Diffficult? You have no idea...

Prostrated. Don't think I can get up off the floor yet. Not for a long time. Maybe never.There is something that keeps me going-why-I don't know. I feel defeated. I am in a strange place, not home, never home. I feeel like howling to the moon, and I do realise how mad that sounds. But that's what I feel like doing. Howling. For what is lost and can never be found again. Maybe I am turning into a lone wolf because that's what I am or have become - a lone person. Something I never wanted or anticipated. If you have any advice, I'd be glad to receive it.

Season's Greetings

I have been trudging through bureaucratic blizzards, not as cold as snow blizzards but still making it  hard to see where you're going. Of which, more anon.

For now, I have decided not to try to force myself into a Christmas spirit/mood/false bonhomie. The tree is up, although the angel on top is leaning slightly askew...seems appropriate! My beautiful Christmas Crib holds the porcelain figurines I've loved since I was a child.  

Happy Christmas. May the New Year bring you new love, new faith and new hope.

And I thought if I could get through the emotional part that was the hardest part-the bureauocratic part has me on my knees

I thought it would be straightforward and honest to-

change name/address on driving locence

change status for revenue/tax purposes

change status for effing everything I had to...

oh God no,  let's make things as difficult as possible for people who are already hurting and on their knees...

D Day Party...if you could call it that...

The D Party.

It was decreed by the powers that be in my place of employment, that we were all going out for pizzas and beer to celebrate/commemorate D Day. It had been decided that a night out would “do me good”.  How kind of them, how thoughtful. Sure wouldn’t it do us all good to have a night out…?

So, accordingly, I found myself squelching up Dublin’s Dawson Street on a balmy summer night – the rain was torrential. I’m always amazed by how we grow potatoes in this country, and not rice. What with the wetness and us being called paddies- we could be rice paddies no problem. My light summer shoes, my feet and the legs of my jeans, were all soaked by the time I got into the restaurant. I tried every contortion I could in the Ladies Loo  but  unfortunately was unable to stand on my head on the tiled floor, the only position from which it would have been possible to hold my feet and legs under the hand dryer. There was only one thing left to do. Warm myself up with wine and ignore the squelching and gurgling from my footwear...

The Office Party were all squashed round one big table, in the Italian tradition. Beer and wine flowed; the conversation flowed as we waited for our first course. No one mentioned the D word or the reason for our night out. One of my colleagues who had not been in work for a while came to the pizza party. She’d been out for a fortnight, having surgery. Cosmetic surgery. As a result of which, she overshadowed the condiments on the table. Everyone was trying not to look but it was a bit difficult to avoid…There was much talk and laughter about the procedure, and it’s after effects, do’s and don’ts. “Is it true that you can’t fly for three months?” asked one person. It was. “What else can you not do?” asked another.  “Well, I can’t go on fairground rides” was the reply. “I can’t bungee jump either”. We were in hysterics, with suggestions that she might knock herself unconscious in a fast elevator and similar remarks. The hilarity grew. One colleague decided that she just had to rise from the table and sing Beyoncé’s “If you like it put a ring on it” with accompanying actions.  Shortly after that, it was time to leave. We left the pizza joint and headed to a late night drinks venue. A young female colleague challenged a much older, bigger, male colleague to a drinking contest. Possibly not the wisest idea.  A good night. Numbed by tiredness and wine, I headed home and left them to it. After all, it was a Thursday and there was work in the morning…

Friday.

It seems that one person tripped in her skyscraper heels and fell under a taxi but was uninjured; one person got out of a taxi when the driver refused to give her his details; one person insulted a guy she thought was trying to pick her up but who had only wanted to return the cigarettes she had dropped on the dancefloor – and the piece de resistance?

In the late night place, she who had been enhanced invited two female colleagues to “feel the difference”, so to speak. Whereupon two strangers had approached them, introduced themselves as two happily married men, asked them if they were 3 lesbians and then asked if they, too, could “feel the difference”. I gather the aftermath of that encounter was not pretty.

