So I have become extremely organised and resurrecting my RSVP profile, signed up to every singles event newsletter and singles evenings and even contemplating some 'holidays for singles', but my beautiful friend Geraldine tells me that all of this is a waste of time and that the secret is that it’s all about networking.
Her theory is that at my age, ready to have children and wanting something meaningful in my life, it’s a waste of my time to be doing all of this other stuff, she reckons it’s all about putting the word out with friends that its time to be set up on some dates with some like minded men who fit with my requirements and being selective about WHY they are single at this stage of their life, presuming that they would be older than myself…….
We have decided to draw the line at anyone past 40. Clearly this may knock out a large proportion of the market but it has been decided that, especially in light of my recent experience with a very dysfunctional 40 something then its probably best to raise the standards and not date anyone who is single for all the wrong reasons.
So Geraldine is out there finding single men for me! She is asking all the men and women she knows if they know a single good-looking man who fits my criteria, and also wears decent shoes, as there is nothing I hate more than a man with shocking shoes! She tells me that I must do the same with all those I know, so I have done, and we have all the girls at work and their husbands on the job to find candidates!
Already there have been some mumblings of some possibilities and one certainty, a friend of my cousins, although he is fabulous for all the right reasons he is also very young, but I have decided to give it a shot anyway because I really enjoy his company, he is smart, witty, ridiculously good-looking and a completely decent bloke.
Now I’m not going to say that he is my dream boat, that he is going to be my next husband or that I will even like him in a few weeks, but this is just the start of my search for true love and I am willing to give anything a go, clearly I failed miserably before so I figure that trying new things and new people out for size is the best way forward.
I was discussing this with my shrink at our regular Friday date last week and she asked me what I have learnt from my recent heartbreak. I started to speak and then realised just how much damage it had really done. I started seeing my shrink because I was having a great deal of trouble trusting the x and his intentions and actions and don’t think I ever truly believed that he cared about me (as it turned out I was right, however) and this was a reflection on many situations and relationships of broken trust as a child and compounded by the grief of the loss of my grandparents.
So the irony of the situation is that in order to improve myself and my ability to trust and trust the person I was in a relationship, I sought help, and during this time I was deceived and lied to and experienced such a huge amount of horrible treatment that what I have now learnt from the situation is not to trust even more, I have actually gone backwards. I think I will be less tolerant, more defensive and less emotionally available that I ever was before!
What else have I learned from the situation? Well I am not completely sure yet, but I am certain I will figure it out and not make the same mistakes again.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
The end of heartbreak hotel!
Well it’s been a while since my last update and much has happened. I decided to cast off all hope of reconciling with the x and decided to go to Europe for a month. To say that I had the time of my life would be an understatement.
I think I was completely and utterly overdue for a holiday and the stress and upheaval of the past 12 months had left me utterly drained of the ability to function and think clearly, not to mention the physical toll the whole nightmare had been taking on my body – which became very evident once I got to London and almost as soon as I touched down I became sick with a shocking flu.
After spending some time with my best friend Phil who now lives in London and has done for more than two years now, we started our journey with a group of fellow sports nuts to watch the Socceroos play some “friendlies” in Switzerland and then Poland. We travelled through Germany as well and after the soccer was over the group went back to London and I continued on my travels alone.
My first stop was Germany (again, but in a different spot) and then I went on to Austria where I fulfilled my lifelong dream of going on the “Sound of Music Tour”!! Given that this was a lifelong dream, to see where my favourite movie in the world was made, one might have thought that I would have at least done some minor research into where exactly in Austria I needed to be in order to go on the tour – but I hadn’t done so much as a google search until I was comfortably settled in Vienna and then realised it was actually Salzburg I needed to be!
This was only a minor hitch in my plan, and provided a fabulous opportunity to travel across Vienna to Salzburg and see the beautiful sights of Austria. So I managed to sort my train ticket out, and even get on the right train and finally fulfil my dream – and it was everything I ever imagined and so much more.
The hardest part of the travel I did on my own was just that, being on my own. I didn’t know any of the languages and I was alone, all the time and that was hard. I had to rely on myself being able to get around and do what I wanted to see and see what I wanted to see whilst trying to still recover from a horrible break up and try to reconcile my thoughts about this and realise that I am not only alone and on holidays but I am now alone in every sense of the word.
When I returned to London to stay with Phil and another friend Michelle who share a flat there I was completely exhausted but glad to have to company and was starting to feel better after my dose of the flu. I had a great time in London and Michelle and Phil made me feel like I was just part of the furniture, not uncomfortable or imposing on their small space and showed me some of the best and happiest times of my life – the shopping was amazing as was the whole City.
During my holiday I met two men who I am sure found the sight and sounds of my deadly flu a rather huge turn off! And whilst nothing actually happened with either of them it felt great to be treated so well, to have a flirty conversation with someone who showed interest in me, who thought I was funny and fun to be around. Mainly I found it lovely to be treated with respect and dignity and it made me believe again that I am deserving of this. My decision was made. When I returned I would not settle for anything less again, as I had done for such a long time.
Soon after returning home I actually realised whilst driving along one day that I am happy. I even found myself smiling despite having some unresolved issues with the x, I found that I was and could be happy without him.
When we met to discuss the unresolved issues I realised how little he knew about me. He didn’t know about my work, he wasn’t even interested in it. I had the opportunity to have my questions answered after six long months of torture and doubt and most of all I realised that he had not been taking time out to work on himself as he had said and as I had done, he was just exactly the same as he was six months ago and some of the things that have been going on during this supposed period of self-improvement have been, well to say disrespectful to me would be an understatement.
I walked away from this meeting knowing that I would not be back with him again. I left with a heavy heart but knowing that the door was now shut on that part of my life and I simply have to get over how much I have lost by believing that we would be together and build a happy life. My dignity and self respect are just far too important to me to compromise.
I had hoped that he might see where he went wrong and gave him the opportunity to discuss this, but he chose not to and I have accepted that and I now have my closure.
I have no idea where my life will take me now. I have fantastic work plans that are coming together and I am getting more pleasure out of my work than I have ever done. Whilst I am sad about what has happened, I am happy to hold my head high, plan my next trip and keep smiling about the world of possibilities available to me now.
I think I was completely and utterly overdue for a holiday and the stress and upheaval of the past 12 months had left me utterly drained of the ability to function and think clearly, not to mention the physical toll the whole nightmare had been taking on my body – which became very evident once I got to London and almost as soon as I touched down I became sick with a shocking flu.
After spending some time with my best friend Phil who now lives in London and has done for more than two years now, we started our journey with a group of fellow sports nuts to watch the Socceroos play some “friendlies” in Switzerland and then Poland. We travelled through Germany as well and after the soccer was over the group went back to London and I continued on my travels alone.
My first stop was Germany (again, but in a different spot) and then I went on to Austria where I fulfilled my lifelong dream of going on the “Sound of Music Tour”!! Given that this was a lifelong dream, to see where my favourite movie in the world was made, one might have thought that I would have at least done some minor research into where exactly in Austria I needed to be in order to go on the tour – but I hadn’t done so much as a google search until I was comfortably settled in Vienna and then realised it was actually Salzburg I needed to be!
This was only a minor hitch in my plan, and provided a fabulous opportunity to travel across Vienna to Salzburg and see the beautiful sights of Austria. So I managed to sort my train ticket out, and even get on the right train and finally fulfil my dream – and it was everything I ever imagined and so much more.
The hardest part of the travel I did on my own was just that, being on my own. I didn’t know any of the languages and I was alone, all the time and that was hard. I had to rely on myself being able to get around and do what I wanted to see and see what I wanted to see whilst trying to still recover from a horrible break up and try to reconcile my thoughts about this and realise that I am not only alone and on holidays but I am now alone in every sense of the word.
