Filing in the gaps

So, for the last year or more much of the little I have posted has been a bit vague to say the least. The reason for this was that I was unsure if I should talk about issues that concern others close to me. However, I have had time to think, time for the dust to settle and time to discuss the situation with important others and the upshot is that I have decided it's not disloyal, it doesn't detract from how much I love those involved and my needs matter too. This blog, among other things has been cathartic for me and I have missed that aspect of it, along with all the other obvious aspects I enjoyed about blogging.

That's it then, names and places may be changed to protect the innocent and all that, one or two posts may be elsewhere and password protected but in the main I intend to do the one thing I always used to do here...blog what I need too and tell it how it is.

Some of you may find some of what I say seems harsh here and there and it is in some respects because it's honest but it doesn't mean that I love or care for those involved any the less, it just means life can be harsh sometimes, life has many facets and the old chestnut of 'don't judge a (wo)man until you have walked a mile in his/her shoes etc', may apply at times.

Turning the dream around

I don't really know where to begin this post so I shall just type and see what lands up on the page, it's always worked before albeit in a rambling fashion at times!

Today has not been a good one. I don't know why today as opposed to any other day, the was no obvious reason but from the word go I felt as miserable as sin. Nothing specific had happened, I had nightmares all night long but in the same vein, I have no idea why after all that has gone on over the last year or two, last night I should be treated to such heinous dreams. Just one of those things maybe but whatever today was pretty crap.

Crap why? Well my head just seems to be overflowing with worries and frustrations right now.

I don't think I want or expect too much from life these days but I do have a few goals which are very important to me but no matter how I try they seem to keep eluding me.

What do I want? I want a stable, loving, mutually supportive relationship...which lasts this time, I want a home of my own, though only a tiny one and I want a cat. That's it, nothing else. It doesn't seem too much to me but maybe it is because any one of those things seems so damn hard to achieve!

Hell fire, it's over twenty months now since 'the ex' left me jobless, homeless, bankrupt and somewhat lost and in all that time I seem to have achieved little towards my goals, despite being pretty single minded and stubborn.

Ok, so I lost better part of a year in nursing my father maybe and dealing with my mother since has been pretty difficult but still, I feel I should have got further than I have.

Patience is not my forte I accept and I try to tell myself that it will all come in time but it feels like forever some days.

The minutiae of all of this is what has been filling my mind all day, trying to plot and plan, one minute feeling hopeful, the next feeling utterly overwhelmed with what feels like impossibilities, trying to think of new ways to get to where I want, trying to rationalise my situation and trying not to feel sorry for myself. At times it worked but most times it didn't.

Finally I found myself being white van woman with tears streaming down my face, not the safest or most attractive way to drive I grant you but I just couldn't stop. Between customers I was wiping my eyes and trying to look cheerful hoping no-one would notice my puffy red eyes or my snuffly sounding nose..... until I managed to force myself to see the progress I have made.

I have met a man of whom I am more than a little fond, with whom I spend a lot of time, who makes me laugh, who makes me feel human again and who is absolutely lovely and I do have hope that although it has only been three months it will continue to grow into something more.

I have got a job, which for the most part I enjoy and I have built it up to a point where my being made redundant seems unlikely anytime soon.

I have managed to save some money, not enough yet but enough to make me feel I might eventually manage to house myself if only in a room for now (hell, have you seen the prices this close to London? It's over £500pcm on average just for one room!). Yes, I would love a little flat but it's not going to happen on my wage so best I tailor my dreams on that one for now.

I have managed to get myself into a position with my siblings etc. that may enable me to move out, despite the situation with my mum.

.....and I most importantly of all I still have my dream, of a partner, a little home and a cat. As long as I can dream and believe then maybe, just maybe, some day that dream can still come true.

No sex please we're British!

Well then, true to form of late, my efforts at blogging have been severely lacking, it's not that I don't want to, I just don't seem to have the time or in many cases anything I can blog about. So much of my life right now revolves around issues that involve other peoples privacy that there is little left I am free to 'put out there'.

However, there are still a few things I am free to divulge and today's post concerns one of them.

Ok, laugh if you wish but this issue really isn't too funny from my perspective, I can though see why it might cause amusement, particularly given my age!

The relationship with 'N' is still going well, the guy is a star, a lovely man and someone who I am getting way more than fond of...and he, thankfully of me, but as ever in my life even the things that should be straightforward just damn well aren't.

