La Que Sabe

It’s almost September. *happy dance*

This is cause of great rejoicing in the Lair because September brings Autumn and Autumn is, undoubtedly, My Favourite. Today was the children’s first day back to school – or half day, given that they finished at twelve – and it was the most perfect Back-To-School day I could imagine in terms of weather. It’s as if the world was just waiting to bring back that glorious fresh, golden-tinted sun that only comes round between September and November. The skies were blue, there was a bit of a chill in the air, and it was crisp and delicious, like the perfect green apple that washes all the cloying stickiness of summer away.

I know it’s not very cool or rock’n'roll to admit it but, much as I was dreading this morning and the return of the early rising, I feel much happier this evening knowing that we’re back to our routine of How Things Are In Term-Time. The children and I really like the idea of the sort of ‘As and how it happens’ life-style but, in reality, we’re a bit crap at it. We end up doing nothing very much and getting ratty with one another. I know that I, in particular, need a form of routine to, essentially, give me the kick up the arse I require in order not to set in stone sitting in one place.  I am aware that I have an incredible capacity for doing absolutely fuck all and the good thing about the children being back in school is that the school dictates our timetable for the morning. After two months of being consistently late for work, I arrived at a very respectable twenty past nine this morning. This is far more in line with What It Should Be. Given that I don’t start til nine-thirty, I gather the bosses were looking askance at me slouching in the door at about twenty to ten. And to be honest, I don’t really blame them. But now we are back to normal-ish again and our only trauma in the mornings is that J has now ascended to the dizzying heights of third class and this means we have to negotiate the drop off of two people in two different playgrounds. I don’t doubt we’ll find a routine for that too, given time.

The one thing that has become routine over the summer is the shit-ness of work. This is part of the reason why I haven’t been blogging at all very much lately, incidentally. I realised that all I’d been wittering about had been the grouch-inducing levels of work, and the various trials and tribulations between TRM and I. I can see how that might become very old very quickly, given that I don’t exactly find it scintillating either, so I decided that I should just shut up and get on with it for a while. Last Friday, Favourite Engineer rang up about something and, hearing more than I intended to convey in my tone of voice, asked if I was alright. I said that I was planning an invigorating weekend on various job-finding websites and the line went very quiet for a few seconds. I think I had a little rant, as one is occasionally allowed to do, and, after thinking for a moment, he answered mywailed “What the hell am I supposed to do with all this shit?” with the sort of thing that makes me love him so much. “Someone who reads as much as you do must write as well. So that’s what you do with it.” And I remembered that, actually, yes, sometimes I do write. And sometimes it does help. So I told him he was wonderful and toddled on my slightly merrier way.

I had intended to settle down over the weekend and put fingers to keyboard, but then I went to Ikea with TRM on Saturday where we stuffed our faces with far too much cake and looked for a new bed which was frustrating because even though we could find a mattress that was just about perfect, we couldn’t find a nice bed frame. Which is a pain. The shock of being in the midst of such middle-class coupley/family-ness of a Saturday was enough to send me reeling. It was equal parts happy dream and nightmare. Happy because we both remember a texted conversation we had not long after we first realised that there was definitely Something Going On between us, and nightmarish because, well, frankly, Oh. My. Gods. Ikea. I mean, come on… Anyway, we are still without a new bed. Which means that his semi-dodgy back, and my utterly crocked hips, will be no better off for another week or so. And his feet will still stick out of the end of my bed, which is more troubling, given that there’s a cold snap in the air. (Aah, the delights of being five foot two and a half – I  fit just fine! </smug>)

And, er, in other exciting news… Well, there isn’t really any. Unless you count my very fetching new scarf what I bought today. My skin is letting me know in almost every way possible that it is Not Amused and, thus, my neck is best covered up. What better way to do it than with pretty colours and peacock feathers. Vero Moda, you’re not my kind of place, usually, but, on this occasion, you rock. Colourful, slightly sparkly goodness which covers my shredded neck - loverly.

And there you have it. Should be around a bit more from now on. September’s a bloggy kind of month, usually.

I cut my hair.

I know. It’s hardly front page news, but a lot of it has gone and it’s my number one recommendation for how to shake up stuck energy. I don’t know if I’m the only woman who does this but it strikes me that whenever a relationship ends, or changes, I invariably change my hair. When I’m stuck in a rut, altering my hair is a good way to play and to remind myself that nothing has to be permanent.

And in the summer when it’s sticky and thundery, as it has been of late, there is a great relief to be had in being able to move your head freely, unencumbered. (To say nothing of the time gained by less faffing about with a hairdryer in the mornings.)

There’s also a similarly minded post on the WordPress front page today. I never thought about donating hair before, but I wish I had known about it when my locks were lying on the floor last week. It would have added a smug-inducing twist to my hair cut happiness.

So.

I haven’t been here for a while. And to be honest, I’m not sure if it’s right for me to be here now. But if this is my space and my place to be honest, then there’s some stuff that needs to be put down.

This last week has been a strange one. It started off like any other, and I was relatively happy with how things were going. All the things that I’ve been taking time off to look at had seemed to be bearing fruit. All the big things that needed little steps to start them off had been put in motion so I was feeling fairly content with life. J’s happier and more forthcoming, the ex and I are on steadier ground and being more respectful of one another, Evie’s happy and light-filled as always. Work’s getting more complicated because we’re losing another engineer and my boss doesn’t really seem to understand the impact this is going to have on an already depleted service team but, hey, you know what? You don’t always get everything perfect in one go. And the rest of  my lads are in excellent form so it’s all good overall.

