sterile decades and moves into the possible chaos that might be the future just to be with her.

To take a chance and see if what they have can bloom in less constrained circumstances.

Ruf and I have a lot in common with Grissom and Sara, although you could never say that either of us was personally one or the other, even if you swapped the genders. But their personalities, situation and involvement do share a lot of commonalities with our own. Apart from the fact that we are probably not a pairing that most people would naturally put together romantically, Ruf also wants us to be able to move forward as a couple. He is tired of defending his decision to wait for me to those friends who just don’t approve. Fed up with feeling like the male equivalent of a concubine or a mistress. He doesn’t want to be stuck in limbo hanging around for a woman who may or may not eventually become his full-time partner… or possibly his wife.

And, whilst I have always empathised with his viewpoint, now it is more than that. I want to move on too. I would love to be in a position to introduce him to my friends and family. The idea of waking up with him every morning in that warm snuggly bed… I find myself daydreaming of a wedding day and a future together.

But I cannot shake from my mind the picture of my children. Teenagers, yes, but still not mature enough to reason properly about such a matter. Kids, who really do need the reassuring presence of their mother about the house even if they never actually acknowledge it when she is.
I am in a quandary.

I don’t want to have to make a choice… but, by maintaining the status quo, I run the risk of losing them all.

Everyone needs to be able to move forward.