A Gentle Awakening.....

Ladies & Gentlemen, fizzy loveliness & cakes are to your right, please do go help yourselves whilst I get a little serious for a moment......

I was looking at our wedding & new baby photos last night: I just came across a big pile of them so had a flick through.......I had a bit of an epiphany.

Looking at the photos, there are just young, happy faces & lots of smiles: full of hope & love & fun and I realised that the Ex and I DID love each other: we were in love and we had a fine old time of it. The faces staring back at me clearly show me they were happy & full of the future.

For some reason, knowing that it had been beautiful & wonderful once has somehow made the ending of it, I don't know, kind of OK & natural, pure & proper. It was beautiful once and now it's broken but that's OK. I really do believe things have a finite time to them.

I was also trying to really work out when things started to break apart; instead of trying to peer into a fog of misguided misery. I think it really began to get rocky in '07 when I had lifesaving surgery: the cracks began to show: I wasn't important enough. They really started to bug me when, on arriving back in England half cut open & ever so fragile, my Beau told me to go walk round The Green by myself, he was far too busy, but not to worry he could see me out of the window and would come get me if I collapsed. I clearly remember crossing a road and a car being some 20 feet away and thinking 'I cannot make it to the other side of the road in time'. I just did not figure. Not yet invisible but a pest all the same.

Looking at more photos I can pretty safely say by Easter 09 the rot was well & truly set in &, come June of this year, the final coup was but a dull blow: I was beyond surprised & too tired to care anymore.

But I know now that I have tried - for many, many years I have tried and it simply is not what I want to do anymore. I cannot live my life whilst trying to become a non entity (in my view) for someone else.

Finally I can release the butterfly of all the happy memories, shimmering in dazzling hues. Watch it catch the light of the sun & stay there for a while before it lifts away forever. My relationship. Over.

But my heart truly is OK - I can now honour our good times but know it is absolutely OK for me to have got off that road now. It's OK to say 'no more'. It's OK to want to find my own way. And I really do: OK, with some trepidation but mainly with a heart full of excitement. The future plans & moves are made, just the wait now to launch.

Am I coming out of my own cocoon? Perhaps not fully yet: there's been a torrent of water under the bridge keeping my new wings damp & heavy but all I have to do is to wait for the next ray of sun..........