Crystals

Something very strange happened to me tonight.

A big successful empire building IT director at the investment bank I work for has cunningly swapped empires for a smaller and less stressful but equally successful empire to wind down his career.

To celebrate he invited both empires out for drinks - he is the kind of man that doesn't even blink at a few k personal bar bill on a Thursday night.

I have been to lots of these things. I normally hate them - awkwardly talking to someone from a different team desperately searching for something in common, nervously smiling and examining the carpet pattern as a scary senior manager told their dull anecdotes.

But tonight was different - I genuinely laughed at the empire building director's story of the dead coy carp in his fish pond. And he genuinely laughed at my witty retorts as I held the old man's gaze. My retorts - not the sycophantic replies of a ladder climber but ones I would say to anyone. It felt good.

Then the kids - the early twenties - they all seemed so eager and enthusiastic to impress, hanging on my every word.

So why the change - why do I now suddenly feel can I cope - why do I now I find it easy - why do I no longer feel anally intimidated by these people. How do I suddenly fit in after all these years of not?

Then it came to me like a beam of light - crystals.

When you are conceived your mind grows like a pure diamond crystal. It's thin sharp shards reaching out like tendrils, stretching into a warm fresh virgin void, unrestricted by reality's hard and cruel embrace.

After 9 mouths a beautiful complex clear lattice matrix has formed. Then you are born - slowly over the crystal structure experience grows an organic mental moss. Years of failure and success knock off awkward corners. Occasionally major mistakes shatter big sections but the moss always grows back and over, ever getting thicker and thicker, forming a slick and dark hard malleable crust so eventually you can fit into any hole.

But down, deep down the crystal's rainbow light still reflects, illuminating the inner dome of yourself - of what you have become.

Then, just when you think you have thick encrustation that no-one will penetrate - someone somehow finds a way through.

They get in and find a new piece of the pure crystal. A part you never knew you had. Crystal no one has seen before.

Love is not in the heart - that just pumps blood. It is not in your guts - they just digest food. It is in your mind.

Down in that pure crystalline mind that has been untouched by others. That part you are unprepared to give others. A new part of you that you have just found - that is love - and exposing it to the light. A part you only give to your lover.

Life has taught me not to know - maybe it will react badly to the light - maybe it is so fragile that will shatter on the first knock- but then maybe it is hard crystal that will mock the passing time. Who knows.

All I know it is showering me with rainbows.