I will have to choose my words carefully from this point on to avoid offense (like any of you would be offended!) but I give you a small warning that the content of this is a little 'adult'.

We have something of an annoying issue going on right now.

There are those I am sure who would still advocate 'courting' in the 'traditional' manner but then there are still also some perhaps who think that the world is flat, me, I think the world is round and I also think that within reasonable bounds of propriety sex is all just part and parcel of any caring relationship, I can't get too hung up about the whole business, it's a natural function, simples.

Not simples! Very not simples!

'N' like myself also lives with his elderly mother and cares for her (really two of us, you couldn't make it up!) He is more tied than I and this presents us with something of a frustrating problem....you can see where this is going can't you!?

Elderly parents, understandably perhaps, think that despite telling us this is our home, only the common areas are allowed for boyfriends/girlfriends to 'inhabit' and to be honest out of respect that wouldn't be an option. Next, either for financial reasons or because our services are required for caring neither of us can be away from home for too long or move out and so now two sets of parents require consideration and organisation instead of one.... result? Opportunities to spend time, er, alone aren't easy!

So... it seems for now we are mostly resigned to chaste kisses and holding hands, how sweet! Not! Ugh! I feel like a damn teenager again, with all the same restrictions and whilst I know it has it's amusing side, believe me, it isn't too amusing in reality....it's bloody frustrating and in my opinion none too healthy emotionally, but we just have no choice!

Please, don't anyone mention cars, I might feel like a teenager but I'm not and don't suggest the old chestnut 'get a room', rooms cost money, we don't have much and anyways to leave both parents that long is not an easy task to accomplish!

One day something will be simple....who am I kidding!

Progress perhaps!

Well then, perhaps, just maybe, possibly, things are beginning to move very slowly in the right direction at last!

It feels like it has been a lifetime in the coming and experience has taught me that anything could change in an instant but right now, right this moment in time, one or two aspects of my life are looking ever so slightly, up.

Firstly there's 'N', the new man in my life, it has it's complications, some of which you just couldn't make up (I'll save the details for another post) but it's good and it's getting gooder. That of course scares the life out of me in itself, for me, with good comes the fear of loss but I am trying really hard not to allow myself to fall into that trap again and to enjoy the here and now...famous last words, don't nag please, I know, self fulfilling prophecies and all that but I'm doing my best.

Secondly there is my job, which in the short term at least seems a tiny little bit more secure. I have worked damn hard to get it to where it is in the three months I have been in the position but if it keeps me employed then it's worth it. It would be nice to feel it was more secure but maybe in this day and age very few people have real job security and after all the time I spent unemployed I am just grateful to have a job at all.

Lastly there is the crap car, tomorrow (I know, Friday the thirteenth but dammit the new me is not going to worry about that....too much) it goes into a garage to have many of the multitude of now very significant and long standing problems it has, fixed. Suspension, drive shaft/CV joint yada yada yada. The bill could be horrific, possibly more than the car is worth but as a discharged bankrupt I don't have a hope in hell of buying a new one so this one is worth way more to me than it's monetary value.

...and you know the best bit? I have saved the money to pay for it myself, all of it, every last penny!

It may seem a small achievement to many but to me, after the last few years of relying on the state or friends and family, you have no idea just how good it feels! If it wipes me out again it will be worth it just for the feeling that knowing I have worked, saved and paid for it myself gives me! :)

I still have many a mountain to climb to get my life anything like where I would like it to be and the rebuilding process continues... but maybe, tentatively, things are beginning to progress in an upward direction just a little.

Stunned!!

I had some 'news' recently, provided to me by someone who I admire for their consideration and care. When you hear the news that may seem an odd thing to say but you may understand and those of you who know me well will understand why I say that.

Those of you who read here regularly will recall my unceremonious dispatch from what was a very important relationship in my life about eighteen months ago and the subsequent car wreck my life became. I won't link it here again, it's consigned to history now and I won't name he who committed the deed because that is perhaps unfair but if you know you know.

So...this 'news', bear in mind here that at the time I would have given anything to have had him ask me to marry him....well 'Mr I will never get married I don't believe in the concept and it would be hypocritical, no way, no how, not ever' is getting married or has already got married!!

I don't know too many specifics and I don't want too.

At the 'point of impact' (an email while sat in a coffee shop) you could have knocked me down with a feather, in fact worse than that, I reacted rather badly by spontaneously saying out loud "F*cker" - hopefully not too many overheard!

