tea and ice cream

Thank you for your supportive comments on my last two posts.

My week has mainly been fuelled by endless cups of tea at work and falling face-first into tubs of ice cream at home. But last night I went to a concert and had a wonderful evening and today I feel much more positive about things.

I still have no idea what happened or what S was thinking, but I can either fret about it endlessly (my usual MO) or I can just accept that I may never know and move on.  I chose the latter!

Still - breaking up IS hard to do...

alone

This break up with S is the first bad sad thing I have had to face without my darling little cat to comfort me in twenty years.
I don't know how to process this.

and again

So S and I broke up again this evening. He says he's not in love with me any more, while he is still very fond of me.
We've agreed to stay friends.
Well this sucks...

two months in one post

I am a bad blogger for leaving two months between posts, but I'm going to try to make up for it with what may become a behemoth of a post... Apologies in advance :-)

Okay, let's start with something the BFG texted to me a few weeks ago.  "Your blog is rubbish when you're happy" he said.  And I have been very, VERY happy.

S and I did the usual couple-in-love type things for the first two weeks in October: had meals out, had long comfy evenings in, endless chats on the phone on the evenings we didn't see each other and were basically nauseating.

I had the last two weeks in October off work, so S took the same fortnight off and we had a week in London being tourists in our own city.  It was brilliant, we did things that we never really take the time to do: walks on Primrose Hill, the cinema in the afternoon, one day I went to S's place and he made massive margaritas and an equally huge lunch and insisted that I did nothing but partake of both.  The second week we went to Cornwall and stayed a couple of days with my friends and the rest of the week with his sister.  That was slightly less idylic as his sister is a bit of a challenge, but it was still lovely.

A couple of weeks after coming home from Cornwall I went to America for a work conference and in the five days I was away I got one text and zero other communication from S.  He's not a big fan of the digital world so I shrugged it off.  When I came home (on a Monday), he blew off our date (planned for the Tuesday) and suggested Friday, but I was busy the rest of that week with work events so we didn't see each until the weekend after I got home.  And things were strained, but S denied that there was anything wrong.

Things lurched along until Tuesday of this week when we had a rather odd conversation.  Firstly, S announced that he was bored, then told me how much he fancies a tv actress with small breasts because "I do like small breasts" (I'm somewhat generously endowed).  And finally he admitted that he hasn't felt passionate about anyone since his last long-term partner.

And this morning he told me that he no longer fancies me and that he isn't in love with me.  So we broke up.

And now I am once again crying into a vat of hot chocolate and watching "Gilmore Girls".  This hurts so much.

a year in music

A year ago today A and I parted company.  A whole year!

When he first left I was all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY17nf6kvw4

Then, a few months later I went through a phase of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR2G-iI3-I

And now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2u5uUu3DE&ob=av2n

2011: a review

It mostly sucked.
Moving on...

five

Today would have been A's and my 5-year anniversary.
Meh.

oh, for heavens' sake!

There I was, having a lovely girls' day out with my dear friend Too on one of her rare visits to the capital, when SLAM! Punched in the gut by a memory and I was in tears.  What did it?  Walking past the Berners Street branch of this store.

Could I get any more ridiculous?!

whinge

I promise I will stop whinging soon, but will you indulge me in one more self pity-fest?  Thank you.

After A left I remembered fairly quickly Scenes From A Single Life.  You know the kind of thing - responsible for 100% of everything, less money, more space, having to get the step ladder out to reach the top shelf in the kitchen, coming home late to a dark flat, cooking 1/4 of what I cooked before.  It was saddening, but I seemed to step back into it all as if it hadn't been four-and-a-half years.  I even cleared out the guttering with barely a scream when I discovered a spider among the leaves.

But then, on Saturday I was getting ready to go out and hauled an old dress out of the back of my wardrobe for the occasion.  A dress with a zip in the back.  I couldn't quite bend or twist or reach far enough to do it up, and instead of wearing something else instead, I dissolved into a sobbing mess at the end of the bed.  It took me almost an hour to get a grip on myself, thread a ribbon through the zip and do it up that way.  I guess you never know how or when grief is going to hit you.

it's real

A came over on Wednesday evening and took away the rest of his stuff.

It's true. He's really gone and it's really over.

This sucks.

