Blink !

Weird. Last post I was toying with the idea of tipping points (only I was misusing the phrase).

A "tipping point" (the proper version) is "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point" or "the concept that small changes will have little or no effect on a system until a critical mass is reached. Then a further small change “tips” the system and a large effect is observed"

Well my middle sister is up visting my parents for Christmas. She bought a book to read on the train, and passed it on to me to read. It's called "Blink" and lo and behold it is the same author who wrote a book about Tipping Points !


Blink
and the other book on tipping points

The "Blink" book refers to some work by Gottman on the mathematics of relationships - by analysing short tapes of a couple in conversation, it is possible to predict whether they will still be together in 15 years time.

"couples where the dominant mode of interaction includes criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling are very, very likely to divorce. "

i.e. it is not about *what* they discuss, how much they appear to agree or disagree

And it got me thinking about the LCT (big surprise). When we talked about job hunting, when all along he knew he had not quit his job in Sweden and would return to it - was it defensiveness or contempt ?

At the end of the summer he was going to see his son, and was supposed to be travelling by train. He rang me, to say that there were problems with the trains and he was hiring a car instead. After he left and I talked to the Other Woman, I found out he had taken some of his belonging down with him. This was a good couple of months before he left. It appears to have been planned, not spontaneous. Contempt ? Possibly. Could I have picked up on that ? Even if I could not have known why ?

a touch deprived...

and no that is NOT a typo - I do mean "i" not "a" !

I was pondering what to write about... I did wonder about tipping points - is anyone else aware of them ? When you know that there is the potential for something to happen, and its like being on a roller coaster rushing towards the point where either it will or it won't. And you either tip over into "it will" or you just sail past into "it won't". I guess if I surfed I might say it was like catching a wave... or not. That you can see the wave coming, prepare, but there is a precise point where it will either happen or it won't. (that is probably me misusing the concept of tipping points, but hey so what)

But then I figured it must just be me waffling :p

The other thought on my mind is how being single sometimes gets you into a situation where you don't get any physical contact with other people. Studies in primates have shown this causes all sorts of issues - to general physical and/or emotional well-being. No reason why it should be any different with us 'umans.

And before you start sniggering, its not about the s*x thing. This is purely about physical contact and can be completely platonic.

I guess if I had a dog or a cat, I could hold them. Pets are shown to lower blood pressure and so on...

I read Temple Grandin's book "Animals in Translation" a while back. She talks about how she used an adapted version of a cattle crush to help her deal with her autism. It is difficult to put yourself in the shoes of someone with autism, as their way of looking at the world is SO different. But I think I can vaguely understand how the contact of the crush would have helped. Perhaps she still had the need for physical contact but needed it to not be another person ?

Everything you own in the box to the left

There's a Beyonce song in the charts right now "Irreplaceable".

The chorus goes like this

"You must not know about me
You must not know about me
I could have another you in a minute
matter fact he'll be here in a minute - baby

You must not know about me
You must not know about me
I can have another you by tomorrow
So don't you ever for a second get to thinking you're irreplaceable"

She's just got rid of a guy who apparently has been cheating on her, and she wants "another you" ?? Did I miss something ? Can't this strong independent woman survive without a man ?

No, give me Gloria Gaynor and
I will survive any day !

a safe pair of hands....

Hmmmm

There is a safe zone when you are part of a couple. There are things you can do and say and you *know* people will not take them as having any serious intent because you are in a relationship.

Harmless flirting can be engaged in. (Please note this is NOT to say that all flirting is harmless). You can be quite close to someone without anyone else commenting, you can dance with a person without anyone (including that person) concluding that it is simply a form of public foreplay !

But when you are single, all that changes. And I've been not-single for so long I've forgotten the rules :(

This afternoon someone made a comment which makes me think that my normal happy friendly self may have to watch what I say and do. (It was a third person thing - so I am not too concerned, but it got me thinking)

I guess it takes us back to "When Harry met Sally" territory. You know, the whole "can men and women really just be friends ?" thing. Is being friendly to someone an indication of intent purely because they are the opposite gender ? Can I only be friends with the same gender, and have to either not talk to the opposite gender, or with the opposite gender I have to expect that they or an observer will assume that there is more to it than that ?

I'm kind of confused. If I meet new people, there will sometimes be a potential for one of those people to turn into a good friend, regardless of the context in which I met them. But that will only happen if you talk to them, get to know them. But if that person is male, and I talk to them and start to get to know them better, will they and/or other people assume there is more to it ?

Right now I feel more "Good Life" than "WHMS". In "Good Life" there was a line from Barbara "there are men, women, and Barbaras !". Thats how I feel, and expect to feel for a while. Kind of apart from the whole gender thing.

I guess I have to face up to that not being the reality. That I am single, and I am female. Ho hum.

break up songs

realised that while I was filling in the gaps, I ought to comment on "break up" sonds. Every break up seems to (in my experience) have a song related to it.

