The relationship is over but the sex continues.

When I think about how long it has been since the "break up" (although there is no real or defined date) it seems like only yesterday in many ways but in others it feels like a lifetime, certainly because of how much I have changed since it happened, I feel like I am now a completely different person, I have completey different goals in life now, I don't have anything that even resembles the same life to what I had before or while I was with "him".

Then I realise that we have been apart for 16 months (although I am not sure that we actually broke up then, certainly I didn't think that we did until some time later on, although there has actually still never beenan actual break up) and when I think of it like that I realise just how impossible it is to go back.

Despite all this time, despite cutting off at various times for what seems like months but is probably in reality only weeks, there has basically been continual contact, sex has happened off and on. I guess if I really wanted no more contact I could make that happen, but I feel like I have tried and yet there is always something else....some other reason for us to exchange emails, text messages and if its not me making contact then its him.

I know he has been seeing someone and am not sure if that is still ongoing or how it is going but I don't care. I never wanted to be one of those women who slep with another womans boyfriend but quite frankly the world has thrown me so much shit that I no longer see the point in maintining moral standards, and trying to treat others the way I would have them treat me, nobody else seems to be playing by those rules as far as I can see I no longer feel like there is a need for me to either.

Whenever we have been together since we have not actually been together anymore, and especially anything recently, there has really been nothing, just sex, it has been good, it always is with him but it has not been great not exceptional and certainly nothing I thought about the next day. People would ask if I told them why I continue to do it with him, but I don't tell people anyway and if I did I would say that I just need to have sex from time to time, don't we all!!???!!

Recently this was diferent. Not different in a "lets get back together way", different in that he was more "him" again. The sex was mind blowing and was more the way it was when we were together, amazing and completely remarkable every time. We hugged and kissed and slept and talked and laughed. Yes, I laughed, like I have not laughed in over a year, the way he always made me laugh.

He always made me laugh, even when we were just friends I always knew that being with him I would laugh myself stupid all night and would be able to be my true self, then when we were together it was, for me anyway, a complete and total pleasure to do anything and everything with him there, he could turn the most mundane task into something funny and enjoyable - all I had to do was to think of him when we were apart and I would smile, and often laugh out loud at things that he said or did or stuff we did together. I felt relaxed and truely happy (I thought) with him - if I only knew what was to come.....

It was completely wonderful to be with him recently and yet sad at the same time. I no longer hate him. I no longer hold any resentment or anger towards him for anything and everything that happened, but there is a finality about what I feel and the whole situation that we have are in now that makes me feel sad, at times, only when I let myself.

But it is sad because there is certainly that feeling of even though it feels so right to be with him because I am completely myself and feel so "at home" I know it can never be again. Cue the music - Cher, If I could Turne Back Time!!

I worry for him. He seems sad and lost in a way and I still enjoy being with him and if I am truthful with myself I can say that I certainly still love him, but not in the way that I thought I once did and even though I have thought for some time that I never did love him at all, I guess I can still say that I do not know what it feels like yet to be "in love" with someone, I admit that for some time I thought I was with him but I know that was not the case now, I just got the feelings of loving someone in my life, a friend, confused with romantic feelings of being in love. But I know those feelings were never recipricated which I think they need to be to be truely in-love wit someone and when I think about what I gave up an what I went through because I thought he felt the same way, I must be honest and say that I am a little annoyed that he was not honest with me about his feelings and the fact that he never really wanted anything with me long term, he certainly could have saved me a great dea of money, trouble and heartache.

Stupidly though, there is a part of me that still wants to make him happy, I want to make him healthy, to cook good meals and to make his life easier and to be there when he comes home to have dinner made and to make his evening pleasurable - in any way that he wants it, but I know that when I tried that before, although I competely enjoyed it, he didn't care if I was there doing that or not, it never really mattered to him one way or another.

The sadness I feel comes from knowing that I can't turn back the hands of time. What I have with him now is just sex and that is all. That is all it can ever be. Those stollen moments when he doens't belong to someone else, and for that brief time he can be all mine. I am more that aware of how it is and I will never expect or desire anymore.

I would never be able to trust him again, not in a way that I would think he is being unfaithful, I always knew when I was with him and when I decided to be with him that he would be unfaithful at times, I acepted this as part of who he was and was willing to live with it because I knew that that the rest of him was so good that it was worth overlooking this flaw. But the inocent trust of thinking that he wouldn't hurt me like he did, that he wouldn't leave me on my own, homeless and broken and with things hanging and with no idea of what was going on in my life, no phone call, no communication, no break up, nothing.....just left, competely alone and broken. I never thought anyone could do that to someone. But it happened to me. I could never again trust anyone not to do that to me again, at some point eventually.

To be able to be with someone and to truly be happy I think I need to feel that the person would not leave when things get hard, that they would not throw me away like a dirty rag and not worry about what happens, that is something that I could never do to anyone but i have found that it is something others are willing and seemingly happy to do to me - that is the innocence of thinking that you have done enough to earn respect and care and even though I can get past this to forgive him, trust will never be there again and therefore happyness can never exist.