For a minute or two I didn't really know which way was up and I will admit the 'ouch factor' was very evident, I was pretty much stunned but I quickly recovered my composure and got something of a grip. The reason I say I have nothing but admiration for the person who took the decision to tell me something so difficult is because for me it has finally drawn a hard line under the whole sorry business and reiterates much that I have come to understand about the guy involved and what I believed as opposed to the reality . People change I know but others are just not as honest as one would like to think.

I would like to be a big enough person to wish him hasppiness but I'm not sure I am, I do however hope he has finally and honestly found what he is looking for, if only to avoid someone else going through what I did....I was not the first by a long chalk. Some relationships just aren't meant to be perhaps and I apparently wasn't 'the one' but he had some p[retty heavy duty history where any kind of commitment was concerned and maybe I just should have known better from the start.

Hey ho.....

Which way is up?

It's been a very odd week, very odd indeed and I feel completely out of any small comfort zone I may have once inhabited!

Getting a job and starting work is of course good and in the main I have enjoyed it but I am a creature of habit and the whole messing up of my, albeit previously very boring, routine has reduced me to some degree of not knowing which way is up, if in fact there is an 'up' at all! I feel like I'm treading water in a thick fog somewhere utterly strange to me and it's all a bit unnerving to be honest.

Add to that my home 'situation' remains very difficult, probably more so for my being out all day working and I have had one or two things going on in the background that I can't or don't want to go into here but which I've found pretty difficult and upsetting.

Everything has seemed to happen at once, nothing happened for months and then in the space of a week everything has changed, well ok, not everything of course but right now it feels pretty much like it and I feel pretty alone trying to get a handle on it all.

Mostly I suppose I just wish at the moment I had someone to go home too, talk things over with and to give me a cuddle.

But you know what they say......'if wishes were horses' and all that, so best I just get on with it.

One year on!

It's been a year, to the day, since 'you know who' so perfunctorily dispatched me from his life and his home with barely a backwards glance.

And what a year it's been!

In that time I have had just two communications from him, both just email, the first to say he wasn't about to change his decision, the second when my father died to say he was 'sorry'. That was it, no further explanation, no nothing.

At the time I thought my heart would break, I had never felt anything so intensely painful before in my life, I was completely lost and with absolutely no real idea of how to move forward.

Subsequent to that, those who read here regularly will know that things didn't get a whole lot better, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and required nursing to his death just before Christmas, exactly a week before that a very good friend who had supported me throughout, also lost his battle with cancer and now my mother is needing pretty extensive help getting over her loss. I still don't have a job or a home of my own and I still have something of a mountain to climb to get my life back. But you know what? With the benefit of hindsight I can honestly say I would rather be where I'm at now than where I was a year ago.

I have learned a great deal in that year, yes, it had been almost unbearable at times and yes there has been many an occasion I would have cheerfully just curled up under a stone somewhere and died but for all that, I am me, I no longer have to pretend to be someone I'm not, I have my integrity and my self respect in tact and I'm proud of myself for 'making it' this far. I might be a little damaged and battered around the emotional edges, I might be a slightly different person to the blindly trusting one I was a year ago but I know now that without doubt, even if I had the opportunity to turn the clock back, I wouldn't.

I would rather be where I am today, with all it's difficulties, than be with someone who patently couldn't step up to the emotional plate.

His loss!

Happy things!

If you read here regularly you might recall all the excitement when my best friend Lisa came to visit here last year from Nebraska on two occasions..... and the subsequent news of her engagement to Ian and then their prolonged dealings with U.S immigration. Finally he managed to emigrate and they got married last November.

Well yesterday I received an email from them titled 'Happy things' which included the photo below and news of the fact that yesterday they had delivered into their hands...... the long awaited green card!!

How cool and completely excellent is that? Ian is an American now!!

Congratulations guys, a very happy thing indeed.


Proof that there can be happy endings! :)

'Jane-world'

When he who decided that I wasn't for him dumped me so unceremoniously almost a year ago now, one of the accusations he hit me with at me at an increased decible level was that I lived in 'Jane-world' (my real name for those confused). This was by no means a positive thing in his opinion, the suggestion very much being that there was something 'inherently wrong' with Jane-world.

My first thought was 'no shit', of course I do, we all live in our own little corner of the world emotionally and psychologically to some degree, we are who we are, we can modify that, we can try and learn from our mistakes but ultimately we are all individuals, with our own personality, thoughts and beliefs but as time went on and I struggled through the hurt I began to be concerned that maybe there was something somehow 'wrong' with Jane-world.

