Archives for February 2014

I grew up on a diet of fairy stories. The ugly duckling grows into a beautiful swan and her life is transformed. The orphaned step-sister gets to frock up for the night to go to a great party, meets a handsome prince and they end up getting married. A princess is outcast by her wicked stepmother, is poisoned and falls into a deep sleep but a handsome prince wakes her up and they live happily ever after.

Is it any wonder that I expected to meet my handsome prince and fall madly and deeply in love, with it being reciprocated, and we live happily ever after? Of course that hasn’t happened.

I got pregnant 13 years ago and the father is nowhere to be seen. I struggle along as a sole parent then I meet a bloke who I fall for. He does the fade, comes back into my life we go out for two years. We break up. He comes crawling back and I take him back – falling for the smooth words and the promises of change. Falling for the promise of what could be.

It’s pretty good to start with. However, it’s not the fairy tale relationship. He says he loves me but somehow it’s not quite enough. There’s something missing. I bring up the thought of a family holiday – his and my kids and us. He neatly avoids this commitment so I organise a holiday with JJ to go on by ourselves and keep mentioning that he could join us. Still no commitment. Then he goes and organises an overseas surfing trip with some mates. Right!!! I brush that off with the thought that he’s entitled to do that and next time it will be us.

I think about organising some time off over christmas and new year during the summer school holidays and ask if he’s taking any time off. He says that he’s not thinking about it. Then just as I go back to work after three weeks off he tells me that he’s got the next two weeks off. So that was a sudden thing was it?

We live in our separate houses half an hour apart which means that we really only see each other on weekends. He might come over one night during the week when he hasn’t got his kids but it depends on what he’s organised for his dog so often that won’t happen because he doesn’t want to leave his dog in my backyard unsupervised for the day.

So that leaves weekends. But JJ has Scouts on Friday nights during school term so when he’s got his kids that cuts out Friday nights unless they come here and that happens very rarely. Saturday night is the night then. He either comes here or we go there and spend the night. Sometimes we’ve got a party or an event on so depending on where that is, depends on where we stay for the night.

Then it’s Sunday and back to the working week and we don’t see each other during the week, especially now that I don’t work near him anymore.

I bring up the ‘where do you see our relationship going’ conversation. ‘Do you see us living together?’ He mumbles something about JJ and high school locations and obviously doesn’t really want the conversation to continue. He then mumbles something about he’s tried to go down the living together path with previous relationships and it’s gone pear-shaped.  I try to keep the ‘talk’ going but give up because conversations need two people. Especially a conversation about a relationship. I already know that he’s not considering marriage because my sister has asked him about it – with nothing to do with me. That was awkward.

The conversation winds up and he acts as though nothing has happened and it’s not mentioned for the next two weeks until I bring it up again. This time we’re not interrupted but there’s still no reassurance for me. I know deep down that if I were in a healthy relationship I wouldn’t need the reassurance I’m seeking.

We could carry on with just seeing each other maybe once a week. We could carry on like this for the next five years when our kids are out of high school. Is it magically going to change then? No, probably not. I can’t shake off the doubt. I know what I need to do.

So I think about it all for the next week or so. I give it a fair shot. After all we’ve been going out for nearly four years, but I decide to break it off. I tell him that I can’t continue like this. Ok, he says. He agrees with what I’m saying. He doesn’t come out and say that he’s madly in love with me. I actually wasn’t really expecting him to. His response just confirms things for me.

Five minutes later he picks up his stuff, gets his dog, we give each other a hug, then he’s gone without a backward glance.

I walk back into the house and inwardly pat myself on the back knowing that I’ve done the right thing.

So today is Valentine’s Day and I’m not celebrating it with my lover but I’ve got other plans which I’m looking forward to.

There’s an episode of Modern Family where both Gloria’s eyesight, and Jay’s hearing is getting worse. FYI, incase you don’t watch the show, Jay and Gloria are married. He’s considerably older than his younger, very hot wife.