When I returned to London to stay with Phil and another friend Michelle who share a flat there I was completely exhausted but glad to have to company and was starting to feel better after my dose of the flu. I had a great time in London and Michelle and Phil made me feel like I was just part of the furniture, not uncomfortable or imposing on their small space and showed me some of the best and happiest times of my life – the shopping was amazing as was the whole City.
During my holiday I met two men who I am sure found the sight and sounds of my deadly flu a rather huge turn off! And whilst nothing actually happened with either of them it felt great to be treated so well, to have a flirty conversation with someone who showed interest in me, who thought I was funny and fun to be around. Mainly I found it lovely to be treated with respect and dignity and it made me believe again that I am deserving of this. My decision was made. When I returned I would not settle for anything less again, as I had done for such a long time.
Soon after returning home I actually realised whilst driving along one day that I am happy. I even found myself smiling despite having some unresolved issues with the x, I found that I was and could be happy without him.
When we met to discuss the unresolved issues I realised how little he knew about me. He didn’t know about my work, he wasn’t even interested in it. I had the opportunity to have my questions answered after six long months of torture and doubt and most of all I realised that he had not been taking time out to work on himself as he had said and as I had done, he was just exactly the same as he was six months ago and some of the things that have been going on during this supposed period of self-improvement have been, well to say disrespectful to me would be an understatement.
I walked away from this meeting knowing that I would not be back with him again. I left with a heavy heart but knowing that the door was now shut on that part of my life and I simply have to get over how much I have lost by believing that we would be together and build a happy life. My dignity and self respect are just far too important to me to compromise.
I had hoped that he might see where he went wrong and gave him the opportunity to discuss this, but he chose not to and I have accepted that and I now have my closure.
I have no idea where my life will take me now. I have fantastic work plans that are coming together and I am getting more pleasure out of my work than I have ever done. Whilst I am sad about what has happened, I am happy to hold my head high, plan my next trip and keep smiling about the world of possibilities available to me now.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Onwards and upwards Part 2
So my mood and life in general seem to be looking up. I have dates locked in for my first trip to London and also second trip I am planning as well. So this is something which is making me very excited and making me feel like this misery will not last forever!
I have finally have the acceptance that things with 'him' are over. I tried one last time to try to ask if we can talk to try work things out, but I had also hoped that even if we couldn’t work things out that we could at least have some closure and end this properly, and there was no response. Rejected again.
I spent Friday night with my beautiful friend Geraldine and after having dinner with her gorgeous girls and wonderful husband and the girls had gone to bed being in the environment once again further reinforced that this is the life I want, and that its won’t be happening with ‘him’.
We sat outside, having a wine and I told her of my last attempt to save things with 'him'. She has always been a huge supporter of us getting things sorted but after I told her that once again I was rejected, she held my hand as I cried and I said 'he’s not coming back is he?' and she just looked at me with the saddest eyes and shook her head and said 'no'. I cried. But then was acceptance.
The following day was sad. Dad came over we watched DVDs and ate curry and I slept allot and felt sad. Even though Collingwood did kick some serious Carlton arse which I must admit, did bring a mild smile to the dial! But the next day was a new day. A readiness to look forward and not think about the silly dreams anymore.
They were silly dreams. Dreams that I have now left behind because my self-esteem and confidence are so much improved when I’m not being told something is going to happen that never really is. I now realise I have been a puppet on a string, hoping and praying that 'he' means what he says. But now I know its too long. Love dies and resentment builds and the need to be loved again and shown love becomes overwhelming.
I am trying not to look back on the last two years and the sacrifices I have made as a waste, but at my age, lets face it, even my dad thinks it was, given my desire I have to have a family. Anyway, that’s the morbid part. The good news is that now I know its over I feel free to start my life again.
I woke this morning feeling alive again. I have done so much cleaning out of the garage which contains all my worldly possessions and includes memories I don’t need. And have made a roast! Like I used to make for 'him' on Sundays. But this time I am making it for my family. The people who will love me through thick and thin.
I have finally have the acceptance that things with 'him' are over. I tried one last time to try to ask if we can talk to try work things out, but I had also hoped that even if we couldn’t work things out that we could at least have some closure and end this properly, and there was no response. Rejected again.
I spent Friday night with my beautiful friend Geraldine and after having dinner with her gorgeous girls and wonderful husband and the girls had gone to bed being in the environment once again further reinforced that this is the life I want, and that its won’t be happening with ‘him’.
We sat outside, having a wine and I told her of my last attempt to save things with 'him'. She has always been a huge supporter of us getting things sorted but after I told her that once again I was rejected, she held my hand as I cried and I said 'he’s not coming back is he?' and she just looked at me with the saddest eyes and shook her head and said 'no'. I cried. But then was acceptance.
The following day was sad. Dad came over we watched DVDs and ate curry and I slept allot and felt sad. Even though Collingwood did kick some serious Carlton arse which I must admit, did bring a mild smile to the dial! But the next day was a new day. A readiness to look forward and not think about the silly dreams anymore.
They were silly dreams. Dreams that I have now left behind because my self-esteem and confidence are so much improved when I’m not being told something is going to happen that never really is. I now realise I have been a puppet on a string, hoping and praying that 'he' means what he says. But now I know its too long. Love dies and resentment builds and the need to be loved again and shown love becomes overwhelming.
I am trying not to look back on the last two years and the sacrifices I have made as a waste, but at my age, lets face it, even my dad thinks it was, given my desire I have to have a family. Anyway, that’s the morbid part. The good news is that now I know its over I feel free to start my life again.
I woke this morning feeling alive again. I have done so much cleaning out of the garage which contains all my worldly possessions and includes memories I don’t need. And have made a roast! Like I used to make for 'him' on Sundays. But this time I am making it for my family. The people who will love me through thick and thin.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Onwards and upwards
Ok. So I’m starting to feel like the hard times are coming to an end. I’m feeling quite proud that I now have my driver’s license back and have at this point driven three times. Avoiding turning left or right and rain, although it did rain yesterday when I went to the shops so I did a Granma drive home, even though it was less than 1.5km and was only spitting with rain.
Its worth mentioning here that that I was in a very serious car accident just before my 21st birthday and it was largely as a result of some serious rain and I have a serious phobia as a result, plus my general hate, loathing actually of driving.
So my news today was good. My settlement on my house is actually going to come through in a week. This does nothing to improve my relationship status as I was told so many times it would. The promise was always that once I had sorted this mess out and got myself together that I could go home. This has changed many times and 'he' has seen me for around and hour I think no more than six times in the last four months.
So that demonstrates something to me that I have been trying to avoid accepting. This is a total lack of interest and support in me as a person and really does speak volumes about my value to him. So as much as I am still in love with 'him' I need to have the wake up call, and I think I finally have.
I clearly mean so much less to 'him' as has been demonstrated, and when I put myself in the opposite situation and think, what I would have done if this happened to someone I loved, (even if it was largely their own fault) and the answer I keep coming back with is that I would NEVER have left them totally alone. Clearly my powers of identifying a good partner could use some refinement as I believe in loyalty and sticking, through thick and thin.
But, as one of my best and dearest friends pointed out to me earlier this week, he’s just letting it go on not to hurt you but because he is just really bad at breaking up – and this to me sounds like the most likely scenario because I know he is not a bad person and I am not angry with him anymore.
So I am looking forward to getting on with the next phase of my life.
The first thing I need to do is go to London to see my darling Phil. Then I need to work out how to fall in love again, not even that so much, just how to trust again, how to get to a point where I am healed enough to let myself think that not every man I sleep with or enter a relationship with is just going to hurt me.