It's taken me some time but slowly I have realised that actually there isn't! Jane-world may have had more than perhaps it's fair share of ups and downs recently, it may not be perfect, I might be a little no pun intended individual, I might not always get it right by a long chalk and I might not be a success as some people judge it but I am who I am, the good and the bad and there is nothing 'inherently wrong' with that, it is just what it is and perhaps my stubbornness (for want of a better word) not to lose myself and become something someone else wanted me to be was perhaps the real issue.

Jane-world may have it's pretty crap bits here and there but if nothing else it's honest, it's upfront, it's learning to love life and I even kind of like it from time to time (thought by no means all the time.)

Most of all I hope it never tries to undermine another's confidence and self belief in the manner that original accusation did mine!

The week that was...

....was not a good one, this one I am determined will be at least something of an improvement!

The last one began with my being dumped by the man that I thought was 'different' and ended with my annihilating my precious laptop on Saturday night, it was a death by a half a cup of tea, which given my usual care was particularly annoying. Really, I have protected that machine almost with my life and at three years old it still looked brand new. Various forms of CPR were performed and it has resided since in the airing cupboard in bits but all to no avail, it was a fatal blow. Bugger!

On the upside it means I have a bright shiny new one now, courtesy of my mother who very kindly offered to lend me the necessary readies to buy it, there was no way I could raise that kind of money right now....I hate borrowing money but I had no choice. Life without a laptop is almost unthinkable in gemmaks-ville.

Among all of this there is one very definite silver lining however, I have by default rid myself for ever of the horribly heinous Vista!

Woot ;)

The best way

On getting it wrong again

So, it seems this dating game is not my forte, I just don't have what it takes or my judgement is pretty severely impaired in one way or another.

Really, I thought I was being careful, I have tried and tried not to fall into the traps of thinking people can't be trusted and generalising but it seems all I am doing is proving the very theory I am trying to disprove. I keep telling myself that one time I will get it right but however I play this damn game I just don't seem too!

This time I thought I was cool, we appeared to have everything going for us, in fact we did and in many ways we still do have, but what I hadn't accounted for was his 'issues' and whilst I have been left pretty flattened by this latest incident I really can't say he was dishonest or bad, he is just struggling with life himself right now and I happened to be a casualty of that. Something I think he hadn't anticipated and is himself very sorry for.

None of that changes the fact though that again I am left confused and with puffy eyes and a shiny nose, this I promise you is not a good look, and whilst I know I did nothing wrong, that in itself makes it harder.... and more than that, the fact that I understand his issues and can't help him (or myself by proxy), despite knowing the psychology, is particularly difficult for me to get my head around.

I really didn't think I had got in this deep but it seems I have and what it leaves me feeling that concerns me the most, is that I have really begun to feel scared now to even try again. I mean, how on earth do I know who I can trust not to hurt me? I've got it wrong so often! I don't want to be a cynic, I don't want to always be looking over my emotional shoulder. I used to think the gains were worth the risk but I am so sick of being sad and I just don't know anymore if it is actually worth the risk or whether I should just give up and forget the whole thing.

I don't want to feel like this anymore, I was never a player or into games and this time, even though everything seemed right, even though I did all the things one is advised to do, I still managed to get it very wrong.

Oh...and to add insult to injury, aside from the puffy eyes, the shiny nose and the emotional fallout, all I seem to have left of this latest foray into matters of the heart is his cold and razor rash. Great! How bloody delightful!

And it was going so well

'Was' is the operative word here because having finally met a man with whom I clicked and who I thought was different, something went wrong.

We spent the weekend away, we both had a fantastic time together, really, I'm not an idiot, this was good for both of us, we communicated on the same level and we never stopped talking or laughing. It really was different, right up to the last minute.

I got home late last night and he called as promised.... but instead of the usual lovely conversations we have had previously for hours on end....he called a halt to it. Bang, out of nowhere!

It seems we have a serious case of cold feet for want of a better phrase, well it's more complicated than that but isn't it always.

To be fair he was completely honest and I understand his reason, in fact more than that I have great empathy with it but none of that changes how miserable and crap I feel right now, or the fact that I really am beginning not to trust my own judgement any longer and think trust is a thing of the past per se. In fact understanding somehow makes it harder because despite that I can't do anything about it.