The final encounter relating to the “D Party” was not pretty either, although excruciatingly funny. Female Colleague X, who had challenged Male Colleague Y to the drinking contest, had been charged with the task of bringing a birthday cake for Colleague Z into work on Friday morning. Accordingly, she had stopped off at a large supermarket chain store to buy a readymade birthday cake. Unfortunately, she felt very unwell Friday morning. With the consequence that she was unable to venture as far as the cake section, due to the fact that she was puking into a plastic bag grabbed at the cash desk. The supermarket insisted on scanning the plastic bag at a checkout  and she had to pay for it -and presumably had to take it home with her, which is where she went and phoned in sick from.  

What can I say?

When you work with people like this, life isn’t all bad. J

Would a blow torch do it?

I'm having a little difficulty with number 3...changing myself from a thermometer to a thermostat. Perhas because I find both images slightly unsettling...:).  Random act of kindness; distributed little almond cakes to colleagues today...have been accused of  WRECKING  their diets...Note to self; Next random act of kindness must not involve food + office environment.

Dr. Feelbetter's Prescription for Happiness...allegedly...and not a mention of anti-depressants...

THE PRESCRIPTION FOR HAPPINESS

1. Keep a journal.
2. Record small victories.
3. Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? Be a thermostat; a thermometer always  reacts to other people.
4. Have 5 good/positive  qualities/emotions/thoughts (good dwarves) to every 1 negative one.
5. Happiness= pleasure, engagement and meaning.
6. Have realistic optimism.
7. Expand your happiness.
8. Plan, persist, persevere.
9. See the silver lining in every situation.
10. Journal; write what it would feel like in 3-5 years, if everything you  imagined/wanted came about, i.e. the best possible self of you.
11. Think and Thank.
12. Gratitude- a conscious choice to focus on what’s working in your life.
13. Wanting what you have, right here, right now.
14. Write a gratitude diary twice a week.
15. Read the story of Borghil Dahl for inspiration.
16. Be kinder to yourself.
17. Perform 5 random acts of kindness each week.
18. Lighten up on your inner critic.
19. Set goals consistent with your values.
20. Use vision and action together.
21. Be committed.
22. Do one thing tomorrow to improve my health and expand my happiness.
23. Commit to small daily improvements.
24. Small improvements done over time produce amazing results.
25. Open your heart and mind to possibility.
26. Exercise daily.
27. Positive thoughts produce new brain neurons.
28. Flow-be in the zone- in the moment.
29. Being creative = happy=energised.
30. Make time to do what you love, and love what you do.
31. We mirror the behaviour of the 5 key relationships in our lives.
32. Surround yourself with people that will support your dreams and empower you.
33. If you can’t pull the people in your life UP, don’t let them drag you down.
34. There is a “we” in wellness, and an “i” in illness.
35. Celebrate your victories with suitable people.
36. Volunteering once a month = 7% increase in happiness.
37. Volunteering once a week = 16% increase in happiness.
38. Your compass represents your values.
39. Seek    Silence. Stillness. Solitude. Security. Serenity.
40. Let the past go.
41. Make a conscious choice to focus on what is good in your life.
42. Commit to small improvements which over time will lead to amazing results.

Oh yes, again...

NOT AGAIN

Same Courtroom, different judge.  This time I was alone in the well of the court. Judge #2 asked what the reason for this appearance was. I explained that I had been asked to return with specific information from the Pension People.  Ah yes, she said. I handed over the document received from them to the Registrar who then handed it to the judge.  Her Honour wasn’t satisfied with it. It doesn’t state x, y, z as required, she said with a touch of anger. “I’m sorry” I said. “This is what they sent me. I took it to be what was wanted.”  I was so visibly upset that she relented a little. “You weren’t to know” she said.   “But they most certainly should”- and she fixed a new date for me to appear in the courtroom, with the information required just to rubber stamp the process. So now I have to go back – again- in November. Is there no end to this?

I went home, rang the Pension Scheme Management Company. The phone call I'd never ever made to a service company; I was massively, massively angry. I was put through to a senior manager who tried to convince me that a judge asking for more detailed information than they ordinarily supplied, was a very unusual request. If it’s so unusual, I said, how did my husband’s pension provider know to do it? There was silence on the other end of the ‘phone. These organizations are  and always have been paid huge sums of money to administer schemes and invest funds...and over the last number of years they've lost huge sums and depleted pension schemes to the point where they're being closed down. Bye now, sorry about that...