When I go to London I want to have fun and the possibility of having those butterflies and the excitement of the first kiss and the first sexual experience in a LONG time and even maybe fall in lust or love and then have to leave that behind, I think I can do that.
The endless possibilities and opportunities I am now presented with are nothing short of exciting and filling me with a positive energy that is making me feel somewhat invincible after so many months of being downtrodden.
I am looking forward to meet someone who thinks I’m ace, who loves me for my caring nature, my big arse, my loud mouth, my love for my dogs and my dedication to a relationships and friendships, and these are all qualities I need to keep reminding myself that I have, and that this past relationship did not work out because I am rubbish but because he couldn’t see or didn’t value these qualities and frankly, at the end of the day, he can’t commit.
So yes, I expect to go to London and get drunk allot and travel around Europe and have the time of my life. The 11th of September could not come around any sooner!
Its worth mentioning here that that I was in a very serious car accident just before my 21st birthday and it was largely as a result of some serious rain and I have a serious phobia as a result, plus my general hate, loathing actually of driving.
So my news today was good. My settlement on my house is actually going to come through in a week. This does nothing to improve my relationship status as I was told so many times it would. The promise was always that once I had sorted this mess out and got myself together that I could go home. This has changed many times and 'he' has seen me for around and hour I think no more than six times in the last four months.
So that demonstrates something to me that I have been trying to avoid accepting. This is a total lack of interest and support in me as a person and really does speak volumes about my value to him. So as much as I am still in love with 'him' I need to have the wake up call, and I think I finally have.
I clearly mean so much less to 'him' as has been demonstrated, and when I put myself in the opposite situation and think, what I would have done if this happened to someone I loved, (even if it was largely their own fault) and the answer I keep coming back with is that I would NEVER have left them totally alone. Clearly my powers of identifying a good partner could use some refinement as I believe in loyalty and sticking, through thick and thin.
But, as one of my best and dearest friends pointed out to me earlier this week, he’s just letting it go on not to hurt you but because he is just really bad at breaking up – and this to me sounds like the most likely scenario because I know he is not a bad person and I am not angry with him anymore.
So I am looking forward to getting on with the next phase of my life.
The first thing I need to do is go to London to see my darling Phil. Then I need to work out how to fall in love again, not even that so much, just how to trust again, how to get to a point where I am healed enough to let myself think that not every man I sleep with or enter a relationship with is just going to hurt me.
When I go to London I want to have fun and the possibility of having those butterflies and the excitement of the first kiss and the first sexual experience in a LONG time and even maybe fall in lust or love and then have to leave that behind, I think I can do that.
The endless possibilities and opportunities I am now presented with are nothing short of exciting and filling me with a positive energy that is making me feel somewhat invincible after so many months of being downtrodden.
I am looking forward to meet someone who thinks I’m ace, who loves me for my caring nature, my big arse, my loud mouth, my love for my dogs and my dedication to a relationships and friendships, and these are all qualities I need to keep reminding myself that I have, and that this past relationship did not work out because I am rubbish but because he couldn’t see or didn’t value these qualities and frankly, at the end of the day, he can’t commit.
So yes, I expect to go to London and get drunk allot and travel around Europe and have the time of my life. The 11th of September could not come around any sooner!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Dating
So the all important new phase of life has begun. Dating again. How depressing.
After thinking I would never have to go through this again, never have to be naked in front of anyone else again, I am slowly coming to terms with it and am quite looking forward to literally “getting back on the horse” again. Mainly because its been quite some time between drinks!
So the first date was, well, lets just say – not that great. Basically I was walking home one evening and a man with a gorgeous dog was walking towards me, I patted the dog and the man asked me if I had seen a roaming Labrador, he explained that he had lost the dog and was really quite distressed about it. I said I hadn’t seen the dogs, but he showed me where he lives and I said I would certainly return the dog if I happened to see it.
So we walked and chatted a bit, me walking home and him talking about how his dog has a tendency to take itself off at times for a little stroll and although he generally comes back he was and does get very worried about him when he’s gone. I related to this and talked about my dogs and how panicked I get if they ever so much as leave the room and I can’t fine them!
We parted ways and to my surprise the following Friday afternoon I was visiting the local Dan Murphy’s and waiting for my uncle in the car park to pick me up when the same bloke I had met a week and a half before came up and asked me if I needed a lift home, he reminded me who he was and that we live right near each other and that he would be happy to drive me home, I thanked him and we chatted a bit more and I was blown away by how lovely he was. My cousin then pulled up to take me home so I didn’t need a lift but he made me promise to meet him the next day for lunch. Which I did.
It turns out that he is lovely, but too short, not enough hair, recently separated, drives a family moving van of some description and wore running shorts on our date – lets just say that he was fun but I don’t think he will get any runs on the board with me!
So in order to continue on with this theme of taking my mind off my broken heart I am going to a singles ball this coming Saturday night, themed “Christmas in July” and am hoping to stand under some mistletoe with a handsome stranger. Failing that I am reactivating my RSVP account (lord help me!!) and have a number of friends setting me up on blind dates – which can only lead complete humiliation or another good blog story!
I spent much of yesterday going through my boxes and cleaning out everything that I bought for my life with the ex. I cried as I did it. I cried so much and so hard that at times I never thought I would stop.
I got rid of everything. Photos, Tupperware, pictures, kitchen stuff and everything I thought would help make our house a home, everything.
There is still so much a part of me that wishes that he would change his mind about this. He tells me he loves me, he even bought a house on the weekend that last week he said that he wanted us to live in. But then he buys the house and the reality of it hits and he and I both know he can’t commit. He just can’t do it.
I do still think he was my sole mate. I know that nobody understand and inspires me like he does, but when it all comes down to it, its simply not enough. You can love someone, or say you love someone all you want, but if you can’t even see them, if the thought of seeing them brings your dread, which he says it does, then there is nowhere to go is there……..
After thinking I would never have to go through this again, never have to be naked in front of anyone else again, I am slowly coming to terms with it and am quite looking forward to literally “getting back on the horse” again. Mainly because its been quite some time between drinks!
So the first date was, well, lets just say – not that great. Basically I was walking home one evening and a man with a gorgeous dog was walking towards me, I patted the dog and the man asked me if I had seen a roaming Labrador, he explained that he had lost the dog and was really quite distressed about it. I said I hadn’t seen the dogs, but he showed me where he lives and I said I would certainly return the dog if I happened to see it.
So we walked and chatted a bit, me walking home and him talking about how his dog has a tendency to take itself off at times for a little stroll and although he generally comes back he was and does get very worried about him when he’s gone. I related to this and talked about my dogs and how panicked I get if they ever so much as leave the room and I can’t fine them!
We parted ways and to my surprise the following Friday afternoon I was visiting the local Dan Murphy’s and waiting for my uncle in the car park to pick me up when the same bloke I had met a week and a half before came up and asked me if I needed a lift home, he reminded me who he was and that we live right near each other and that he would be happy to drive me home, I thanked him and we chatted a bit more and I was blown away by how lovely he was. My cousin then pulled up to take me home so I didn’t need a lift but he made me promise to meet him the next day for lunch. Which I did.
It turns out that he is lovely, but too short, not enough hair, recently separated, drives a family moving van of some description and wore running shorts on our date – lets just say that he was fun but I don’t think he will get any runs on the board with me!
So in order to continue on with this theme of taking my mind off my broken heart I am going to a singles ball this coming Saturday night, themed “Christmas in July” and am hoping to stand under some mistletoe with a handsome stranger. Failing that I am reactivating my RSVP account (lord help me!!) and have a number of friends setting me up on blind dates – which can only lead complete humiliation or another good blog story!
I spent much of yesterday going through my boxes and cleaning out everything that I bought for my life with the ex. I cried as I did it. I cried so much and so hard that at times I never thought I would stop.