My resolve to remain on my own and to forgo any relationship remains, as does my decicion not to have children. I know that I can't be happy with anyone else but I can't have him and I can't be happy with him even if I could have him to myself, so I am content to share him. All I have is the time that he gives me, the time that we have together which is fun, where I get to laugh again, enjoy him and know that nothing will ever come of it.

The Sunday Roast - and the meaning of life

The Sunday Roast was always a fairly serious tradition in the Dalgleish household, well probably not so much in the household I grew up in but certainly my grandparents house, which for me essentially represented the "family home". We (my Dad, my sister and I) would always go down to Nan's for the event. During the day we would have watched the football on the TV in the afternoon in the lounge room while Nan would prepare the veggies in the kitchen from where she could see the TV, and certainly hear it, and would provide a running commentary that would make the paid professionals look like armatures.

There were cheers and insults and arguments about umpires calls that would make the most seaworthy sailors hair curl. The dogs would generally retreat to the safe confines of the floor under the dinning table provided and would make their way out when the 6pm channel nine news started at the exact time that dinner was served.....and it had better be at 6pm on the dot or my grandfather (Ted) would be sure to start wearing a hole in the footpath down the side of the house from pacing with complete frustration that dinner was not ready on time.

Now my grandparents are gone and there is no longer a family tradition of the Sunday roast, I find myself missing it very much. But things are different now. There is no family to speak of other than my Dad and my sister and they seem disinterested at best in continuing the tradition. So when I was with the ex I made a point of making it our tradition and to make it special. I would always ask my sister but she would decline and my father would come during the week and pick up a few meals I had made with the left overs, but the meal was always a lovely time for the ex and I. The end of a long and hard weekend and a chance to spend some time together on the couch.

I find myself now missing both of these scenarios. So much that I actually often still make the Sunday roast. Nobody eats it. Except my Dad, he comes during the week to pick up his meals for the week and I always prepare a couple of roast dinners for him. But there is no longer a tradition. No longer a time shared while eating a meal, and no longer a partner or a family to share it with.

Thinking about this makes me sad. Having no capacity to change it makes me feel sad as well but mainly disappointed. Disappointed with my choices, the way my life has turned out and mostly sad that I won't have the opportunity to have that in my life again, it was something I always enjoyed. But I never feel that I should have cherished those moments more because I loved every second I ever spent with my family, in the days when we were together and every meal I ever made for my ex was made with a huge amount of love, enjoyment and pleasure, as I cherished every second we were together, even though I now know that what I was living was a complete fabrication.

Living alone and knowing that I will always be alone and not have a family or a partner presents its challenges. Waking up alone becomes easier as the time goes by, even that thought in the moment upon waking that you are alone and will forever be waking up alone, becomes easier and tends not to be given the same recognition that it once did, when the gaping hole in you're bed was a reminder of another failed relationship, in these times it takes time before you start to sleep in the middle of the bed again, you still leave one side of the bed vacant, just in case things were to ever change. When you get to the point where you sleep in the middle, or roll around during the night you know that hope has been lost that you will share the bed again and you begin to wonder how you ever did share it to begin with!

Going to bed is much the same. Often it actually feels quite wonderful and indulgent to go to bed at 7.30pm every night and know that sleep is only moments away, no chatter, no sex, no disturbances to keep you awake, there is certainly something liberating about it.

It is also liberating to eat what you want, to forget about exercising! Why would you even bother watching what you eat or staying in shape if you no longer seek to please or to find a mate!? What is the point of maintaining a healthy lifestyle if you will not be around to watch family grow and to be a part of a family in some way, you begin to realise that financially and emotionally you have not built enough to be able to live that long anyway!

Smoking can be enjoyed completely guilt free! Drinking can be embraced and personal grooming requires no more than the occasional shave, occasional wash of the hair and no youth retaining products, no expensive hairdressing visits and certainly no purchasing of make up, clothes, shoes or accessories.

There is no longer a need to save for the future, to worry about buying property and paying off a mortgage, filling up superannuation and becoming "financially stable" - these things are the realm of those who expect and plan for family life, for a long and healthy existence and for a retirement with a partner and family, but when these things are not longer an option or a possibility to you, the need no longer exists.

There is something extremely liberating about knowing that all you really need to do is to work to live for the now. You don't need to have financial goals and targets for the future, as long as the rent is paid and the lights are on that's all that really matters!

And that is where we start to wonder what on earth we were meant to be doing here in life?? The old "meaning of life question".....was it just that I was put here to enjoy certain things, to form certain views, to hold certain values, to have hopes and dreams and wants and desires only to find that the universe has other plans? Other ways it wants me to be spending my time??

To be honest I am not sure yet. I don't know what the meaning of "life" is, I certainly have not found the meaning of my own life, what I am meant to be doing with it, whilst I know that I am not to have the traditional family, partner and children thing going on, and can be completely certain about that, I am not certain about what it is that I AM meant to be doing.........the search continues.