The upshot of this is, I’m the  one who is upset, discommoded and has to attend a court again. Not to mention the other stuff; changing my name on some official documents e.g. driver’s licence, passport, i.d. cards, credit cards….

As for sorting out the house and living arrangements, I’m not even going to go there. I’m going to the pub instead. Which is probably not the wisest idea, but it’s the one that appeals to me right now. 

Not AGAIN, Judge!

When I stop foaming at the mouth, I will post what happened at Court Hearting Part Deux.

The day after...

THE AFTERMATH

The day after D Day I was back in work. Nothing had changed and everything had changed. My office looked the same; my desk was where it always was. But I was not who I had been. I was now a divorcee.

It was a Friday, so that evening I packed some clothes and on Saturday morning drove to the west of Ireland, to the northernmost tip of Galway. I was on my own, there to lick my wounds but I also knew there was a Bridge Club Holiday going in that hotel that particular week. Saturday I drove the length and breadth of Connemara, sobbing all the way along the winding roads leading to places that had previously soothed me and landscapes that always had wrapped themselves around my soul. On to Roundstone and down to Inverin. Cried my way back past the solitude of Lough Inagh. Stopped at the heart-breaking beauty of Kylemore Abbey. Lit a candle in Our Lady of the Wayside, the little church that sits at the junction of four winds. Nothing helped. Back at the hotel in the late afternoon, I had a shower, washed my hair and sat in my room reading. To my surprise, the ‘phone rang; they were short one person for the Bridge tournament, would I oblige? I would. So down I went, wet hair and all. I had tea and the loveliest scones and jam I’d ever tasted delivered to my table. Hastily swallowed them and as play began noticed every table held wineglasses, shot glasses, glasses of crème de menthe and what have you. Arsenic and Old Lace all over again… As play progressed and I had no clue what my partner held or what she was doing, I realized Partner was three sheets to the wind, so to speak. The tournament continued as did the merriment. Our score continued downwards in inverse proportion to the amount of wine consumed by Partner…My reward for coming down and playing? After the session ended Partner suggested I should take “Improver Lessons”… The fact that she was so well on that she could hardly pronounce the word “Improver” was obviously not germane to the fact that we’d probably finished last…  At dinner I sat with the Bridge players. Then it was time for drinks in the bar and a pianist who played old chestnuts and music hall stuff. No traditional Irish music. When the sing-song finished, I went to bed, hoping that my room in the old part of the hotel wasn’t in the area rumoured to be haunted. I had the heebie-jeebies already… However, the exhaustion not to mention the drinks put me out like a light.

Next morning, showered, dressed and ready for breakfast, I searched for the room key. Searched everywhere. Every drawer, every bag, every crevice of my handbag. Decided to just pull the door behind me and inform Reception that I had mislaid the key. I had indeed. I’d left it in the door. All night.

After a solitary breakfast, I went to Reception to book a ticket for the ferry to the island of Inishbofin. A conversation with two older ladies ensued when they overheard my request. It seemed they’d never been to the island and would love to go. There was no day trip to the island organized as part of their Bridge holiday…Run and get ready, I’ll get your ferry tickets, hurry, I have to leave in 10 minutes to make the ferry, I said. So three went to the island.  The entrance to the little harbour is difficult but the ferry was high-tech; when we were virtually on the rocks and myself and the foreign tourists were looking round for the  lifejackets and bracing ourselves against the rails, the deckhand was hanging over the prow and shouting up to the bridge; “You’re grand, Paddy, you’re grand!” By some miracle we were. Once landed, I walked the little paths, climbed stiles and drank in the beauty of the place. I had to beat a hasty retreat when a ram threw shapes at me.  At the other side of the island, for the first time in my life, I heard a corncrake. I knew immediately what it was. What a privilege.  The two ladies had a lovely time, and thanked me profusely for bringing them to the island.  Why wouldn’t I? I was going anyway and they had no other way of getting there. Isn’t that what life is about?  

Back at the hotel, it was dinner and a play about emigration staged in the bar. A two-hander based on true testimonies. It is true; the west of Ireland has been repeatedly emptied. But enough remain to keep the fire lit and the Irish spoken. We owe the people of the Gaeltacht a great debt. At least I feel I do.