I got rid of everything. Photos, Tupperware, pictures, kitchen stuff and everything I thought would help make our house a home, everything.
There is still so much a part of me that wishes that he would change his mind about this. He tells me he loves me, he even bought a house on the weekend that last week he said that he wanted us to live in. But then he buys the house and the reality of it hits and he and I both know he can’t commit. He just can’t do it.
I do still think he was my sole mate. I know that nobody understand and inspires me like he does, but when it all comes down to it, its simply not enough. You can love someone, or say you love someone all you want, but if you can’t even see them, if the thought of seeing them brings your dread, which he says it does, then there is nowhere to go is there……..
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Moving on
The life changes have begun.
I have resigned my position within the public service and have decided to take my life in a completely different direction. Soon I will be taking down the photos from my desk that remind me of happier times that are long gone and will never be relived and these will be destroyed. Then I will stop coming to the same building I have been coming to for many years and move onto something new, different and where new memories will be created.
My first step is to travel for a while. I think somewhere warm to begin with then London for a while to see my best and most amazing friend who promises to show me the best and happiest times of my life. With him I will travel for a while and will also do some adventuring on my own.
When I return from the globe trotting I will be taking on the task of learning a friends business from the ground up with the goal of taking on a share of the business for myself and working like mad to make it a raging success.
I am excited to be going to work with my friend, doing something completely different, having more time to do some more travel as well as do all the things I never seemed to find the time or energy to do before, I want to learn pottery for a start and I am sure I will think of many other things to fill my time.
I am planning to purchase a small holiday shack in one of my secret and favourite locations where I can spend endless hours with my dogs, reading, writing and kicking back – something I have not yet mastered the art of doing, but certainly plan to!
I will need to move and find some sort of a more permanent home in a few months so have been chatting to an ex-boyfriend about the possibility of sharing a house – I am sure this will make for some interesting time and certainly some interesting blogs! Certainly not where I expected to find myself at this point in my life and I am still filled with sadness about what I have lost but I am trying to stay focussed on the exciting times to come.
I am scared and excited all at once about the travel, the inevitable random sex, the new job, the unpacking of my things and settling into a new house with Tim and the discarding of pictures, items and memories from my previous life, its time to move on but the thought of this still breaks my heart.
Most of all I think I am sad that we never really finished thing off properly. Closure will be hard to achieve because we never saw each other to make the decision, we never even really spoke. It makes me sad that I meant to so little to this person I loved and who I thought loved me that I didn’t even get to say goodbye the way you should.
So the best thing to do I guess is to consider that the person has died and grieve for them as if they walked out one day and just didn’t come back, and knowing that you will never see that person again I guess this makes some degree of sense – but how do you find sense in such a senseless situation where the fallout from a small mistake changes the course of your whole life?? I don’t really know but this is what I am trying to do…..make some sense of it and try to move onto the next phase of my life and forget that this ever happened.
I have resigned my position within the public service and have decided to take my life in a completely different direction. Soon I will be taking down the photos from my desk that remind me of happier times that are long gone and will never be relived and these will be destroyed. Then I will stop coming to the same building I have been coming to for many years and move onto something new, different and where new memories will be created.
My first step is to travel for a while. I think somewhere warm to begin with then London for a while to see my best and most amazing friend who promises to show me the best and happiest times of my life. With him I will travel for a while and will also do some adventuring on my own.
When I return from the globe trotting I will be taking on the task of learning a friends business from the ground up with the goal of taking on a share of the business for myself and working like mad to make it a raging success.
I am excited to be going to work with my friend, doing something completely different, having more time to do some more travel as well as do all the things I never seemed to find the time or energy to do before, I want to learn pottery for a start and I am sure I will think of many other things to fill my time.
I am planning to purchase a small holiday shack in one of my secret and favourite locations where I can spend endless hours with my dogs, reading, writing and kicking back – something I have not yet mastered the art of doing, but certainly plan to!
I will need to move and find some sort of a more permanent home in a few months so have been chatting to an ex-boyfriend about the possibility of sharing a house – I am sure this will make for some interesting time and certainly some interesting blogs! Certainly not where I expected to find myself at this point in my life and I am still filled with sadness about what I have lost but I am trying to stay focussed on the exciting times to come.
I am scared and excited all at once about the travel, the inevitable random sex, the new job, the unpacking of my things and settling into a new house with Tim and the discarding of pictures, items and memories from my previous life, its time to move on but the thought of this still breaks my heart.
Most of all I think I am sad that we never really finished thing off properly. Closure will be hard to achieve because we never saw each other to make the decision, we never even really spoke. It makes me sad that I meant to so little to this person I loved and who I thought loved me that I didn’t even get to say goodbye the way you should.
So the best thing to do I guess is to consider that the person has died and grieve for them as if they walked out one day and just didn’t come back, and knowing that you will never see that person again I guess this makes some degree of sense – but how do you find sense in such a senseless situation where the fallout from a small mistake changes the course of your whole life?? I don’t really know but this is what I am trying to do…..make some sense of it and try to move onto the next phase of my life and forget that this ever happened.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Post break up heartbreak
So at some point after you accept that the relationship you thought would last forever is gone and you have finished crying yourself to sleep at night for many long months, realising that a stupid financial mistake you made has caused months of turmoil and the relationship has crumbled to nothing under the strain – there is a point where you have to make a decision that nothing you do or say is going to make a difference, you are powerless to change the situation as much as you want to and you must at this point try to start living again.
This time, after you pick yourself up and dust yourself off you have to have a different perspective and a different set of rules for the future. You have to learn from ever tragedy, every broken relationship. So that’s my plan to start with. To work out what I need to learn from the situation and then start to rebuild my life.
The first thing I have learned is that it is important never to get in over your head where you’re feeling for someone else are concerned. Sex is fine, I am sure I will do that again at some point with someone, probably several people again, but don’t ever fall in love. I have only done it the once, and next time I will know better than to share my heart with someone else – its my heart and I will protect it. Nobody will treat your heart with tenderness and kindness the way you expect and hope they will – when the break up occurs, and it inevitably does, if the last few months have taught me anything its that nothing last forever, especially the good stuff (that crap stuff lingers on for much longer) the gloves are off and even if you thought you could rely on that person to treat your heart with care, they won’t. Its not out of selfishness or anything evil, its just that the other person will be interested in themselves and how they feel and protecting themselves – your pain is yours alone.
The second thing I have learned is that when you think it’s too good to be true, it most certainly is. I would regularly spend time during the happiness and bliss of the relationship thinking about how I got so lucky to have fallen in love with someone so wonderful and amazing in every single way, and more shockingly, that they had fallen in love with me too. I would often wake up with a huge smile on my face and think how wonderful the world was to have sent me this person who I simply and shamelessly adored. But just as quick as it’s put in front of you it’s also gone.
The third lesson is that you should never give your time and effort to someone. Anything that you do because you care and want to show the person love and devotion will be forgotten as quick as a flash when those gloves come off. You will not get credit for the time and effort – none. You will just wind up feeling foolish for wasting your time. People only remember the bad parts of you when the relationship is gone, so do what you need to do, but don’t bother trying to impress because nobody will remember.
So with these lessons in mind, and the new rules that have been instituted as a result of these lessons – its time to get on with the business of falling out of love with the person. This is a new area for me because whilst I have enjoyed someone else being around and gained some level of security from having a relationship at various times in my life, this is the first time I have actually been in love, so I am just learning.
I have decided that the first thing to do is to completely cut off any form of communication. Easier said than done really, but its essential. There needs to be a full set of new routines and nothing that resembled my life before with him. Given that I am essentially homeless and my financial situation has been destroyed, I don’t know that this is actually going to be that hard.
