I just had an email from my friend P. He's just emigrated to New Zealand.
He was excited about going, sad about leaving people behind, and we had a great time whilst he was here for a few days. He's starting again, somewhere else, somewhere new, leaving this story behind, starting a whole new one.
Am I jealous? Not really. We had a discussion whilst he was here, about the fact that he liked women who went out and got what they wanted, who were active, not passive about their lives. He saw me as passive. I told him we just want different things. He said he didn't understand.
I told him that, when Rich was here, I had what I wanted. I have, since I was little, looked for my happily ever after. Rich and I had that together, but it took work. We had to choose to ignore the deliberately hurtful things said by the ex's, and to celebrate the lovely things that they did. We had to work hard to provide for the AC, for the BG, we had to go out of our way to spend time together, things like that. Relationships, I told him, do not make themselves. I learned to make Rich's favourite foods - he had to relearn what they were after living on frozen rubbish. I wanted to learn to sew, so I did. I wanted to have a tidier house - the fairies won't do it, I had to! I wanted a cat again, he wanted Landy's, he wanted sharks, we wanted children, and we worked hard to achieve those things.
Just because someone doesn't want to travel the world, I told P, it doesn't mean that they aren't proactive, or that they passively let life walk over them. Maybe it just means that they have what they want right here.
I think he got it.
And then I told him I'd applied for my Post Grad Cert, on the way to my M.Ed, and he was amazed. Ok, it's not backpacking around the Andes, but it's what I want to do, and I'm doing it, I said.
And he told me he loved me. I told him I loved him too (because I do!) and we said our goodbyes for possibly the last time.
I look around me now, and I realise that, with the exception of the elephant in the room, we have everything we want, and more, right here. AC and I have each other, we have family, we have a home, we have the animals, we have food and water and tea, we have a future, we have lots going on.
Including the fact that I am going to an ICT conference today and being collected in about an hour. Rachel is taking the AC to school for me because she is lovely, and Sue and I are off to Norwich to the conference. That's me doing something I want to do lol!
Laters people.
(Oh and Penny, you are right and amazing and cake is indeed the answer! No more of this, and plenty of cake!)
