Day 0067

‘When a mummy and daddy love each other very much …’
Stumbled upon the book that introduced it all to me when I was about six years old. It features anatomically correct people – who only put their clothes on to go to the hospital – and a hippie love bug as their transport.
My favourite page is the one that describes sex as : ‘the father and mother hold each other tightly, and move together happily.’ Sounds entirely vague but nice at the same time.
The scariest page is the one with the creepy doctor and the eerily rapturous child doing the breast stroke.
No wonder I turned out so well!
Peruse the delights below (but don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

Days 0064, 0065 & 0066

Turns out all I needed was a cross- continental name calling session and Halfman turned into the small, dried up carcass he is, complete with circumcised head haircut. Wind didn’t blow him away completely but one day perhaps … hope springs as they say.
Experienced beer bellied leer with heavy accent so I couldn’t catch the entire delightful vocab in the sentence. Also got yelled at in FrAnglais by a 16 year old. Laughed long and hard at how shocked he would have been to know just how old I am. In certain suburbs I would be his great grandmaw.
Have I been judgmental enough for now? Clearly not in a generous mood but it helps keep the Halfman at bay. And that is essential at the moment.

Applies to people too

…you can hate a place with all your heart and soul and still be homesick for it.

Joseph Mitchell

Day 0063

Such a lovely day bobbing about in a gentle ocean, listening to giggles and burying my toes in red sand.
Halfman kept gently insinuating his way into my mind as I let myself relax. Have decided that whenever this happens I have to shout at myself inside my head: Arsehat! It distracts me enough that I usually don’t continue down the rabbit hole.
Had a bit off a bolt out of the blue inside my head in the late afternoon when this thought suddenly cachinked into the right place in my brain: he treated me like shite.
And I believed it, nearly 100%.
Progress.

Day 0062

You ever have one of those days when everything gets to you? When people needle you unintentionally for the most part, until you no longer have any energy for smiling or jumping bout with glee? Today was one of those days. The dinner time tension I haven’t felt in forever was there today, choking my throat, keeping me on edge. Someone was destined to put a foot wrong; it was a relief when someone finally did.
How is it that men can create that kind of room filling tension. I’ve been around plenty of tense, angry women but don’t recall ever feeling the apprehension of explosive emotions hold a room so taut.
Have I simply missed out? Or is it a male talent?
I can think of nothing less fulfilling than holding a room to ransom with my moods. Don’t get me wrong: I can be moody as hell. But I like to think I do it discretely, or at least in a way that can be side stepped.

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

0061

Did a hugely scientific study today and it seems that it’s normal to expect the Truth in a relationship, even if it hurts. So really it’s not such a big ask. Do most humans over the age of 16 know that being honest, even when it hurts, is less hurtful than piling lies on top of each other again and again to save immediate pain? More importantly, what kind of person would rather be lied to about the Big Things and spared the sting of the Truth?
Is this something you learn as you get older and make errors of judgement – as you see the yawning abyss of burning and tortured heartbreak brought by lies told to avoid conflict? As you realise life is far too short to live a lie for someone else’s (false) happiness?
Maybe it’s a bit karmic of me, but when I am poised at that precipice of ‘do I tell a wee lie here to avoid short term pain, or do I tell the truth now so it doesn’t become a weeping sore?’ I can see – and feel – the Right Path in the pit of my stomach. Doesn’t every grown up do that? Especially every intelligent one?

Day 0060

Another one of those gnawingly frustrating days where, in spite of my best efforts, the ghost of Halfman haunts me. Mostly I can shove the disappointment away but I hate the idea that a relationship that was once pleasant has turned into one where I (and him too probably) wish the other person could be wiped from my brain. There are certain moments that still cut through me. Betrayal on such a grand scale. Humiliation isn’t an easy thing to get over. Exchanges my normally rose colored glasses for a pair that make You look like your insides are filled with rotting flesh, that your heart is hollow and your smile as insincere as the handshake of a politician.

Days 0058 & 0059

A man who knows who he is and only just saved his marriage by giving in to his fears. An intelligent gentleman who knows how to be a friend before anything else. An unskilled sailor who crashed his boat on my shores then used his oar to push off of my heart.
The world is full of puzzling men who fascinate, hurt and make me wonder all at once.
Old friends give great insight as well:
How could you not call me and tell me all this? she says. That is what I’m here for. Sometimes it is about you. That boy sounds like his brain cells are located too low on his anatomy.
Women give me strength and keep me laughing.
Thank you to you all.

Day 0057

I have always imagined that former paramours just slice me out of their lives, that they never ever think of me again after their decision to say ‘ta ta’. For some reason I give them the ability to let go almost instantly and can’t imagine them either remembering me fondly or even blandly. They move on. That is my belief.
I suspect that isn’t entirely true, but I do wonder how much aftertaste I leave. I think I have left a distinctly bitter one for You. And sometimes I feel guilty about that and wish I could be Little Miss Rise Above It All.
Is it ok not to be elegant sometimes when relationships fall apart?