The New Year

Well it has been some time since my last installment - I blame that on more upheaval in my life and the presence on the most destructive depression I have ever experienced which rendered me unable to find the appropriate words for basically anything.
After moving out of my uncles house - another disaster for another blog - I moved in with a mutual friend of mine and the ex's. The thing that made this ok really was that firstly he was largely a last resort and also this bloke hates the ex, always has, always has, although has managed to socialise with him and be civil, but I knew when I rung him and told him I was really desperate for somewhere to live because the relationship with the ex was over, he would help me. He did and I will be forever in his debt, even though it was not the best of living arrangements......again, another blog for another day.
So that makes 7 moves in 12 months........not bad for someone who hates moving and has a phobia of not having somewhere permanent to live and call home.
My 8th move came a week before Christmas. It happened suddenly and was all down to the shear tenacity and determination of my friend Geraldine who, whilst I was searching for rentals online one Friday afternoon after we had finished work. We spotted a place around the corner from her home and she rung, spoke to the agent (pretending she was me) and within 2 minutes we were out the door and on our way to look at the place. It was fantastic and perfect in every way. By the morning of the following Monday the house was mine with a large (but refundable) bond because of the 2 crazy dogs.
The move was frantic and crazy and due to the large house I was moving to, there was much that needed to be purchased, and yet a constant nagging feeling that I wished I wasn't doing this because I had always thought I would eventually go "home".
We purchased furniture and organised movers and filled cars and trailers and within only a short time I had a new home. I was more than content to leave it at that and just let things sit in boxes and furniture be in places that looked silly, but Geraldine wouldn't have it. She organised the place and made it feel like home.
Christmas came and went without any fuss or anything to mention. It was filled with sadness and memories I would rather forget - and also the news of my dear friend Tim, also an ex from long ago who has been battling cancer, having less than 6 months to live. This was hard to handle but seemed not to be all that real just then.
He was tired and in terrible health, but the end seemed so much further away and there seemed to be so much more time - and actually, I just don't deal with this stuff very well and was happy enough to ignore it, at least for now, although I had my moments of 'everyone always leaves me' - and you know what - they seem to do just that!
So the time was spent mainly alone, thinking about all that I had lost and where I felt I 'really should be' in my life and who I should be with at this time when everyone else seemed to be so happy and I felt like I was just dead inside, and yet still full of the most horrific pain I had ever felt.
New Years Eve came and went after falling asleep on the couch at 10.30pm and missing the whole thing - I was pleased to have rolled myself a joint that would put a whole suburb to sleep for a week, so waking up the following day was actually a great deal less painful than having to sit there and watch the clock strike midnight on my own.
I watched a program earlier that day that recommended that even if you have no one to kiss on New Years Eve you should kiss your dog, because kissing in itself is good luck no matter who you kiss - I kissed my dogs when I woke up, but I do that everyday anyway and I am not sure that it has ever bought me that much luck - although it has made me extremely happy to do so as they never refuse kisses and are always happy to give and receive and they never hate you, even if you get drunk and forget to feed them every so often!
This period was pure misery for me. I have never wanted anything else in my life but a happy family. I have never had it, not really anyway, although Nan always did her best and those days will always be happy ones for me - but the only really happy Christmas I ever had was last year with the ex and the scraps of my family that still remain. It was blissful and truly filled with joy. A day I will honestly never forget.
I was upset in the lead up to Christmas about spending it once again, alone and someone said to me 'if you don't have a family, make your own' words that I am sure were meant to comfort and inspire but only served to sting even harder, because yes, that was the plan. We were meant to create a family, but that dream was over and at Christmas, it was more real that it had been before.
I knew that if we spent Christmas apart that there would be no way of going back. No way of recovering what I thought we had, at some point. It hurt that he didn't care about that and didn't care about the fact that I had always put so much into Christmas - and that I would be on my own this year and that we would never spend a Christmas together again. Yes that hurt a great deal. More than the months apart.
The New Year bought for me a time of great reflection on the year that had proceeded. I thought about where I was and what I was doing 'this time last year' - a habit I really need to get out of - but one that also brings about a great learning experience, if you let it.
Last year was the year my life changed in ways that I could never have imagined. I sold my house, a thing more precious to me than life itself and when it was gone, I actually simply did not want to live anymore. I sold it and hung onto the dream of creating a family with a man I thought I loved and who I thought loved me, I believed that selling the house was a way of showing him that I was ready to commit, and ready to be with him without my retreat. I made a terrible financial mistake that caused us to have 'time apart' which was always going to be temporary and then, just became permanent, and I really am not sure when. A year when everything I thought I was and had worked to become suddenly became completely insignificant and completely turned upside down.
So with all that in mind, I did nothing but miss him. Everything about him. I missed his laugh, his eyes, his arms, his kiss and the complete and utter happiness that being with him bought me. It was not until later that I realised that I was still deluding myself about him and what that situation had delivered for me.