Avoidance Tactics

One of my friends has been given a piece of advice that has really set me thinking.

HALT, they said. Stop, look and listen. Watch out for situations where you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. This is when destructive behaviour patterns can set in.

Hungry, angry, lonely and tired. It sounded like a description of how I've been feeling over the past ten years or so.  Pick any two (or three) and there you have it. I've thought about this a lot, these last few days.

I can change, I do believe that. But it will probably take a long time of hard work. However, something I could address relatively easily, straight away, would be to avoid these trigger situations. That will be one of my first tasks on the list.

Right now it is 12.30am. 

Am I hungry? No. I've just been out for a curry with my friends. Sensibly chose all veggie things, so I am full but not uncomfortably stuffed.

Am I angry? Not right now. I was angry earlier this afternoon, but I've let those feelings pass through now.

Am I lonely? Not right now. I've spent an evening with 3 of my best friends, so I'm reminded I have good people who love me close by. But when I get home to the empty house, and when I wake up in the empty house, I think that will be lonely.

Am I tired? Oh god yes. I should have been in bed hours ago. However I'm working (and writing this...) now because I decided to have the nice, spontaneous evening earlier so it's a good trade.

I ought to go home and go to bed soon, though.

Watershed

I've been doing some thinking. A lot of thinking. There have been a lot of things to think about.

And then when I was done with the thinking, I did some deciding. That part turned out to be easy in the end. I reached a turning point  -  last night, actually. It's time to move on, and leave behind what's holding me down.

I said I was not waving, but drowning. Further out than everyone thought. I should have added that I was drowning because I was being pulled under by a person I was trying to save.

All I have to do is decide to swim away. Not a hundred miles away, just beyond arm's stretch. A few strokes will do it. And already my head is free and I can breathe again.

Meanwhile, there's inner re-branding going on.  I'm not going to be Hard To Love any more. I'm going to be adorable, gorgeous, sexy, warm and fun to be with. How's that for a start?

Happy birthday to me. Here endeth the Period of Bridget.

Hearth

It takes a long time to make a house feel like a home.

All the thought and care, the little touches: a light to fall on your book when you sit to read here; mugs and tea within easy reach of the kettle; a rug in just the right shade for your feet when you step out of bed; the sheen of a floorboard toning with the sheen of a cabinet; a painting just where it will catch the sunshine or catch your eye.

I'm good at this. Not tidy, not artistic, but I've taken a ruined, empty, partly-derelict building and made it into a family home for the girls to grow up in. Not for them, I thought, the moving around the country, the gradual climbs and falls of the property ladder. A firm, solid base; some roots from which to branch out.

It has not taken him long to make our home feel like a house. Just a house. The place where we happen to be living for the time being.  The girls are starting to wonder why on earth we would all stay here together if he is going to continue to be unhappy, grumpy, angry, dissatisfied with everything.  We looked at a few houses on the internet (priced at about 1/3 the likely offers for this one, just to be on the safe side). They got quite excited.

I expect when we come back from our holiday (oh joy) I will take some steps to get the house valued, and begin the process of unravelling all the threads I have so carefully and lovingly knitted together to make this nest, this home-against-the-world for my girls.

Miss Demeanour

Things are the same, and yet not the same.

It's very odd. A sort of phoney war I suppose. I don't know whether we are waiting for the storm to break, or whether we simply can't be bothered to tackle anything any more.  He's determined he's not going to move out  - and I thought about just moving out myself with the girls and buying somewhere else, but I don't have enough for a deposit. Apparently you need 25% now.

Although I do own the Dino... which would be plenty for a deposit...

I've changed, you see.  I still look like me, but I'm uglier. I'm Evil-Zombie-Me. I'm like the armed wing of Me.  I am taking no prisoners. I am taking no shit.

Although first I need to make it through the holiday we've booked...

This involves a protracted ten day period of time together.  It also involves complicated travel, time in a country where neither of us speak the language, and four very tired people.  I'm sure it'll all be just dandy.