Part of Me

I put a candle in the window
Then take a picture from the wall
Avoid all the places we'd go
Then wait around on your call

There's a part of me that wishes
All my dreams come true
And a part of me that prays
That I'll wake up someday over you

I throw a penny in the river
Thinking that will bring you home
Then throw another right behind her
Hopin' that you don't

There's a part of me that wishes
All my dreams come true
And a part of me that prays
That I'll wake up someday over you

The way it comes and goes
Ridin' high fallin' low

There's a part of me that wishes
That all my dreams come true
And a part of me that prays
I'll wake up some sweet day over you

"Part of Me" by Suzy Bogguss

hat-trick

I was at a family christening today and was surrounded by
babies and children
pregnant women
my family who don't know yet that A and I have split (there hasn't been a good time to tell them for one reason or another) and kept asking me where he was.

But it is always lovely to see my family and my little nephew came rushing up and gave me this:

almost done

Thank you all for your good thoughts for last evening; I took them all with me when I went to meet A.

We met in a bar an equal distance from our respective work places.  As I got closer to it I felt my footsteps get slower and slower until finally I had to dive into a nearby shop and look at pretty summer dresses for five minutes while I gathered my nerve.

It was weird seeing A again after what felt like one day and one year at the same time.  As I approached the table I wanted to run and throw my arms around him and never let him go, and then as he looked up at me I wanted to punch him as hard as I could.  I did neither; we exchanged an awkward hello and were then silent until after we had each taken a large slug of our drink.

During the hour and a half that it took for us to talk over the practical stuff I went from love to hate to anger to grief to sudden acute pain to blessed numbness.  Sprinkled on the top of all of that was smug gratification (I have lost a stone / 14lbs / 6.4kg since A left and there was a flicker of desire in his eyes when he first saw me) and a touch of bitchiness (the long commute from his temporary home outside London and a bad junk food diet is showing on him).

We have one more meeting to go, when he comes round to collect the rest of his stuff and then it's really over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9sem05RHnM

shields up

A and I are meeting tomorrow evening after work, to sort out some of the practicalities of splitting up.

Fun times...

quantifying

A couple of years ago a colleague at work met a lovely girl at his friend's wedding.  He and this girl hit it off instantly, started going out and were engaged and married within 9 months of meeting.  A year later they sadly split up and my colleague had to tell people at work that he was going through a divorce.  The instant response from everyone was (quite correctly) "oh I am so sorry, that's very sad."

I have started to tell a few people at work, those who had met A at some point, that he and I have parted company.  It goes a little like this:
Me:  My partner and I have split up
They: Were you together long?
Me:  Five years
They: Oh I am so sorry, that's very sad.

I'm not playing Pain Olympics at all, though it may seem like it.  I just wish that I didn't have to quantify the length and depth of my relationship with A because I can't use the words "husband" or "divorce".

if music be the food of (lost) love...

Today's ironing was done to my new break-up playlist:
"Irreplaceable" by Beyonce
"Survivor" by Destiny's Child
"I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor (thanks, BFG)
"This is the Life" by Amy MacDonald
"I'm Every Woman" by Chaka Khan
"Best of You" by The Foo Fighters (not for the lyrics but because it just rocks)
"Hot and Cold" by Katy Perry

I was doing really well until random play suddenly randomly kicked in and threw in this.  Which was "our song".  Stupid random play...

waving and drowning

I'm still here.  And mostly doing okay, although of course I have my melting-into-a-puddle-of-pathetic moments.

I went back to work on Thursday, after two-and-a-half weeks off.  It wasn't easy but I got through it and yesterday was much better.

Waving:  I've lost half a stone (7lbs) without even trying.
Drowning:  I have next to no appetite still and each mouthful I force myself to take results in waves of nausea.
Waving:  I've stopped having panic attacks every time I step outside so have been going shopping, to the gym, to work and out with friends as normal.
Drowning:  Coming back to a silent flat hurts anew each time.
Waving:  I have more space in the wardrobe and drawers for my stuff.
Drowning:  I have been packing up what A left behind which, well, sucks.

Really big, frantically excited waving:  Dr Beardie and I learnt yesterday that our submission for a set of talks at an international meeting was accepted.  The USA in December, baby!  I'm thrilled to bits - but please remind me of this feeling in 7 months time when I am sick to my stomach with nerves :-)

Hugely grateful, touched and heartfelt waving:  My friends both IRL and here in this online community (and also Lovely Therapist) have been so awesome and supportive and such all-round good eggs that I will never be able to properly thank you.