Driving home, I was glad I’d gone. No burden had been lifted, but I’d heard a corncrake. And been advised to take Improver Lessons. And the ghost had not manifested.

Promises

I will post, and soon. I'm just having difficulty getting my head around it all.

I'll post the aftermath tomorrrow...

D Day...

D  DAY

It seemed appropriate that on D Day the skies were November Grey instead of June Bright. The rain was torrential as we left the house separately; he in his car and me in a taxi. I picked up my best friend and went to the Court Building. All the small private rooms were taken, so we took seats in one of the rows in the lobby area. Myself and my friend sat, not speaking. I wasn’t capable of it. All the time the tears threatened to spill.
There was a call for a particular courtroom and dozens of people rushed into that room. Around us solicitors and barristers argued and to- and -fro’d between their clients. A woman said “Ask him about the secret bank account I know he has”. One solicitor said to another “He can’t spring that on us now, the agreement has already been made”. Strange, strange, atmosphere. There was a call for Court 31; our designated room. Lots of people rushed in there. Puzzled, I asked the person in uniform if I should go in? Oh yes, I most certainly should.. I stepped into a court room for the first time. There was a Registrar seated at a long bench which had a digital clock like an electronic ribbon running along the top of it.  The Judge sat behind the Registrar at a higher bench. In the body of the courtroom, a rail, two benches and chairs. A witness box on the left hand side of the Judge’s bench.

The Court Register began calling cases using initials; AB and CB. MOR and AOR and so on. As each pair were called, they stepped forward and confirmed their presence. When our initials were called, I stepped forward. The Judge asked was he present. Oh, yes, I said, he’s outside. His name was then called out in full and in he came. Her Honour didn’t look too impressed. On went the roll call. On some occasions a solicitor or barrister stepped up and asked if the case could be deferred as there was a dispute regarding assets between the parties. On one occasion a woman dressed in leopard print top and leggings and tons of jewellery stepped up and was asked was her husband there. “No, he isn’t, he’s in a mental hospital, does it matter?” she said. Apparently it did matter, quite a lot, at least to the judge…

At 11.30 it was over.  I made it to the Ladies Room before collapsing in tears. Afterwards, my friend and I walked through the rain and sat in a pub, drinking. Got a taxi home.

Do I feel different? No. Do I feel devastated? Yes. Do I feel let down? Yes, majorly. Plus; the judge decided that the info re pensions was not conclusive/blah/blah so that’s to be heard in July? So the agony is not over yet…

The clock ticks on...

Time and tides ebb and flow and move us on...inevitably and  inexorably...I am conscious of time passing, the clock ticking down to D Day moment by moment. I am at the same time consumed both  by what if, what if.. and how will I get through it...I am frozen in some sort of unnameable terror and at the same time repeating madly positive mantras as if I can force things, force events, to turn out positive by just doing that. Always at the back of it is this mad hope, mad dream, that life can be different; that dreams can come true in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Now I am beginning to wonder if this makes me a fantasist, a dreamer, an "unrealistic" person. In the words of the Beatles, all you need is love. Well, no, you need oxygen, food, shelter to survive. What  you need to thrive is love.
Parental love. Sibling love. The love of friends.Romantic love (if you get really, really lucky).  Love. That's what matters. That's what gets you through.  I have family. I have friends. I am loved. But somehow it doesn't make up for the lack of romantic love. Somehow it doesn't. Maybe some time in the future it will.

Stress and sea levels...rising...

As always when I am stressed, the west of Ireland calls me. I need fresh air blowing in from the Atlantic and to swim in water so clear you can see the tracks of crabs and sea snails on the sand below. I need the tranquillity of landscapes that wrap themselves around your soul. Seafood and home baked brown bread. Country pubs and céilí music. Somewhere, anywhere to take me out of myself, away from myself and my situation.

Instead I am sitting on a bench beside the river, in the Botanic Gardens in Dublin. The sound of brown water tumbling over the weir is soothing, calming, even if only for a little while. Every day is now spent between trying (and frequently failing) to do my job well and praying that I am doing the right thing. Still the tears spill; still my nights are fractured by dreams of loss, of being lost, of white knights, of chasing I don’t know what, seeking in the dream world what I can’t find in the real world. Then I wake drenched, heart pounding in my throat and I don’t remember what it is that has chased me through the night while I sought badly needed rest.