One of previous break ups happened just as Sinnead O'Connor had "Nothing Compares 2 U" out. It was in the days before downloads and CDs. I taped it and posted it to my ex to arrive 15 days after we split up. And that was a mututally agreed amicable split (we're still friends - despite sending him the song ;-) )

This time around, I already had tickets to see Kate Rusby shortly after he went. I was not sure whether to go, and what to do with the spare ticket, but my mother bravely volunteered to come along. During the set she played a song called "No Names", which tore right into me and had me sobbing in my seat. The refrain is "let me go now, let me go" and there are other lines

How it came to this, I'm not clear,
Long and lonely nights now I fear

and

We were drifting, year after year,
When we tried our best to fly, my dear

Its not that a break up song has to exactly describe your situation, how you feel etc. It just has to have that feel, that certain something that sums it up.

I emailed this break up track to LCT but to his work email rather than home - perhaps another of thise freudian slips - and have no idea if he ever recieved it as he has never replied.

T.E.A.R.

When this whole thing with the LCT leaving kicked off, I wrote an email. Something subconscious must have been going on as I mistyped the email address so he never got it. Anyway, it was about loss. I had found an interesting page

http://www.counselingforloss.com/article8.htm

And it talks about a grief model which goes like this:

T = To accept the reality of the loss
E = Experience the pain of the loss
A = Adjust to the new environment without the lost object
R = Reinvest in the new reality


A lot of this blog so far has been about just that process. Not one stage at a time, but elements of all of the TEAR model in any order.

Someone in the village who had a vaguely similar experience about a year ago was commenting that it was like giving up smoking. You know you are better off without it but you still miss it now and then. But with time the "now and then" becomes less often.

In a partnership you develop (well I do anyway) a habit of including the other person the whole time. That habit does not go away instantly but its purpose changes and becomes about accepting the reality and investing in the future. It becomes about closure (taking his name off things) rather than about a "going concern".

There are still things that shock and hurt. (Where DID he get the money to go to Portugal when he was always claiming to be so poor ?). But they are about remembering the pain, the loss, not about wanting him back. In some situations the sharp pain is followed by a moment of relief that I am not part of that any more.

(With horses we often talk about "remembered pain". I guess this is something similar).

It has been bugging me that I am aware of a continual ache. I have tinnitus - and it is something that is there all the time but I only notice at certain points in time. Well this ache is the same. Its like a "whole body" head ache.

It bugged me that to think it was the LCT behind the ache. But I think that it is NOT the LCT himself, but rather than deep deep feeling of loss. A loss of both a past that I thought was based on solif rock, but was actually based on the shifting sands of deception and lies. And also a loss of the future I thought we would have, that I now know was a phantom, a ghost, something that was never real (again because of the falsehood the present was based on).

Of course I am sad about that. Of course I am grieving. That is about the T and the E of the process. But that does stop me accepting it and moving on as well. I think I had this naive idea that I could do the first part and then it would be done. Unrealistic of me. More healthy to accept it for what it is - part of a process.

This is the right kind of TEAR.

a few words

well the reason I was wanting to post the other week was to put some words down... but now they seem a little trite, so I'm in two minds. This is about as subtle as a brick. But anyway, here goes

There is no loving in a lie
And no lying in love
There is no caring in deceipt
And no deceipt in caring
When there is falseness in the promise
The promise is all false
When you're pretending in the future
There's no future there at all

(from 01/12/06)

all work and no play

makes me very dull indeed :(

I've had problems logging in for the last week, which appear to be because I upgraded to IE7 and then subsequently deinstalled, and it has done something weird to my browser settings.

Serves me right. Then I had a cold which floored me for two days, and now I am working the weekend. Oh joy !

It is probably not such a surprise that I am feeling particularly "cup half empty".

I went to IKEA last night on the way back from work (it is a couple of stops round the city bypass from the site I was at). It was not a place I expected to have strong feelings about relating to LCT, but I did end up wanting to kick someone or something. And it was not just the normal "Ikea-effect". I think LCT under estimated big time how much of a wrench leaving Sweden was for me. So his continual harping on about going back, ad his subsequent return there, just rubbed salt into the wound. And his presence there *will* make it harder for me to visit. And of course IKEA at Christmas time has that definite Scandinavian feel - I stocked up on Glogg, Cider, Gifflar (yummy) and so on - so did give me a quick blast of bitter-sweet nostalgia :(

Driving home from work in the dark, and the radio is playing a chart list. Already Slade and the Pogues are in there (again) and it is not even the week before Christmas. Some Christmas songs have us all dancing but are actually so depressing and tragic....

"You took my dreams from me

When I first found you

I kept them with me babe

I put them with my own

Can't make it all alone

I've built my dreams around you "

full lyrics for "Fairytale of New York"

my dreams have all been shattered and it's hard work to build new ones. I mistakenly built *my* dreams around a lying cheating toerag, but then the Fairytale of New York has some lyrics for that as well

""You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot"

I couldn't have said it better myself.....