the wheel turns

LCT's mental health (and other) issues meant that for a long time there were parts of me that remained unexpressed (stifled even). When he left, I was left wondering if those parts of me were lost, gone, or there to be remembered, revived.

Fate seems to have conspired to remind me - by spinning the wheel to 20 years ago - as if to say "wake up girl - you're still all there !"

Now I just have to work out how to integrate a 20 years younger me into the now-me.

In the meantime, I spent some time working around the garden and realised something.

When the LCT left I was worried how I would cope - I had spent 11 years with a partner, 2 years at the end living with my folks - so for a long while had not had to maintain a job and house by myself. Not had to *be* by myself. But the strange thing is that I am getting *more* done now than I was when LCT was here and there was 2 of us to manage the same amount of work.

How can that be ? How can one person achieve more than two ? It only works out if one of the two was actually not doing an awful lot and was actually impeding the other. :sigh:

Not saying I've got it all sussed. Just got back from visiting a friend and decided I really have to get more organised. (The house I visited was *tidy* :D) Things are getting better here - but its a slow improvement. This week will be a bit mad - as I have a new boiler being installed. But that frees up more work - to get the new lights in the hall in place and get it decorated - which I have to organise.

So that's my next "big" task, along with minor tidying up as I go.

I also managed to do 30-40 mins in the garden a few days running and it made a big difference. Being back at work will slow that upslightly, but something (anything) is better than nothing.

ch...ch..ch...changes

It seems sayings are like buses, wait for one and a whole load come along ;)

I was looking for something on change (the "winds of change" one below) and found a whole load that interested me.

"Unless we change direction, we are likely to end up where we are going" (Chinese Proverb)

It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change (Charles Darwin)

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get (anonymous)

(And the one I was looking for: When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills - another Chinese proverb)

What I was wanting to talk about is how sometimes a small change can help you break a pattern, a habut, a "rut" you have become comfortable in.

This may be as simple as sleeping on the other side of the bed, crossing your arms (or legs) the "other" way. In my case it was an equally trivial thing - after a conversation about style of underwear (Bridget Jones's dilemma), I figured it would be interesring to try a style I have never tried before (being a function over form kind of person - plus for 11 years the only person who saw my underwear was the LCT).

Being newly single, there is that sudden thought that perhaps someone new, someone who has not known me for umpty years, might actually have an interest in my underwear :O The "slinky PJs" previously bought *were* symbolic and a step forwards - but that was more about ownership than wear. Could I take this a step further and not only be the kind of person who *owns* slinky PJs, but also the kind of person who *wears* more than one style of underwear. Variety is the spice of life n all that.

Interesting how much that small change affects a person....

I'll have to have a think about what other ruts I have got too comfortable in for no logical reason ;)

honesty - six months on

The other woman said, in that fateful phonecall, "all I ever asked from him was honesty".

I felt it was ironic as that seems to have been one of the last things either of us got from him. In fact one of the few points of honesty I can pinpoint is when he said (just before he left) "I can't guarantee I won't lie to you again". Which is an understatement, but honest, as he knew the scale of lies he was maintaining - the ones I didn't know about at that stage, which made the others (the ones I knew at that point) pale into insignificance in contrast.

Well it is six months since the LCT left. Right to the end he was saying "just give me six months and I will be back and fully committed to you". Now where do I start with that one ! For a start, how could he be fully committed to *me* when he had proposed to someone else ? But setting that aside, there is a sense of further validation in knowing that he has NOT finished. Even though he has not had to build in time to return to the UK (one week in four was the proposal) and hence has had *more* opportunity to complete the work - he has not finished.

And the reflection for me is that instead of having another six months of hell in the meantime, followed by at least the pain and distress I went through 6 months ago, if not more because it would be compounded by having trusted him that bit further... i.e. I would be starting from much worse a place....instead of that, I am already six months into recovery. With clear vindication that I was right to stop the lies when I did. My regret is not having known and taken action before that - a long way before that.

For me there were two hypotheses - one was that the lies were a deliberate deception, the other that his mental illness was way worse than anyone (including me) had realised. I do not expect to ever know which of these is the case - as I want nothing more to do with him. The few facts I do have seem to fit the "deliberate deception" better than the illness theory. But at the end of the day, the outcome was going to be the same regardless either way so my assessment as a layperson is irrelevent.

so... onwards and upwards... by myself but hey, so what ?!