Years of total professionalism went out the window today; I burst into tears in the office. All my long years of working, my calm, caring, collegial and utterly professional demeanour... We are all human. I’ve tried to be superwoman and today it just didn’t work. In the workplace I find that anger, shouting, all that kind of behaviour is acceptable but just let something feminine like tears occur …and it’s an absolute no no.  Why not? People are people and when they are going through a personal crucifixion well maybe it’s time to change attitudes – and the sexism that underlies them.

Later that evening I burst into tears at the Writing Circle when it was my turn to read.  Sobbed. Couldn’t read the piece I’d written. Mortified.com. I gestured to P who was sitting next to me, who read it as though he had written it himself. As indeed he might well have, as anyone might have. I’m still going to writing things, trying to do all sorts of things, even though I feel the good has gone out of everything.

Q. When do the tears stop? (Me)

A. When they’re finished. (Counsellor)

By now I must have raised the sea level around Ireland by metres, re-salted the Irish Sea and am probably posing a threat to the Antarctic Ice Mass. D Day is a fortnight away. 

Stings of outrageous jellyfish...

Stings of outrageous jellyfish…

The tension, the stress… We did something which we both always enjoyed…we went to the beach. Together. Motoring along in the water, arms gripping my body board I am lost in wonder at how the sea and sky are paling gently. Times and tides move on, and summer days and summer years are gone before you know it.

A frond of seaweed slithers round my legs. Suddenly I’m scalded.  I’ve been stung. I make for shore as quickly as possible and hobble up to the Sun Worshipper asleep on his sun lounger. “I’ve been stung by a Portuguese man-of-war” I whimper as I dance around the place splashing Ballygowan Sparkling over my thighs. “You haven’t been stung, don’t be ridiculous” he narks. Then he notices the puffy weals snaking like whip marks round my legs. “Oh” he says. Why does he always contradict me? Surely you know whether you have been stung or not? This attitude of immediate denial of anything I say annoys the hell out of me. My legs are on fire. Let’s go. I might need hospital treatment.

Half an hour later the cream the Pharmacy sold me seems to be working. Maybe I won’t need to go to A & E after all. I’d look a funny sight there anyway, what with the sand and the sunblock caked onto me like stucco.  We drive in silence. I am not speaking to the driver. Anyone who says to a suffering person “Sympathy my arse” does not deserve to be spoken to.

He pulls into the car park of the pub. I cannot object as I am not speaking to him. Otherwise of course I would be going home.  I sit at the bar having a brandy to counteract the shock to my system and explaining my sanded/sun creamed/antihistamine - lotioned appearance to anyone who asks, and they are many. The Beer Buddha ensconced in the Corner-beside-the-television decides to educate me; apparently the relief of jellyfish stings entails the application of half a cut tomato to the affected parts. “Why didn’t you just rub half a tomato on?” he loudly demands. “It’s acidic so it counteracts the acidity”. Well pardon me for being stupid, I must remember to pack tomatoes and a knife with the body board in future. The fact that I would have looked even more bizarre covered in tomato pips doesn’t strike me till later. Then I can’t stop laughing. Life is mad. My life is officially getting madder by the day.

The time it is a comin'

Less than a month to D Day now; and still I inhabit two parallel universes.  I am reciting affirmations as if they are gospel, la la la la la  la, and the other bit of me is clinging to 25 years of familiarity and saying no. I would like him to say no: to say the things I always wanted him to say; we'll sort it out. But that hasn't happened. I don't know what will happen. I'm sure I'm not thinking straight, not thinking rationally. Maybe there's no way to think rationally about this. It's a nightmare. I'm still reciting mantras, still believing in happy ever after , still believing in ...fairies? psychics? You can be with someone for twenty five years and still not know them, because that is their way of being and in the face of that  you are powerless. Powerless because you have been raised to be nice, to be understanding, to be sensitive, to put others before yourself, always. I wish I had been raised to put myself  first, to stand up for myself, to be as sensitive to my own needs as I have been to others. But I wasn't. Now I need to find  myself. And I am so lost and full of fear that I have no idea who "I" am. I am getting closer to the brink, and wondering how I will get through D Day.

