At counselling today, we talked about Phil and a little about Tom. On the way to counselling, Tom had thrown a huge spanner in the works. He’d given me a lift as my car is still broken, and suddenly he asked my opinion on the time we had sex a couple of months ago. I…
Category: Becoming
Epiphany
I booked tickets to take the children to the Harry Potter Studio Tour for Rosie’s upcoming birthday. Annie and I haven’t even seen the films, so tonight we started with the first one. Of course, I can’t just watch and enjoy; I had to start thinking, philosophising and questioning. I think my philosophical nature is…
Struck
At today’s counselling session, I really wanted to talk about Phil, relationships, lack of work and direction, but the counsellor wanted to continue what we’d started with Mum last time, so we chatted about that the whole time. I’m glad we did. She said she’s seen people before whose childhoods haven’t been as bad as…
Barbaric
While dropping Annie at Tom’s today, Tom and I had a conversation about his ex-girlfriend. He said he doesn’t know what he was ever doing with her – looks-wise. I said that I was surprised he was saying that, given how he’d been so quick to criticise my relationship with Phil based on Tom’s perception…
Understanding
After putting off seeing Mum and being two weeks late for Mother’s Day, I finally went round there today. I thought she would be sulky, moody and questioning why I hadn’t been over, but she was none of those things; she was just pleased to see us. We stayed a couple of hours, and it…
Butterflies
Tomorrow, we’re going to the Puu Isles for five days. Tom wanted Annie to visit family, but she wouldn’t go without me, so we’re all going. Despite not really wanting to go until now, I now can’t wait. I just want to get away from here, and to get away from my own mind. I’m…
Darkness
I’m really restless and stressed this morning. There is a workman here replacing the broken gate and that makes me uptight. I know as soon as he leaves I’ll be able to relax again. I woke at 6.30 am because I was stressed about him arriving, even though he wasn’t coming until gone 9 am….
Judgement
I woke feeling much better than I have for the last few weeks. I felt positive, balanced and centred ~ a state the relationship anxiety course leader calls ‘when your heart is open instead of closed down through fear.’ I was energised and ready to tackle the housework that’s been building all week – a…
Bittersweet
My Dad rang this morning; he said he wanted to see how I was, as I’d been on his mind the last few days. He wondered if everything was okay. The cynical part of me thinks he saw something that I posted on Facebook last night, and he’s turning it around so it seems that…
Single
I started the relationship anxiety course today. Only four minutes into the video, something struck me that hadn’t before. To be with Phil, I needed to let go of being single, and I never did that. In fact, I clung desperately to my single life, convincing myself that it was what I wanted, that it…
Reminiscing
I couldn’t settle last night. I was restless because Phil had texted me in the afternoon and was being sexually suggestive. The messages stopped abruptly at 6 pm, mid-conversation, which means he chose to spend the night with Antonia. Strangely, I don’t feel jealous at all; I just feel very uneasy with it all. All…
Flaws
Never has it been clearer to me that I need to do some major work on myself. I’m taking a long, hard look at myself this week and seeing that I am actually completely unfulfilled in almost every area of my life. I feel empty much of the time, and I lack intimate relationships because…
Mummied
Two weeks ago, Amelia met a boy. They’ve been texting each other since, and last weekend they met for lunch and went to the cinema. Today Fin met Amelia after work, and they came back here. Fin is lovely. He’s polite, hard-working and confident. The only problem is that Fin has opened my eyes to…
Unconventional
I went to Karen’s this morning for a quick catch-up. During our chat, she said I am really unconventional and that I probably always have been, and that she thinks I will become more so the older I get. She says she really sees me changing lately, that I no longer seem to care about…
Bewildered
I went for breakfast with Karen and Cheryl today. We chatted about friends and their values, which prompted me to say that I felt I’d changed so much in the last year or so, whereas before I was really accepting, understanding and forgiving, I now am the opposite. If a friend expresses something that I…
Explore
I’ve always regarded myself as a homebody, someone who is happiest to be at home, doing my own thing and finding pleasure in pottering around the house, finding little things to do. I can’t deny it hasn’t brought me a lot of pleasure over the years, but today I feel something different, and it feels…
Friend
On the first day of the year, for one of my answers in a family questionnaire, I wrote that Phil was my best friend. Sitting here now, thinking about our relationship, the one that has evolved in recent months, I realise that’s not true at all. Phil was my best friend when we were in…
Self-contained
More and more I’m starting to realise that I’m a selfish person, but the realisation isn’t actually bothering me. There was a time when this would have really upset me; I’d have denied it and done anything I could to prove myself to be selfless, but now I just don’t really mind or care. Is…
Synchronicities
I’ve had a lot of indecision over the last year or two about my career, partly because of not feeling good enough – which I’m ignoring even if it still tries to remind me. Partly it was also because there are so many things I love doing – that I want to do and that…
Balanced
2013 was one of my most challenging years to date, with Rosie’s operation, her extended and very worrying time in intensive care and her month-long recovery, followed soon after by Amelia being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and spending what seemed like half the year sleeping. That has put added pressure on her at school in…
Centred
Phil texted me tonight. He said he’d realised that the last two years he’d been entirely selfless, that he gave nothing but love and that what he had back from me was nothing but selfishness. He said he no longer trusted me, and that I had hurt him so deeply over the last two years….