It’s important also I think to cut off from any places or faces that are associated with him. So no more shopping in the same places, having any of the same friends or even keeping them on in Facebook. A clean fresh start is what is required otherwise I will just be presented with memories and news of that person and their new found happiness when I still don’t have that yet.
I have started catching only the trains that don’t stop in his suburb, and even though I have to travel through there, I make a point of not staring out the window anymore looking at the places we used to be together, I just keep my head buried in a book until I know it’s safe to look up.
It’s important never to mention the person’s name. They must essentially be dead – a forbidden topic that all people I converse with know better than to ask me about him. Nothing good can come from a discussion that involves them. If you say nice things you get sad, if you say nasty things then you get angry so best just not say anything at all.
The next this is planning to get away, a holiday, a new start somewhere – anywhere. Fortunately I have a few of my favourite places in the world that most other people don’t know about and that I never dared to take him to. These places offer impartial comfort and retain no memories that involve him. They will stay sacred to me forever.
But I also need a holiday. Well, actually if I am honest with myself I need to run away, even if it’s just for a while.
Logically I know full well that going to another country is not going to mean that my heart is mended, I know full well that I will be dragging my broken heart around all over the world and probably get charged extra luggage for all the crap I will be dragging around, but there is always that illogical part of me that is telling me that I must go anyway and that if I can run really fast the pain won’t be able to catch me, even for a blissful day here and there.
The next part of this recovery process is that I need to get rid of every photo and every item that remind me of him. It’s going to be one hell of a stall at the Camberwell Market I can tell you! I have more Tupperware than I know what to do with now that I don’t bother to cook for myself or someone else, not to mention all the stuff I bought for the children we were going to have or the house we were going to buy. It’s all going to go, every single last spec of it. It’s the closest thing to having memories deleted under hypnosis I figure so let the cleansing begin!
The next phase will be the contemplation of future relationship and dealing with the fact that I wanted a family. It was not until I had this relationship that I ever contemplated seriously the notion of having children and now that I am so desperate for them I am going to find this one a little hard to shelve.
I have contemplated freezing my eggs as an insurance policy for the future but then I decided this would be a mistake. I only every wanted to have children within a loving relationship and my commitment never to allow myself to unfold like that again means that this is out of the question. I also contemplated having children on my own but feel like I would be doing that for purely selfish reasons and that actually, with the inherit dysfunction in my family it would probably be a wise choice to stop the cycle and just stick to messing up dogs rather than people.
So future relationship? Well let’s face it; I have never been very successful at relationships in the past, so I guess I expect they will be short and more about physical satisfaction than anything else. But I realise that I have to throw myself out there again at some point and see what the world has to offer me.
At my age and with my history of never meeting anyone in the “regular” way I have decided to give speed dating another bash. If my previous experiences are anything to go by it will be simply a waste of a good night in on my own with a DVD – but it’s worth a shot, whenever I get the courage.
I think doing some travel might present more options. Given that when you are in another country you have more of a reason to talk to strangers because you don’t know anyone, and they tend to want to talk to you because you sound different – I think its more likely that my “getting over someone by getting under someone else” will occur whilst navigating the world with my broken heart.
I also like the concept of knowing that you can never have a relationship when you meet someone overseas, it makes the concept of protecting your heart one that is far easier to stick to – you know that the time spent is fleeting and meaningless.
Having said all of that, I am currently in no state to even contemplate this thought. I hate the idea of being touched by anyone at the moment and expect that it will be quite some time before that is likely to change.
I used to go t bed every night and snuggle in the arms of someone I thought I would be going to bed with for the rest of my life – now to contemplate doing that with someone else is just horrifying – but a reality I am trying to wrap my head around.
I guess the saddest thing of all for me and the thing that still fills me with regret is that I have lost my friend of many years. If only I could go back to that night at The Dirty Swan when this all started, when we made the horrible mistake of taking a friendship to the bedroom – if I could go back to that moment again I would, and I would do it all so differently.
This time, after you pick yourself up and dust yourself off you have to have a different perspective and a different set of rules for the future. You have to learn from ever tragedy, every broken relationship. So that’s my plan to start with. To work out what I need to learn from the situation and then start to rebuild my life.
The first thing I have learned is that it is important never to get in over your head where you’re feeling for someone else are concerned. Sex is fine, I am sure I will do that again at some point with someone, probably several people again, but don’t ever fall in love. I have only done it the once, and next time I will know better than to share my heart with someone else – its my heart and I will protect it. Nobody will treat your heart with tenderness and kindness the way you expect and hope they will – when the break up occurs, and it inevitably does, if the last few months have taught me anything its that nothing last forever, especially the good stuff (that crap stuff lingers on for much longer) the gloves are off and even if you thought you could rely on that person to treat your heart with care, they won’t. Its not out of selfishness or anything evil, its just that the other person will be interested in themselves and how they feel and protecting themselves – your pain is yours alone.
The second thing I have learned is that when you think it’s too good to be true, it most certainly is. I would regularly spend time during the happiness and bliss of the relationship thinking about how I got so lucky to have fallen in love with someone so wonderful and amazing in every single way, and more shockingly, that they had fallen in love with me too. I would often wake up with a huge smile on my face and think how wonderful the world was to have sent me this person who I simply and shamelessly adored. But just as quick as it’s put in front of you it’s also gone.
The third lesson is that you should never give your time and effort to someone. Anything that you do because you care and want to show the person love and devotion will be forgotten as quick as a flash when those gloves come off. You will not get credit for the time and effort – none. You will just wind up feeling foolish for wasting your time. People only remember the bad parts of you when the relationship is gone, so do what you need to do, but don’t bother trying to impress because nobody will remember.
So with these lessons in mind, and the new rules that have been instituted as a result of these lessons – its time to get on with the business of falling out of love with the person. This is a new area for me because whilst I have enjoyed someone else being around and gained some level of security from having a relationship at various times in my life, this is the first time I have actually been in love, so I am just learning.
I have decided that the first thing to do is to completely cut off any form of communication. Easier said than done really, but its essential. There needs to be a full set of new routines and nothing that resembled my life before with him. Given that I am essentially homeless and my financial situation has been destroyed, I don’t know that this is actually going to be that hard.
It’s important also I think to cut off from any places or faces that are associated with him. So no more shopping in the same places, having any of the same friends or even keeping them on in Facebook. A clean fresh start is what is required otherwise I will just be presented with memories and news of that person and their new found happiness when I still don’t have that yet.
I have started catching only the trains that don’t stop in his suburb, and even though I have to travel through there, I make a point of not staring out the window anymore looking at the places we used to be together, I just keep my head buried in a book until I know it’s safe to look up.
It’s important never to mention the person’s name. They must essentially be dead – a forbidden topic that all people I converse with know better than to ask me about him. Nothing good can come from a discussion that involves them. If you say nice things you get sad, if you say nasty things then you get angry so best just not say anything at all.
The next this is planning to get away, a holiday, a new start somewhere – anywhere. Fortunately I have a few of my favourite places in the world that most other people don’t know about and that I never dared to take him to. These places offer impartial comfort and retain no memories that involve him. They will stay sacred to me forever.
But I also need a holiday. Well, actually if I am honest with myself I need to run away, even if it’s just for a while.
Logically I know full well that going to another country is not going to mean that my heart is mended, I know full well that I will be dragging my broken heart around all over the world and probably get charged extra luggage for all the crap I will be dragging around, but there is always that illogical part of me that is telling me that I must go anyway and that if I can run really fast the pain won’t be able to catch me, even for a blissful day here and there.
