We also never forget those true loves. We carry them for life.
My first time and first love was Beatrice. I consider myself very lucky. I was young, and she was older, mature. She taught me to be attentive, to respect details. To never expect relationships to be easy. She taught me that youth and inexperience are not interesting, that age and history and stories and experiences are. She carried scars. She carried secrets. She rewarded persistence.
She was Scottish and the ex-wife of a well-known oil executive, and we were together for four years. Every day was a pleasure. Genuinely. That was three decades ago, and I still hold her dearly in my heart. I thank her for sharing and for teaching. She made me a better person. And then we had to go our separate ways. I never saw her again.
After that, as a young free guy, I drifted. Short-term liaisons in Scotland and London. Then I met Hope.
Hope had had a troubled past. From the Ivory Coast, she had been misunderstood, abandoned at a young age, and in desperate need of belief and revitalisation. I truly think I was able to do that, to help her to heal. Rediscover her confidence and fire. It was hard work. I’m not ashamed to say it. We invested everything together: Time, energy, discipline, commitment. We became a success. She became a success.
Others played their part, of course, but for me, Hope and I were the team. I visited the Ivory Coast and saw her beautiful, complex, damaged country. It helped me understand her better. She herself was staggeringly beautiful. And complex. And damaged.
Once again, life moved us on. I missed her desperately for many years. Good friends of mine have stayed with her, and so I know she thrived. That warms my heart.
I talk of these things to remind us of something fundamental: Loving matters. Committing is essential. Building success is a love affair. A mental, emotional, and carnal pleasure. Not for corporate loyalty. Not for supporting slogans. Not for parroting mission statements. Physically immersed, emotionally invested. The love affair geologists have with their rocks.
So stay alive. Stay physical. Stay curious. Stay in love.
Never forget the passion.
FOR THOSE WHO DIDN’T QUITE GET IT
Beatrice is the UK Inner Moray Firth oil field that produced from a Middle Jurassic shallow marine sandstone reservoir. It was discovered in 1976 by Mesa Petroleum and named after the wife of Mesa’s founder T. Boone Pickens. The field was picked up by Talisman in the mid 1990s to rejuvenate.
Hope is the English translation of the French word Espoir, and also an oil field of Middle Cretaceous deep-water sandstones. Discovered and developed in the 1980s by Phillips Petroleum, it was redeveloped by CNR and came onstream in 2002.