Repercussions
I feel drained. Not because of Christmas or all the work that goes with it, but because of Tom. The more time I spend in his company, the more exhausted I feel. He’s was here most of Christmas Eve including sleeping over that night so he could see Annie open her presents. He was here…
Pros
I never thought I’d find myself in a situation like this. It seems that I have four men interested in me. This didn’t happen in my teens, my twenties or my thirties, but it appears it’s happening now unless I’m reading all the signs wrong. Tom seems to be really affectionate and nice to me…
Weakening
Phil messaged me for the first time since he ended things. I can’t help thinking he did it because he knows it’s my child-free weekend coming up and he’s hoping I’ll weaken. He sent me a picture and words he found which he thought I’d like; we both know it was an excuse. I’ve been…
Resistance
I’m having a big lesson in letting go today. For the last three years, I have held on to bags and bags of stuff that we no longer use or want to put on eBay and get some money for, supposedly, but the trouble with that is I hate eBay. I hate the time it…
Other
Yesterday continued to be a complete washout. I spent the evening at home feeling grumpy and unable to occupy myself. I flitted around between TV channels and crap on the internet before giving up and going to bed at about 10.30 pm. This morning I woke up full of rage, and I don’t know why….
Half
If ever I needed an answer to my many questions, it is now. If ever there is such a thing as Divine Timing, it is in this moment. My dilemma with Phil. My challenging year. My stresses and my ever-changing mind. Last night on Facebook, Theo popped up. It’s not the first time this has…
Ripple
I was watching the news this morning when the reporter talked about a crash that occurred in the early hours of this morning. A man had driven into two girls aged fourteen and sixteen. The fourteen-year-old had died. The sixteen-year-old was in hospital in a critical condition. My very first thoughts were of Amelia and…
Contribute
I had a look at a forum I used to use a few years ago, and a strange feeling washed over me reading everyone’s threads. Firstly, it felt comfortable – I missed the chats I used to participate in. Secondly, reading through threads of people I used to know fairly well, I realised how much…
Urge
When I left Tom, I started finding my truth. My thoughts recently are the culmination of three years of finding myself, finding my truth, and now starting to live it. Events over the last few days have powered these thoughts further. My friend Viv confided in me that there is a man who is in…
Move
I’ve noticed that my periods have changed recently, and I’m sure I’m in, or moving towards, peri-menopause. My last period started on the eleventh of September; I spotted for two days, then stopped. Four days later, I bled properly, then spotted for a couple more days. However, I think I ovulated last weekend – pain…
Directions
Susie and I had lunch together, and I had a surreal moment of realisation. Firstly, Susie and I have lost the connection we had. Whereas we used to spend hours together most days, and then still ring each other up later to talk more, today we sat for ninety minutes and soon ran out of…
Plodding
I feel like I’m in limbo; maybe I’ve felt that way for the last few years. When I think back over my diary entries, all I see is a mundane life, and that saddens me a little. I have no tales of wild adventures, travelling, or meeting new and interesting people. My life consists of…
Monopolised
Tom joined us for a barbecue today. Later, my dad popped round for a visit. Dad didn’t ask where the kids were – in their rooms – and he didn’t even attempt to say hello to them when they came downstairs shortly afterwards. Tom offered him food from the barbecue and then sat with us…
Escort
As I lay in bed and sleep wouldn’t come – as usual – I started thinking about what I would do if I had a lot of disposable income.