The next part of this recovery process is that I need to get rid of every photo and every item that remind me of him. It’s going to be one hell of a stall at the Camberwell Market I can tell you! I have more Tupperware than I know what to do with now that I don’t bother to cook for myself or someone else, not to mention all the stuff I bought for the children we were going to have or the house we were going to buy. It’s all going to go, every single last spec of it. It’s the closest thing to having memories deleted under hypnosis I figure so let the cleansing begin!
The next phase will be the contemplation of future relationship and dealing with the fact that I wanted a family. It was not until I had this relationship that I ever contemplated seriously the notion of having children and now that I am so desperate for them I am going to find this one a little hard to shelve.
I have contemplated freezing my eggs as an insurance policy for the future but then I decided this would be a mistake. I only every wanted to have children within a loving relationship and my commitment never to allow myself to unfold like that again means that this is out of the question. I also contemplated having children on my own but feel like I would be doing that for purely selfish reasons and that actually, with the inherit dysfunction in my family it would probably be a wise choice to stop the cycle and just stick to messing up dogs rather than people.
So future relationship? Well let’s face it; I have never been very successful at relationships in the past, so I guess I expect they will be short and more about physical satisfaction than anything else. But I realise that I have to throw myself out there again at some point and see what the world has to offer me.
At my age and with my history of never meeting anyone in the “regular” way I have decided to give speed dating another bash. If my previous experiences are anything to go by it will be simply a waste of a good night in on my own with a DVD – but it’s worth a shot, whenever I get the courage.
I think doing some travel might present more options. Given that when you are in another country you have more of a reason to talk to strangers because you don’t know anyone, and they tend to want to talk to you because you sound different – I think its more likely that my “getting over someone by getting under someone else” will occur whilst navigating the world with my broken heart.
I also like the concept of knowing that you can never have a relationship when you meet someone overseas, it makes the concept of protecting your heart one that is far easier to stick to – you know that the time spent is fleeting and meaningless.
Having said all of that, I am currently in no state to even contemplate this thought. I hate the idea of being touched by anyone at the moment and expect that it will be quite some time before that is likely to change.
I used to go t bed every night and snuggle in the arms of someone I thought I would be going to bed with for the rest of my life – now to contemplate doing that with someone else is just horrifying – but a reality I am trying to wrap my head around.
I guess the saddest thing of all for me and the thing that still fills me with regret is that I have lost my friend of many years. If only I could go back to that night at The Dirty Swan when this all started, when we made the horrible mistake of taking a friendship to the bedroom – if I could go back to that moment again I would, and I would do it all so differently.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Living with Jimmy
Within a matter of days my world had completely changed forever, this is the part of the story I am yet to tell, at the moment even speaking of it is just too much for me to cope with without breaking down into a million pieces, but the devastation was incredible and inconceivable.
So after moving out from my house completely, boxing everything up and moving everything but the essentials into storage I began the move from one house to the next with and mostly without my dogs, for close to three months, not knowing if the issue I had created would be sorted and not knowing if my relationship would get back on track and I would be allowed to go home.
Finally the realisation that neither of these was going to happen any time soon, and the relationship not at all after taking such a huge beating from months of separation and destructive communication, hit me like a tone of bricks and I rung my uncle in tears and asked him to come and move me from the serviced apartment I had been occupying for the last two weeks and take me to his house to live on a permanent basis in Glen Waverley, so far from anything I know, anyone I know, but at least I would have my family around me and my dogs with me and not have to move again.
When my father emptied most of my storage unit into my uncles house yesterday evening and I looked around at all the boxes that contain my life I broke down and cried and screamed and wanted the slate floor to open up and take me to the centre of the earths core where there is no possible way I could be hit by anymore hurt.
‘What have I done to my life!!!???’ I screamed, ‘after all these years of working so hard and pushing shit up a hill to find my piece of happiness and it comes down to this????!!!’, I was totally uncontrollable ‘when is it my time to have some happiness??? When????!!! What did I ever do to anyone to have this be the way my life is no??!!’.
My father and my uncle both looked on while I screamed and yelled and neither of them said a word. They both looked at me as if they knew what I was going through and they knew this feeling well, as they have both been through it. My fathers eyes were sad, he realised, as I did in that moment that there is no escaping who you are and what you are born into and in tern where that will lead you.
I come from a long line of hard working, determined people with solid working class roots. My grandmother would always say that it was important to keep your house clean, yourself well groomed and no matter what was going on in your life you just get up every day and you go to work and you don’t let whatever the universe is throwing at you stop you from just getting by.
My family, despite their hard work and determination have never had the opportunity to enjoy anything or live the lives they should have had, I was going to change all of this. Bitter divorces, drug and alcohol abuse and general lack of financial management have resulted in them just getting by, never holidays, no travel, no getting to experience the world and oh how I wanted to change this.
I have not had a holiday in more than 8 years. I have travelled overseas briefly on my honeymoon the once and that’s it. Selling my house and freeing me from the restrictions of this was going to change all of that. I was going to see the world, live a bit, love a lot someone I was excited to start a family with and share every special moment of that with and to really enjoy life and living and not just get by.
But it was this moment last night when I realised that this is not my destiny, this is not where I have come from or what is in my future, you just can’t change you who are. But you can accept it, get up every day, go to work well groomed and change your hopes and dreams to fit your reality, and this in itself is how you find acceptance and piece of mind, and perhaps at one stage then you might think about smiling again.
So after moving out from my house completely, boxing everything up and moving everything but the essentials into storage I began the move from one house to the next with and mostly without my dogs, for close to three months, not knowing if the issue I had created would be sorted and not knowing if my relationship would get back on track and I would be allowed to go home.
Finally the realisation that neither of these was going to happen any time soon, and the relationship not at all after taking such a huge beating from months of separation and destructive communication, hit me like a tone of bricks and I rung my uncle in tears and asked him to come and move me from the serviced apartment I had been occupying for the last two weeks and take me to his house to live on a permanent basis in Glen Waverley, so far from anything I know, anyone I know, but at least I would have my family around me and my dogs with me and not have to move again.
When my father emptied most of my storage unit into my uncles house yesterday evening and I looked around at all the boxes that contain my life I broke down and cried and screamed and wanted the slate floor to open up and take me to the centre of the earths core where there is no possible way I could be hit by anymore hurt.
‘What have I done to my life!!!???’ I screamed, ‘after all these years of working so hard and pushing shit up a hill to find my piece of happiness and it comes down to this????!!!’, I was totally uncontrollable ‘when is it my time to have some happiness??? When????!!! What did I ever do to anyone to have this be the way my life is no??!!’.
My father and my uncle both looked on while I screamed and yelled and neither of them said a word. They both looked at me as if they knew what I was going through and they knew this feeling well, as they have both been through it. My fathers eyes were sad, he realised, as I did in that moment that there is no escaping who you are and what you are born into and in tern where that will lead you.
I come from a long line of hard working, determined people with solid working class roots. My grandmother would always say that it was important to keep your house clean, yourself well groomed and no matter what was going on in your life you just get up every day and you go to work and you don’t let whatever the universe is throwing at you stop you from just getting by.
My family, despite their hard work and determination have never had the opportunity to enjoy anything or live the lives they should have had, I was going to change all of this. Bitter divorces, drug and alcohol abuse and general lack of financial management have resulted in them just getting by, never holidays, no travel, no getting to experience the world and oh how I wanted to change this.
I have not had a holiday in more than 8 years. I have travelled overseas briefly on my honeymoon the once and that’s it. Selling my house and freeing me from the restrictions of this was going to change all of that. I was going to see the world, live a bit, love a lot someone I was excited to start a family with and share every special moment of that with and to really enjoy life and living and not just get by.
