thoughts on life after marriage

This year as I've been patching my post-end of marriage life back together,

I've been learning a lot about myself, about love and about relationships.

Although I am no longer with David,

I am still in almost daily contact with him because we have children together.

I am stoked to see that (after a few initial hiccups) that he 

is building a life for himself that he loves.

He has found someone else who likes to experience life

the way he wants to and I'm so glad about that.

It surprises me that people think that I will be upset about this.

But the reality is that even though I still care about him,

I don't want to live with him anymore;

and so I'm thrilled to bits that he is moving on with his life

and making decisions about how he wants this to look.

In this way, I actually feel like I am living the promises I made to him,

to honour and respect him till death us do part.

I myself have had a few adventures in meeting guys because I 

wanted to see if it was possible, if anyone would actually want me.

These mostly end in disaster. It turns out mutual loneliness is not

a compelling reason to want to talk to someone. 

Because I had never ever dated,

I have zero skills when it comes to talking to guys

and so I now have a collection of funny and not so funny stories

about how not to date.

One stand out example of this is a guy called James who i really liked,

but who had been in prison for assault, was a recovering alcoholic and drug addict,

and who was a compulsive liar

and eventually died when his motorbike hit a horse.

This is actually a true story.

Things I have learned this year about myself...

I am stronger than I thought

I will only be treated as well as I treat myself

It is a mistake to confuse being needed with love

Being by yourself is not a bad thing

There is peace to be found in the quiet spaces

These three quilts were made from one small basket of scraps

that I found when I helped David clean out his garage.

I made three quite different quilts from them,

and although the scraps are mostly vintage sheets

the quilts have quite a modern look about them.

 Like these three patched together from scraps quilts, 

I am contented to keep patching my life back together,

to reclaim that which I lost over the years,

to make mistakes and to make the best of things.

I won't lie, there have been a lot of tears

and a lot of hard times this year.

I feel like my heart is surrounded by sandpaper.

But right now I'm happy.

I'm keen to keep going forward by myself

making the best of things, making plans for the future

and with high hopes that this will work out ok.

It is all going to be ok.

#icandohardthings

#thistoowillpass