I'm still angry. How dare he, how very dare he, dump me, now? Thereby denying me the opportunity to be the one doing the dumping, at a time that suited me better. I am mightily put out. What happened to sticking it out until the children left home? Mind you, that would make him, hmmmm let me see, about 112 or something so I guess he has more of a sense of urgency.

I'm not sure how this plan of being Great Friends is going to work out. We don't really like each other very much.  And now I'm in my Unbalanced Zombie phase, I don't see that things can improve.   Look on the bright side, though.  If I turn out to have something substantive wrong with me, at least I will get to have a nice lie down, and someone will bring me my breakfast in bed and a nice cup of tea. Small comforts.

Poetic Licence

My poeting continues. I've managed to keep up with the NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) ambition, although the quality remains variable. I'm going through a relatively prolific phase (although that's starting from a low base).

I'm taking an on-line poetry course which is stretching me: I like the structure of the exercises, and the feedback I'm getting is constructive and thoughtful. I wasn't sure how well an on-line forum would work, but I'm impressed with its effectiveness, and the feel already of becoming a group.

Writing a poem is quite meditative, the same zone as playing an instrument, where doing one thing with complete focus prevents any other thoughts from straying in. It makes my head feel that it's a completely still, clear pool of water.

Calm clarity is good. I can't go back to the mud and turmoil. You know what I'm saying.

Freak Show

Or maybe I will join the circus - on account of the freakish lump I have discovered in my neck. I always thought my claim to fame would be as the Bearded Lady, on account of the stray eyebrows straying right down towards my chin now, sometimes, but this is in a whole different league.

Aforementioned neck-lump could be worth a lot of money. I checked out my insurance policies only recently: no, dammit, they don’t pay out if I take my swallow-dive off Beachy Head; although they do pay for me to go to the Priory if I have a breakdown. Which I may still do - it looks really nice at the Priory, and there would be clean bare rooms with crisp white sheets and silence and a break from all the shit.

I’m a Key Person. It says so on my insurance policy, in thick black letters at the top so it must be true. It puts my value at about £300k – I’m not sure if that’s new-for-old, or taking account of reasonable wear and tear. I expect Himself to be hanging bunting on aforementioned neck lump when he finds this out, £300k coincidentally being the exact amount we “need” before he can stop working like a maniac and everything will be ok. I am not entirely sure of the logic of this calculation, or the specificity of the amount. I believe it serves a purpose purely as a notional figure just beyond the horizon – a number which can’t quite be reached.

One way he could mark his success, if he ever flipping would, is to think about how that figure has changed over the years. When we were first together, we watched Indecent Proposal (would you sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars? Hmmm let me think.....) and we worked out that an appropriate sum in our situation would be the amount outstanding on the credit card. This was about £1000 I think.

Now the Life Changing Amount is three hundred times more. And still he’s running after – what? I believe it will turn out to be a relief to be thrown out of the moving car onto the verge.

All I have to do now is make sure I don’t have to get my head amputated. It may cramp my style if I have to forgo my neck. Appointment made – watch this space.

The Way Through The Woods

I know there is a way through this undergrowth of arguments and swamps, roots reaching across the path to pull me down, slippery moss of wrong turns and a mist that muffles words.

I know there is a way through to life on the other side. I know and I am finding my way.

It's hard to listen to your partner talk about a life you've had together without the words "we" and "us". Me me me me me until I was gagging on his self-obsession. He illustrates every point with a metaphor of work, and speaks to me alternately as if I were a child, or an enemy.

He has decided to wage war on life. "I will make no compromises," he announced (not that he made any before)."I will not live my life for anyone else, or do anything i don't want to do." I raised a quizzical eyebrow. "And if people don't like it, they can't just fuck off". Nice.

So off I fucked to make a cup of tea. Love might, I thought, be a series of tiny mutual accommodations, to allow your lives, your selves, to fit together with no rough edges, no tectonic quakes or tsunamis. But you'd have to find someone who at least vaguely matched to start with. If he is shaped like Italy, and I am Sicily, drifted off and booted into the Med, there isn't going to be that fit. We travel there in a week.