But it was this moment last night when I realised that this is not my destiny, this is not where I have come from or what is in my future, you just can’t change you who are. But you can accept it, get up every day, go to work well groomed and change your hopes and dreams to fit your reality, and this in itself is how you find acceptance and piece of mind, and perhaps at one stage then you might think about smiling again.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Heartbreak Hotel 3
So now, almost 6 months down the tract from that beautiful and happy day in December I find myself here and trying to work out how this happened.
During the Christmas period I took a bit of time off work for the first time in many years and was at the tail end of a hard slog to settle my Grandfathers Estate and was aware that at some point I would need to grieve properly for this loss but hasn’t has the time or the willingness to do this just yet, not properly anyway, grief is a funny thing like that, you can miss someone on a daily, weekly basis etc even every second, which I do and I did, but when someone dies those feelings exist but the true grief comes later when the total and complete realisation that they are actually gone sets in – this is what I hadn’t had time to do.
I spent some time on my own during this little hiatus over the summer period, much of it was at my house when I was there doing bits and pieces of renovations to it and I suddenly realised that this house represented to me so much more than what it should.
I started to reflect on my life and the things that I had done to make myself financially secure and the sacrifices I have made in order to make that happen. I had a mortgage before I left Uni, built a house, like actually we built much of the house ourselves (my ex-husband and I), this took two years, we lived there for 3 years and never slept in it once when it was actually completed. We managed to put the last coat of paint on and do the very last of the building before we moved out and moved to the little house we had bought in Abbotsford, leaving all that hard work behind for some tenants.
The plan was great, we would now renovate the house in Abbotsford and we had an investment property and two great incomes and then one day he walked in and said he was leaving.
We sold the house to the tenants for a great price which meant I could afford to keep my little piece of paradise in Abbotsford, my saving grace, my security and my safe place.
But after many years there over this past Christmas period I started to realise that it was because of this house I was and had done for a long time made the choices I had made.
Travel was something I had no alternative but to sacrifice, a holiday was completely out of the question, time off work means no pay so saving for a holiday means having to save for the repayments on the house for that period of time as well, and not that this would have been impossible but with a fairly active social life and a serious addiction to shoes and collecting nice clothes it was never going to happen.
I was scared shitless when I thought of selling my house. This concept flew in the face of every working class value that was instilled in me since the time I can recall, financial security and home ownership are the most important and critical things one can achieve and the only way I knew I could break the cycle of fear that has prevented the rest of my family from travelling and living their lives the way they wanted to was to throw caution to the wind and just go ahead and do it – to hell with the consequences I decided I wanted to see the world and be free from my house making my decisions for me.
With that I put the house on the market. I only just managed to sign the contact with the real estate agent, my hands were shaking so much and I could hardly breathe. But I did it. The sign went up and people started coming in.
The boyfriend and I had been looking for a house that was big enough for both of us for about 12 months, but it would be fair to say that I lived at his place anyway throughout most of this time and just before my house went on the market he asked me to move into his house even though we had not been able to find something bigger and more appropriate for two big personalities and a couple of crazy dogs, so we made it official and I moved in.
My plan was actually just to look for somewhere to rent after my house was sold, I thought I would stay local and possibly look for a short term lease that when it ended would let me travel a bit without having to pay rent while I was away, but I wanted to live with the boyfriend and given that I was there all the time anyway it made sense. We were always happier when we were together than apart even for one night so it seemed sensible to just suck up the fact that it was going to be hard with the lack of space, my shoes would just have to live with it.
The day of the sale of my house was perfect weather wise, 25th March, 11am and a huge crowd. Great I thought. I stocked the fridge with Moet and waited out the back shaking like a leaf when the Auction was on.
When it was over and I got a better price that I could ever have imagined I slammed down a few too many champers and took the pen in my shaking hand and signed the contract of sale. The house was no longer mine, it was gone, for someone else to breath life into it – but I was moving on and about to start a life with someone I loved with every speck of my sole and we were going to have the life I never thought in my wildest dreams I could have had, or even deserved, I didn’t know why, but he wanted me and this as much as I did. How did I get so lucky……….
During the Christmas period I took a bit of time off work for the first time in many years and was at the tail end of a hard slog to settle my Grandfathers Estate and was aware that at some point I would need to grieve properly for this loss but hasn’t has the time or the willingness to do this just yet, not properly anyway, grief is a funny thing like that, you can miss someone on a daily, weekly basis etc even every second, which I do and I did, but when someone dies those feelings exist but the true grief comes later when the total and complete realisation that they are actually gone sets in – this is what I hadn’t had time to do.
I spent some time on my own during this little hiatus over the summer period, much of it was at my house when I was there doing bits and pieces of renovations to it and I suddenly realised that this house represented to me so much more than what it should.
I started to reflect on my life and the things that I had done to make myself financially secure and the sacrifices I have made in order to make that happen. I had a mortgage before I left Uni, built a house, like actually we built much of the house ourselves (my ex-husband and I), this took two years, we lived there for 3 years and never slept in it once when it was actually completed. We managed to put the last coat of paint on and do the very last of the building before we moved out and moved to the little house we had bought in Abbotsford, leaving all that hard work behind for some tenants.
The plan was great, we would now renovate the house in Abbotsford and we had an investment property and two great incomes and then one day he walked in and said he was leaving.
We sold the house to the tenants for a great price which meant I could afford to keep my little piece of paradise in Abbotsford, my saving grace, my security and my safe place.
But after many years there over this past Christmas period I started to realise that it was because of this house I was and had done for a long time made the choices I had made.
Travel was something I had no alternative but to sacrifice, a holiday was completely out of the question, time off work means no pay so saving for a holiday means having to save for the repayments on the house for that period of time as well, and not that this would have been impossible but with a fairly active social life and a serious addiction to shoes and collecting nice clothes it was never going to happen.
I was scared shitless when I thought of selling my house. This concept flew in the face of every working class value that was instilled in me since the time I can recall, financial security and home ownership are the most important and critical things one can achieve and the only way I knew I could break the cycle of fear that has prevented the rest of my family from travelling and living their lives the way they wanted to was to throw caution to the wind and just go ahead and do it – to hell with the consequences I decided I wanted to see the world and be free from my house making my decisions for me.
With that I put the house on the market. I only just managed to sign the contact with the real estate agent, my hands were shaking so much and I could hardly breathe. But I did it. The sign went up and people started coming in.
The boyfriend and I had been looking for a house that was big enough for both of us for about 12 months, but it would be fair to say that I lived at his place anyway throughout most of this time and just before my house went on the market he asked me to move into his house even though we had not been able to find something bigger and more appropriate for two big personalities and a couple of crazy dogs, so we made it official and I moved in.
My plan was actually just to look for somewhere to rent after my house was sold, I thought I would stay local and possibly look for a short term lease that when it ended would let me travel a bit without having to pay rent while I was away, but I wanted to live with the boyfriend and given that I was there all the time anyway it made sense. We were always happier when we were together than apart even for one night so it seemed sensible to just suck up the fact that it was going to be hard with the lack of space, my shoes would just have to live with it.
The day of the sale of my house was perfect weather wise, 25th March, 11am and a huge crowd. Great I thought. I stocked the fridge with Moet and waited out the back shaking like a leaf when the Auction was on.
When it was over and I got a better price that I could ever have imagined I slammed down a few too many champers and took the pen in my shaking hand and signed the contract of sale. The house was no longer mine, it was gone, for someone else to breath life into it – but I was moving on and about to start a life with someone I loved with every speck of my sole and we were going to have the life I never thought in my wildest dreams I could have had, or even deserved, I didn’t know why, but he wanted me and this as much as I did. How did I get so lucky……….