Maybe single is the better option, maybe I'm done with men..... I'm losing the faith.

Up -'date'

Well....date number two was bought forward to last night and tomorrow has now become number three.

I'm a grown up (well, I think I am supposed to be, though that hasn't always been my forte), I am doing this thing one day at a time, the communication level is unusually and refreshingly good and straightforward and for the right here and right now, life suddenly got a whole lot more bearable! :o)

Tomorrow of course is another day but if I have learned nothing else this last year I have learned that what will be, will be, and whatever it is, life is too short to play games and not to take risks, calculated though they may be!

Date number two....

....is scheduled for Sunday evening!

I can't wait, it's sad I know of a woman of my years but I feel like a bloody teenager, all excited and silly and with way too many butterflies dithering around in my tummy at high velocity!

Ok, ok, I know, it's early days and anything could, and probably will happen but recent events have begun to teach even me, she who previously liked guarantees in life, to live for the day and not to look too far forward.

So that's what I'm doing, if Sunday is the last date then so be it, if it's not then so be that, but whatever, feeling happy today is far more preferable than not feeling happy today! :)

The date...

...went particularly well, there were no gladioli (not very private joke, see comments), we never stopped talking and I haven't laughed quite so much in some time!

Add to that, this guy is one of an apparently dying breed in that he is, I think, one of the few not to have made an attempt to 'jump me' on date number one. I'm impressed.

That's all for now guys....very early days but there will be a second date.

Not to be off put...

... by the last debacle, I have another date tomorrow evening!

This one looks a lot more promising, three hours straight on the phone the last two evenings must be a good sign.... and it can only be better than the last one and it's necessary emergency escape!

I know, I know, famous last words!

What is it that they (whoever 'they' are) say, no pain no gain? ;)

On dating and escaping!

Though it seems it isn't something many will readily admit, similarly as guys seem not to easily admit if they have availed themselves of the services of a working girl at some time in their lives, I, being me, have little issue is admitting I have joined a dating site. Well three to be more specific...and if nothing else it is turning into something of an 'experience'.

My theory is simple, I don't get to meet too many people in the 'real' world right now because of my situation and as I spent a fair proportion of my time online, it seemed to be an obvious route to investigate.

The first thing that is very apparent however is that hearts and flowers it is not and as with most things in life, you get what you pay for, very much so...but regardless of taking all steps at minising time wasters, it is still a jungle out there and not for the faint of heart or the less internet savvy. One has to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff with some degree of speed and alacrity...and believe me there is plenty of chaff to be sorted. A more honest way of putting it I suspect would be to just say there are a scary number of serious weirdos out there and narrow minded-ness in dealing with them is not an option!

Add to that one has to be able to accept it all for what it is and be resilient to rejection, not expect a great deal and know that in many cases the image of an individual is at least ten years old and the description wouldn't stand up in court.

All that said, you just never know and once in a while someone surprising pops up. Don't get excited here, there is no stunning announcement about to come from these quarters but as in most things, there are possibilities and I've never been one to at least not dip a toe into new things. Life is too short not to be pro-active.

The down-side is that my first real date, thankfully in the event, only a coffee in a public venue during daylight hours, was so completely dire as to require me to make a very hasty escape. Plan 'A' swung into action and having hidden in the bathroom to text my brother that he was required to call me with a sudden 'emergency', I made my apologies and legged it! Terribly obvious I know, probably almost classic sit-com but hey, I was at least polite and smiled as I cringed through an hour an a half of strained conversation!

I will admit it is quite fun from time to time and on the positive side it can be flattering, but thus far, in the main I would have to say it is straining my lifelong efforts not to generalise and pigeon hole the male of the species in a negative manner.

I will persist for a little while longer though because you just never know....

*And yes, before anyone asks, I do and will always meet in a safe place (should I risk the prospect of another escape debacle again at all), I always let someone who is capable of effecting my escape know where I am and when and with whom.

Seems amusingly appropriate!

I like her style! Heh.

Over again

Today I suspect is not set to be one of my best!

I made very brief mention here a few months back of a fledgling relationship, I didn't blog it beyond that in an effort to give it it's best chance and for reasons of privacy but in short, it didn't quite fledge and for reasons I won't go into, I deemed it necessary to call time on it yesterday.

I'm sad, it hurts but I'll survive.

I think I'll probably have to go through this a few times more before my knight in shining armour shows up so best I learn to get used to it.

Onward....