Out
Last night, I went out with my friend Sam, and it did me so much good. Although I’m suffering slightly today, mainly from tiredness, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. I love our nights out together, although they haven’t happened for such a long time. Most of all, I’m feeling something that I…
Foundation
I spent some time reading diaries I’d written so long ago when Josh was born, and I realised what a good mum I was. Considering I was only seventeen when I had him, and given how difficult the circumstances were with my mum and dad, then later with Danny, and being a single parent, I did…
Offending
I’ve spent all day feeling angry. I’m angry at Phil, and I’m angry with someone I met recently and befriended, but who has already abused the friendship. Most of all, I’m angry at myself for allowing all this to happen in the first place. I’m so naive, and I’m too trusting. I always see the…
Surface
I don’t think Phil is genuine, not the way I once did. More and more, it feels as though he’s created a version of himself that he thinks I want, and every now and then, the real him slips through. Those moments make me question everything. A friend messaged me tonight to ask how I…
Mojo
I’ve lost my mojo. I’ve spent the past few days searching everywhere I can think of, but it’s nowhere to be found. I suppose when some of your last blog posts are called Unravelling, Survive, and Alone, it’s inevitable that the next one in the sequence will be about lost mojos. Maybe I need to retrace…
Unravelling
My aunt Nicola, who had special needs, spent a lot of her time knitting squares. The squares would then be sewn together to make blankets. Many of her squares had little mistakes – a small hole here or there, a big hole sometimes. When that happened, my Nan would unravel the squares and help her…
Sunday
Sundays are my nothing days. Seemingly, it looks as though there’s nothing much going on. I tend to either stay in bed all day with a book, a notepad or my laptop, or I do the same on the sofa. In the summer, I may venture to the garden, but still the nothingness remains. Inwardly,…
Deep
When I have a counselling session that goes quite deep, it can leave me feeling a little bit like I’m in shock for a day or two afterwards. It leaves me drained and exhausted.
Vocation
I recently read The Five Love Languages, and within three chapters, I understood my relationship history, what made some relationships work for as long as they did and why they had ultimately failed. I worked out that to feel loved, I need physical touch and I need quality time with my partner. Those men who…
Autonomy
I often notice how events in my life tie together, even though they may appear to be very different at first glance. I thought I’d email my friend Esme this morning and see how she is after a recent confession that she ‘knows’ she is going to die. Before emailing her, I did some research…
Observation
Annie received a butterfly observatory for her birthday recently. The caterpillars arrived a couple of days ago, and we’ve been watching them grow, excitedly anticipating the chrysalis stage and then their emergence. I feel like I have begun my development into my chrysalis stage of life too. Realising the career direction I want to go…
Ghosts
I’m generally not one of those people who tries to ignore change or keep life exactly as it’s always been. On the whole, I try to embrace change. I realised I’ve been resisting it for months despite the internal niggles to do something. It’s almost two years since we moved into this house and it…
Self
I don’t want a relationship. I’ve only been single for nineteen months. Since I was fourteen, I’ve only been single for two years and two months in total. That’s twenty-two years I’ve spent in relationships and only just over two years that I haven’t. I am just not ready to give up on my dream…
Confirmation
Tom was rude to me again today. I thought I’d see if he wanted to pick Annie up from school with me. He got angry over the silliest thing, bared his teeth at me like a dog, snatched a piece of paper out of my hand, and practically spat his words out at me. But…
Versus
During my last counselling session, Jane wanted me to explore whether Tom is kind or unkind to me. I decided to look at our most recent interactions. Kind Unkind
Gift
What better day than Christmas Day to have a massive realisation that you really feel deep within, one that resonates so much that you can’t ignore it. A day of loving, of giving. Today, to myself. Just like last year, Tom came to stay on Christmas Eve as well as tonight, to spend Christmas with…
Link
At my counselling session today, we discussed something that’s become a bit of a problem recently – my use of the internet. My eyes open, I go downstairs, and almost every day I turn on my laptop before I do anything else. Some mornings we’re late for school because I’ve spent time on there. Often…
Attraction
Eleven months have passed since I moved into this house and away from Tom. I don’t even want to think about where I was, emotionally, this time last year. Certainly not where I am now – enjoying the peace of a childfree, sunny and warm Sunday afternoon, feeling relaxed and content. It got me thinking…