Both of them are in denial about their problems and in typical sit-com fashion when things finally get resolved, and Gloria’s wearing her glasses, she looks at Jay and realises that he does indeed look a lot older than she thought.

I too have to wear glasses for reading. In fact everything’s now a blur when I don’t wear them. However, when I looki in the bathroom mirror I think I’m doing all right for my age. Sure, there are some wrinkles and lines there but it’s not too bad. That is, until I put my glasses on and I can see everything in clear focus and realise there are quite a few more wrinkles and lines than I originally thought.

Pity I can’t keep my glasses on when I pluck my eyebrows. I can’t see what I’m supposed to be plucking when I don’t have my glasses on but can’t pluck with the glasses on. I’m sure I could employ some sort of magnifying glass but don’t know that I’m ready for that because of the other hair on my face that will show up if I stray from the eyebrow area. I had my glasses on the other day when I went to the loo at work and took a peek at myself after washing my hands. As soon as I got home that evening I madly plucked my eyebrows. Maybe I should start getting someone to do it for me? Hmmm, wonder if the lad would be up for it?

I’ve become a woman from a Grumpy Old Women episode where they discuss their diminishing eyesight. One woman says she has multiple glasses scattered around her home but can she find them when she needs them? No, of course not.

I have three pairs of glasses I use constantly. One pair in my bedroom, one pair near the computer and one pair in my handbag for work and to read the small labels on packets of food at the supermarket. I have a fourth pair just in case thanks to the buy two get one free thing some optometrists have.

I have to remember to take glasses out with me if I use a different handbag so I can read menus or whatever else requires it. One day I got to work and didn’t have any glasses with me. Luckily I was able to duck out to a chemist to buy some of those magnifying spectacles. They gave me a bit of a headache but at least I could read.

Big fonts are my friend. Small fonts are the bane of my life. I’ve mentioned the tiny print on many labels. Small website fonts are another annoyance. Luckily, many recent website updates have embraced larger font sizes. And I know I can increase the font size myself if I want – and I do that a lot. Ctrl+ for Windows or Cmd+ for a Mac are my keyboard go tos to increase font sizes.

Even looking at my jewellery – particularly earrings – I sometimes have to put my glasses on so I can see exactly what I’ve got.

I find that wearing my glasses when preparing food is pretty much a given now and I’m guessing that in the not too distant future I may have to embrace the bi-focals, although my long distance vision is still good.

I wonder if I’ll ever lose that frustration that I get when I try to read something without glasses and realise that no matter how far away from my eyes I put it, it will never be in focus?

What about you? Do you have to wear glasses for reading?

Last night I had a dream that had two people in it I haven’t seen for a few years.

They both live overseas now which is one reason I haven’t seen them. The other reason for one of the people in the dream is that we had a falling out. Only I don’t know what the falling out was over.

We met nearly 20 years ago through an ex of mine and got on really well.

A few years later she moved to England to study and I met up with her in the year 2000 in London. It was indirectly through her that I met my son’s father. She’d met a guy at a party and my son’s father was his friend. It’s a pity we don’t talk any more because I would love for her to tell my son another perspective on the father he’s never met.

She got back to Australia two days before I did and moved into my house until she got herself settled back in. She was great in helping me get through the second month or so of my pregnancy by walking my dog for me and cooking some meals for me. I had no energy to do anything apart from go to work and at that stage I’d told nobody at work.

She was around for the first six months of JJ’s life and if I’d had a christening for him I’d earmarked her to be a godmother.

Then she moved overseas to work when the only contact was email and phone and that was semi-regular.

I think I know why she may have stopped contacting me. It was something I said to her that I think was a valid point but I really should have kept my trap shut.

Anyway, unless I ask her, I’ll never know for sure.

I do think about her sometimes and it was bizarre that she was in a dream last night as if nothing had happened.