Flash floods and hugs

Flash Floods and Hugs

A different weekend, altogether. This one involved religion, hot penning and no drink.   The type of thing the counsellor recommended, in fact, when I mentioned to her that I had seen an advertisement in the newspaper for Healing Weekends, so to speak, for the divorced, the separated and the widowed. I rang the organization and it sounded good. So off I went.

Check in time at the Retreat Centre was 5 pm Friday.  Bed at eleven pm, up for 8 am breakfast each day.  I slung my case into my single ensuite bedroom, unpacked the travel kettle, the herbal tea, chocolate and fruit, bottled mineral water. So far so good.

First event; the organizers introduced themselves individually. Then half an hour of “getting to know you” games. We were broken up into small groups of three and assigned a mentor. Given notebooks and pens. In our small group, three of us, all women and a male mentor. We began the first session of discussion, and then it was off to our rooms to write whatever came into our minds.  This was to be the pattern for the weekend.  Talks given to the larger group, then breaking into our foursomes for further talk, then race to the rooms to pour out tears and words. There were group ceremonies, a religious service on Sunday morning. After that, a healing service. So many tears flowed over the weekend, I thought we would all be washed out of the Centre, down the grounds to the river and out to sea...  Over the weekend I wrote and wrote and wrote, cried and cried and cried.  In the small chapel where the closing ceremony was held, the air was so heavy with sorrow and anguish that I felt it lying across my shoulders and bowing down my head  like a blanket. When the hugging took place, I was enfolded in the arms of lovely men and nearly came unhinged altogether.

I don’t feel much different, if at all. I don’t feel any major shift, any major Zen.  I’ve learned that there are many people going through changes they hoped would never happen to them, never envisaged happening to them. But that’s life, isn’t it.   I didn’t experience any eureka moments. I met good people, very good people. I learned a lot. Hell, we even had some fun, what with the jokes and poems and dancing on the last night.

Goodbyes and hugs on Sunday afternoon. Back to reality. I can’t say that much has changed.  Back at home in my own bedroom, I re-read my scribblings. Then shredded the anger, the hurt, and the fear. Hoped that this intense weekend will somehow start something in me that has not yet been apparent; a feeling that I am doing the right thing, and that the future holds the promise of a new beginning.

Stand up - and be counted...

Stand up and be counted…

Probably because I find it difficult to say no, I agreed to do something for a literary event to celebrate a bike show coming to Dublin. Which is how I came to be standing in front of a lunch time  audience yesterday, with a 4-Solpadeine hangover,  dressed in cycling gear, wondering what the hell I was doing there and hoping I would remember my lines. Miraculously, I did (well most of them) and it went very well. Very well indeed. In other words, the audience laughed.  Afterwards as I was running out the door to the day job, the Director of the event ran after me – to congratulate me. Said  I was brilliant…Then a woman I know approached me- to tell me how well I did, how low she was, how she was on medication, how she appeared all jolly on the outside but inside was a different matter. I know that mask. I wear it too, at times. I knew her to be widowed 2 ½ years, have children and grandchildren, her situation completely different to mine. She needed to make changes in her life, she said, has yearned to move back to Dublin from the crystal chandeliered mini palace down the country. But she won’t settle for what I know I will have to; a small terraced house somewhere, I don’t yet know where… I know her to be a tough cookie, a very tough cookie who upset a lot of people, including me.  Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. Regardless of previous behaviour, my heart went out to her.  She said she’d be up in Dublin again in a week and would like to come to the writing circle...

I went  to work. Realized I’d forgotten to bring office clothes. Explained the situation to the powers that be, and spent the rest of the day in fluorescent orange and pink cycling shorts and pink sneakers…Luckily I remembered to take the bicycle lamp off my head.

Supper was non-alcoholic cocoa and toast. I think I finally fell asleep in a cocoa-induced haze at 4 a.m. That’s ok. Today put another brick in the self-esteem wall. What could be better than making people smile, laugh, feel better, even for a moment? Don’t we all love that, need that sometimes?  I’m giving myself an A for today and not dwelling on the mistakes I’ve made in life. J

Of men and white horses...