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Heartbreak Hotel 2 - Christmas
So lets go back a bit to Christmas. The best Christmas I have ever had since the days when my Nan and Ted were alive and the whole family and some of the regular “orphans” would join us and we would pack into Nan’s little house, or outside, weather permitting of course and little Nan would be in the kitchen cooking up an absolute storm. The meal was always followed by Ted putting on the Santa hat and we would all sit around while he would take the presents out from under the tree and hand them, often throwing them in jest at the person for whom they were addressed.
These were happy days, booze filled days and nights would follow with dancing and singing and the odd argument but my Nan had a way of being the glue that made that damaged family stick together for many years and when her dementia set in we tried to continue the tradition until the bitter end.
I had taken over most of the responsibility by this stage for organising and getting everyone together and doing the cooking and buying all the gifts. I was determined to make the last few Christmas’ she was alive memorable, even if she didn’t remember five minutes ago.
This was the first Christmas without either of them and I was emotional and upset in the lead up to the event.
The boyfriend decided that we would hold it at “our house” although I had not officially moved in and still had my own house I was there 6 nights out of 7 if not more anyway and we both became quite excited at the prospect of having the family over.
I must at this point specify that “the family” consisted of my uncle and my Dad, and of course my two dogs and my Dad’s dog Billy. The boyfriend doesn’t have any family in Melbourne. His daughter lives in QLD, father and stepmother and stepbrother who he has limited contact with are in Tassie and his mother and the rest of his family in England.
So it would be fair to say that there was not really going to be a huge swag of people over, just the four of us and three dogs. But I cooked up a storm anyway. I made everything just the way my Nan would have done it, it all tasted the same.
The day turned out better than either of us could have ever expected. After initial fears that it would rain, the weather was perfect, hot but perfect. The boyfriend acted as DJ, a job he takes a great deal of pride in and had been downloading all the crazy old Christmas tunes in the days before the event.
The food was consumed, gifts exchanged, although this is never an extravagant part of the day, but to my shock and surprise my sister left her mothers house not long after we had eaten and joined us for the party, my Dad and I were thrilled, we never get to see her on Christmas so the smile could not be wiped off his face, or mine.
Then my uncles son and daughter, my cousins and two of their friends joined and it felt like Christmas with family as it was before.
Later on we were joined by the poofs from next door, our great friends who often spend time with my family and the night was off and rocking! We danced and boozed and smoked joints and had more fun that what I ever thought would have been possible.
For that one night it no longer mattered to me that my family is dysfunctional and not “normal” in the traditional sense of the word “family”.
I don’t have a family home since my grandparents died. I don’t have somewhere to go where I feel safe and where the family gathers anymore, but the boyfriend declared that we hold Christmas at our house every year and that made me feel like we were building on something.
All these people around us that may or may not be related, but who all care for each other are the building blocks of a family, the thing I have always longed for and I finally felt like I had it, and I felt like he felt the same way.
These were happy days, booze filled days and nights would follow with dancing and singing and the odd argument but my Nan had a way of being the glue that made that damaged family stick together for many years and when her dementia set in we tried to continue the tradition until the bitter end.
I had taken over most of the responsibility by this stage for organising and getting everyone together and doing the cooking and buying all the gifts. I was determined to make the last few Christmas’ she was alive memorable, even if she didn’t remember five minutes ago.
This was the first Christmas without either of them and I was emotional and upset in the lead up to the event.
The boyfriend decided that we would hold it at “our house” although I had not officially moved in and still had my own house I was there 6 nights out of 7 if not more anyway and we both became quite excited at the prospect of having the family over.
I must at this point specify that “the family” consisted of my uncle and my Dad, and of course my two dogs and my Dad’s dog Billy. The boyfriend doesn’t have any family in Melbourne. His daughter lives in QLD, father and stepmother and stepbrother who he has limited contact with are in Tassie and his mother and the rest of his family in England.
So it would be fair to say that there was not really going to be a huge swag of people over, just the four of us and three dogs. But I cooked up a storm anyway. I made everything just the way my Nan would have done it, it all tasted the same.
The day turned out better than either of us could have ever expected. After initial fears that it would rain, the weather was perfect, hot but perfect. The boyfriend acted as DJ, a job he takes a great deal of pride in and had been downloading all the crazy old Christmas tunes in the days before the event.
The food was consumed, gifts exchanged, although this is never an extravagant part of the day, but to my shock and surprise my sister left her mothers house not long after we had eaten and joined us for the party, my Dad and I were thrilled, we never get to see her on Christmas so the smile could not be wiped off his face, or mine.
Then my uncles son and daughter, my cousins and two of their friends joined and it felt like Christmas with family as it was before.
Later on we were joined by the poofs from next door, our great friends who often spend time with my family and the night was off and rocking! We danced and boozed and smoked joints and had more fun that what I ever thought would have been possible.
For that one night it no longer mattered to me that my family is dysfunctional and not “normal” in the traditional sense of the word “family”.
I don’t have a family home since my grandparents died. I don’t have somewhere to go where I feel safe and where the family gathers anymore, but the boyfriend declared that we hold Christmas at our house every year and that made me feel like we were building on something.
All these people around us that may or may not be related, but who all care for each other are the building blocks of a family, the thing I have always longed for and I finally felt like I had it, and I felt like he felt the same way.
Heartbreak Hotel
So have you ever had that feeling that you are so happy and that there is nothing that can possibly make what you have bad and that despite the years and years of turmoil and personal pain and hardship that you have finally found happiness, not just with someone else but within yourself? But all the time you are scared to enjoy it too much or be seen to be too happy because you keep pinching yourself thinking that at any time when you least expect it the universe is going to smack you on the back of the head and say ‘wake up princess, this sort of happiness doesn’t happen to the likes of you!’…….whether you can relate to that feeling or not, this is what my fate has delivered over recent months. I correct that, a stupid mistake caught up with me and I can not necessarily put that down to fate, I guess the timing and the consequences could perhaps be put down to fate – but the rest of it was simply my own fault.
So after a long period of being alone and really not dating much and trying to get over what was not a good marriage, but nonetheless painful when it ended, I, as indicated in past blogs, hooked up with a long term friend. The relationship developed and I believe I fell in love for the first time, yep, really, in the whole 32 years of my life I don’t think I have actually ever been in love before.
When I looked at him I could see myself being with him until the end of time. I saw my entire future with him, and despite knowing that I could and can live without him, I simply didn’t want to. My choice was to let myself have these feelings and trust that I was not making a mistake, all the time praying that this decision would not backfire.
Well it did. Once again I find myself alone and that doesn’t bother me so much, the loss of someone who was not only my friend but the person I really believed I would be able to trust and cherish for eternity is now gone and I have to dig deep to find the strength to accept the loss and find happiness again.
So this is how my story starts. It will have to be told slowly because its so painful, but my goal will be to write a piece of it each day and perhaps in doing so can try and work out what happens to the rest of my life from here.
So after a long period of being alone and really not dating much and trying to get over what was not a good marriage, but nonetheless painful when it ended, I, as indicated in past blogs, hooked up with a long term friend. The relationship developed and I believe I fell in love for the first time, yep, really, in the whole 32 years of my life I don’t think I have actually ever been in love before.
When I looked at him I could see myself being with him until the end of time. I saw my entire future with him, and despite knowing that I could and can live without him, I simply didn’t want to. My choice was to let myself have these feelings and trust that I was not making a mistake, all the time praying that this decision would not backfire.
Well it did. Once again I find myself alone and that doesn’t bother me so much, the loss of someone who was not only my friend but the person I really believed I would be able to trust and cherish for eternity is now gone and I have to dig deep to find the strength to accept the loss and find happiness again.
So this is how my story starts. It will have to be told slowly because its so painful, but my goal will be to write a piece of it each day and perhaps in doing so can try and work out what happens to the rest of my life from here.
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