But then an inadvertant collision with TRM’s wife sort of knocked all the steam out of me. It wasn’t her over-reaction,or my disgust, or the words I had to swallow for the sake of their children (and TRM, come to think of it.) It wasn’t her anger or her threats or her childishness. It was the overwhelming feeling that this just isn’t going to change any time soon. And the realisation, slow to dawn after a trip to the UK with TRM last month, that I have laid emotional claim to something and someone who isn’t available to me fully yet.

The ins and outs are not solely my story to tell so I won’t. What I will say is that I am sitting here feeling flummoxed by indecision. TRM and I are, pretty much, of different generations. He feels that certain things are acceptable and right and How Things Should Be Done, and in some notable cases, I think that’s bullshit. I feel, for example, that people should take responsibility for their decisions and should have sufficient self-respect to take care of themselves. I also feel that one probably shouldn’t embark upon a relationship unless one is prepared to make the other person their main priority (excluding small people, obviously) because, otherwise, really, what’s the point? I didn’t stop to think, in any great depth anyway, about what would happen when the exes still live together and when one evidently feels a huge burden of responsibility towards the other, even if that appears to be completely one-sided.

I always felt that, when two people separate, then that’s probably exactly what should happen. It shouldn’t mean that you wouldn’t lend the other person a hand if it were needed, but simply that two lives had ceased to co-exist and had moved on to other directions independently Now, in this case, I understand logically that, in fact, not enough time has gone past for that to happen – and certainly not with the characters involved. Sensibly, I completely get that TRM is still in shock and needs to grieve for his lost marriage and wife. I can empathise with the idea that it will take time to get over a fifteen year old partnership.  And I can see that when you’re still sharing the house with someone who isn’t quite your ex, it complicates matters further. But on another, more emotional level, I’m wondering where, exactly, does that leave me?

Typically, I didn’t consider the possibilities or problems that would be prevalent in this type of relationship; I just fell in love and wanted to share it with him, and the rest of the world. I understood that there would need to be an amount of time spent faffing about until we could move in together and get on with our lives, and that in the interim period, time would be somewhat limited by the normal daily stuff that would take up our days. But I believed that, after a while, a space would be made where I could live with the man I loved, and my children, and his two as and when they could join us, and that we would make a little patch of family that would grow stronger and more entwined over the years; a space that would nurture, rather than stunt, growth in all it’s forms. I believed in a life that would bring out our best sides more often than our worst, and that would allow each of us to blossom in our own ways, secure and accepted with all our various weirdnesses and wonders.

After this week, what I see plainly is what I should have seen before. I don’t doubt that TRM feels a lot for me, or that he wants to be with me. What I doubt, frankly, is his ability to disentangle himself from the harpy that his wife has become. (Yes, it’s unfair to make such comments, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that I have known her for years and know, quite well, what she’s like. I never had any doubts on that score, even when we were friends.) I doubt his ability to say, cleanly and clearly, “You have made your choices in life so now you need to get on with doing whatever is necessary to enable you to live the life you seem to want. Dream big, follow your star, but while I will help to raise our children who are our greatest responsibility, I will not allow you to drain me all of my resources, be they time, money or concern. Your choices have directly affected my life, and they’ve made me change direction, and that is now my responsibility and I intend to get on with it. You are no longer my main priority. We have to stand on our own two feet now.”

Perhaps I’m overly harsh. I don’t know. But I don’t think I’ve spent all this time on my own, growing and learning and strengthening, only to end up playing second fiddle to TRM’s almost-ex-wife.

And so I feel a bit numb. Because I love him, and I want him to be happy. I want him to be contented with life in that deep down quiet way that I have known and been blessed by. But at the moment, I am almost silent around him, scared that all the words which want to come are too negative, too hurtful. My interest is in him, but he cannot yet seem to think of him as an individual unit. My hope is for him as a person in his own right, not as an accessory to her, which is what he has been for so many years. So I am stumped. Because I am afraid to consider that he might allow her to accompany us into our life together, rather than restricting her to being an occasional visitor. And I refuse to live my life, as an individual, curtailed by her endless demands.

And I don’t know quite where that leaves us.

As you may have noticed, I’m taking a little break.

It’s not you, it’s me.

I’ve got some stuff to sort out, you know? Need to get my head together, get my life back on track.

I love you but it’s not enough. I know I’m just not being fair to you right now. You deserve better. We’ll keep in touch. But, for a little while, let’s just say we’re on a break. It’s not an ending. It’s more a pause. I’ll be back.

We’ll talk soon, ok? *kiss kiss*

Take care of yourself.

See you soon.

You know what? I was over half way through a post today when I realised something I felt was very important. It was this: I was repeating myself for the umpteenth time. It’s not that I feel that what I was saying wasn’t important (to me, at least) because it was. It was about ascertaining exactly what it is I want to see in my life in the near future, and what I need to do in order to get to that point. But the simple fact is that none of it is new, and none of it gets me any closer to actually getting my grubby little paws on what I want most of all.

Therefore, as before when I sorted out a load of what had seemed like quite complicated stuff in a very short period of time simply by getting started, I am going to do the same thing again. I am making a list. I may even be checking it twice. In putting down, in black and white, what I need to do, I can break it down into small steps that are easily manageable. The time for talking is done; the time for doing has arrived. After all, if we don’t start, there can be no momentum, no acceleration and no arrival. Thus, I have a plan, and I have a general timeframe.

It feels good. The wheels are turning again.