I should get out more. With men. That was the counsellor’s advice this week. Go out and meet men, she said. In her opinion, I am perfectly justified, and indeed morally entitled to enter into relationships with other men. Other than the one I married, that is.

Yes, she said. Get out and about and meet men. Do stuff with them. Precisely what stuff and how much stuff, she didn’t say. She didn’t go as far as the Merry Widow had; she didn’t say “The way to get over a man is to get under another one” but I got the drift.

Certainly, I would like nothing better than to have Prince Charming’s (older) brother rock up on a white horse and bedazzle me with wit and flowers.  I do go out, a lot.  But somehow never seem to meet men who appeal as a romantic partner.  And you never see one trotting up the road  on a white horse, either. The guys who do ride horses round town - well let’s just say, they couldn’t be more unsuitable. Might be better to change the white horse requirement – better yet, delete it.

There are people who have a list of requirements; i.e. he must have x, y, z, live in A, B, C. All very practical. All about materiality. I can’t be that prescriptive. I know we all have types we are subconsciously attracted to or something like that. But for me it’s very simple. I just want Prince Charming.  Some one who is kind, gentle, smart, fun and doesn't take class A drugs. See? Simple.

The counsellor asked what I was doing about moving on and meeting someone else. The trouble is, I haven’t moved on. Nor can I until the divorce, really. I’ve always behaved honourably; when I was single and when married. Never sought solace outside the relationship. Never broke my vows, never cheated, never crossed the line.  You’re either single/divorced (therefore unattached and free) or you’re married /separated (attached and semi-detached).  I don’t believe you can ever achieve your happiness at the expense of someone else’s. I think it’s wrong.

There have been times over the long years when I thought I would actually die from loneliness; that my body would physically turn to stone. W.B. Yeats in his poem says it best; “Too long a period of mourning can make a stone of the heart.”   I’ve had my heart broken; twice. That’s more than enough times. So I’m torn; one part of me wishes, really wishes, to meet someone with whom to have a loving relationship of affection and companionship, a supportive and encouraging partner. The other part fears that that will never happen, that too much time has passed. A gremlin sits on my shoulder and whispers in my ear- mutters something about getting older, lacking confidence, too much to ask, what if… But – one of the reasons I am getting divorced is to make a clean break, to leave myself free and open to the possibility of a new relationship, yes?  I silence the gremlin with the words of the counsellor; “You’re very smart, very attractive, you have a figure a nineteen year old would envy and you’re full of fun. Why wouldn’t you meet someone?”  So I shall ask the Universe to send me the right one, and hope that I will be able to dismantle the barricades I built around myself when I meet him. Since he won’t be on a white horse or wearing a suit of armour, it would be difficult for him to jump the walls otherwise…

How are y'all?

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but I think that divorce is  something that you crawl through, fall through, feel like an alien through and anything else besides. It's not something I wanted or ever envisaged happening to me. I got married in a church, felt it was a spiritual commitment, serious stuff,  all the rest. I dislike the word divorce; consider it an  ugly word, an ugly thing. Which is not to say that there are situations which need to be sorted out, fast.

A church annulment is an option; an expensive, other option. I'd have to do that on my own, pay for it myself.  It ain't cheap, although it leaves one free to marry again in a Catholic church, should one wish to do so. Not on the radar at the moment...if ever.

I met someone I hadn't seen in years. He was divorced. Well, he said, have you gotten over the shame of being  the first person in your family to get divorced? I was floored.  I don't know why, I couldn't reply. There should be  no shame or guilt, surely?  For my part, I know I did everything I could, but yes, I hate to say the D word. I really do.

Some  bit of me still believes in love, romance and happy ever after. Maybe that's foolish, romantic. Unrealistic. You'll think I should have copped on by now. But  I still think what we all  need is someone who is there. Just there, but absolutely there. With proper, man size hugs. That's an important part of men's work.  No agendas, just the proper application of man size, wrap around hugs.

 So now that the big stuff is getting sorted, allegedly,  where do I go from here? I don't know. I wish that I could say that I had it all sorted out but I don't. I have no idea.