…. the ex factor

…. so as i wave goodbye to my old life… and say hello to my old old life (sort of)… ive been trying to work out exactly what the rules of engagement are when moving back in with ones ex … allbeit temporarily…

… it’s a bizarre situation that i think we are both getting used to but so far we seem to be muddling along ok… and there are times when it feels like i have never been away… the difference being this time that it’s no no longer my home and i  don’t have the run of the house… just one room… and even then i have to find alternative arrangements if visitors come to stay…

… what has been interesting has been other people’s reactions to this whole situation…  having to head off at the pass the probably not entirely unexpected assumption that we are getting back together…  and certain friends have not been backwards in coming forwards about what their view is on the situation… with one gleefully rubbing his hands waiting to tell me ‘i told you so’ when it all goes wrong…. but at the moment as far as i’m concerned it was the right thing to do based on my current situation…

…yes i do have other options as to where i rest my weary head whilst i decide which way my life is heading… but in the end, with so many changes going on and big decisions to make, having just one thing that is familiar in my life makes the whole process just a little bit easier…

… moving on

…. well it wasn’t just the books that hauled me off down memory lane, in what was quite possibly the longest move in history… (never again will I do it myself)… my CDs and clothes also rode me roughtrack around some of the most poignant moments of the last few years…. admittedly trying on my wedding dress ( both of them…!!) was always going to bring up one or two wild emotions … and certainly for me every stage of my life has had it’s accompanying soundtrack… but as I closed the door on my flat for the last time ( actually it was all I could do not to slam it in the face of my landlord as he tried to fleece me for a blind that wouldn’t close properly) … it really did feel like I was ending one chapter of my life and beginning another….

…. packing my life away

…. one of the disadvantages of having time to spare to pack your life away is that you also have a lot of time to reminisce… on previous moves (and there have been quite a few..) i have been literally shoving things into boxes as they have loaded into the van… or i have even paid people to pack away my posessions… but this time it’s just little old me and a lot of boxes..and i have run the gamut of emotions while sorting my life into these boxes, the majoritiy of which will be filed under ‘to be opened at a later date.. sometime in the future but not quite sure when’… and each box has a sub label reminding me what is in there and it’s last geographical location in my flat.., because i’ve realized in the last few days that about 90% of my posessions that have followed me round over the years have surrounded me like some kind of comfort blanket but i have paid little or no heed to them in all that time…. so now with time on my hands i have opened a pandora’s box of memories hiding in the smallprint of all my worldly goods

…take the books for example… we all know that books tell a story, impart information … but they are also an important chronicle of where we were in our lives when we bought them… staring at my bookshelves the other night i realized that a large part of my collection of books charts the history of a series of failed projects, grand ideas that came to nothing or things that just never quite grabbed me from the start… to give you an idea i have numerous books on the following subjects: personal training, interior design, gardening, flower arranging and e:mail marketing to name a few… not to mention various self help books… unsurprisingly there are only a couple of (inherited i think) cookbooks … for once i knew that project was doomed from the start…

… i could beat myself up about these failed projects and grand ideas that never saw the light of day but as i work out what colour my parachute is whilst going in search of my own north star... i can congratulate myself on the fact that i can, (in latin… for what it is worth), name most of the muscles in my body, i know my shakers from my arts and crafts, can identify numerous types of rose and can make a great christmas centrepiece whilst hyperlinking to my hearts content….

…..starting over

… in about two weeks time i’ll be moving out of my flat and will be oficially homeless …my stuff is going to my ex house to be stored in my ex studio.. and i will most likely stay there for a while too while i work out what my next move will be…. at the moment running away again seems to be the best option… but deciding where to go is proving to be very very tricky..

… so i’m having a bit of a practice run this weekend… staying up at the ex house looking after the ex dogs while the ex husband is away in Le Mans on his annual boys weekend… and i feel like i am living on a live episode of ‘how clean is your house‘ .. i fully expect ( or is it wishful thinking??) kim & aggie to burst through the front door brandishing mops and cloths and all manner of industrial cleaning equipment… ready to do battle with the giant furball/dustmonster that has accumulated over the last 3 years

… the ex has tried bless him… i know him well enough to know that his efforts to clean up really were his best shot and that no matter how many times i point out the oncoming onslaught of furballs.. he just doesn’t see them… it’s a kind of acute dust and furball blindness that he has…

… so the first couple of nights i chose to overlook the special dog fur rug that was quietly residing underneath my bed… deciding to test the feng shui theory that a bit of fluff under the bed can give off good energy and sometimes you shouldn’t touch it (another bit of trivia i read somewhere and have dredged up from the darkest recesses of my brain)… and the theory seemed to be working as i slept really well the first two nights… then last night i didn’t sleep at all… and i was so wrecked i didn’t have the energy to crawl out of bed to go biking this morning (by my standards, if it stops me going biking then it really is serious…) … and when i finally did shoehorn myself out somewhere around midday … i went on an offensive against the furball … in ‘my’ room at least…cleaning the room from top to bottom emptying cupboards and drawers of mainly my own stuff… the room has hardly been touched since i left three years ago…. and in amidst my blitz i discovered a five euro note folded up in a bunch of receipts at the bottom of the drawer… which just goes to show … where there’s muck there’s money!!!