The silver lining game

Recently I feel I have been through quite a bit. Somehow I have managed to keep vaguely sane (or should that be as sane as I ever was?) and cheerful thanks to a little game I have devised. The silver lining game is all about trying to find the positives of whatever situation you're in.

An example....
*Boyfriend suddenly goes all weird for no apparent reason and you find yourself single, not moving in with him after all and one less place to go when your job ends in a matter of weeks. Loss of supposed best friend and soul mate.

And the silver lining? Well in this case I found a few
*Could have happened in the future at a much worse time e.g. when you were married or having moved in together in a flat in a town where he has loads of mates and family and you end up all alone trying to shoulder massive rent bill.
*All of a sudden I find myself more busy than I can cope with. I'm seeing so many of my friends and filling my time with so many hobbies I haven't got time to be bored. I've taken up embroidery, knitting and researching the topic I did for my dissertation at university
*I'm less stressed because I'm not trying to make a long distance relationship work by being available all the time and organising my life to the nth degree to ensure I actually see them once in a blue moon and fit around their calendar

it's a great game but sometimes it can be tough to play. For example today.....

*It has finally sunk in that I'm getting my official letter of notice this week for my job. Bit scary to realise you have two months left of gainful employment and as yet none of your applications have been successful. Not even an interview as yet.

*Have finally had my exit interview so am now down for re-deployment. Found out today that I can only be redeployed to another job on the same grade as I currently am (and one that I'm suitable enough for). Was sent this week's list and the only jobs I qualified for under salary scale were social work, housing support officer and transport co-ordinator responsible for bus routes and bus strategies.... Whilst I am eligible for redundancy if nothing suitable can be found by the end of my contact, HR are refusing to discuss this option as yet.... beyond acknowledging I will be eligible. I was not eligible for the one vaguely suitable job I'd so far seen as it's on the grade above the one I'm currently at the top of..... a difference of a mere couple of hundred pounds.... typical.....

*Boiler still not working after a week and a half. Landlord company less than helpful but passed my number onto the engineer who had been round twice last week to 'fix' it. He deigned to call me but was convinced he had fixed it already and insinuated I was stupid. He eventually agreed to go back and try again when I calmly pointed out that the fault would only develop after about 20 minutes and that turning it off and back on again was akin to pressing the reset button which is what I already have to do to kick start it and get a short period of hot water/heating.

*The weather has been a nightmare. Very heavy rain, but mostly at times when I had to walk rather than be in work/on a train/in a shop

*I managed to leave my lunch at home.

*I was working the side of my job I hate the most..... enough said

So given all this I spent most of the day racking my brain as to what on earth the silver lining to all this could possible be.

About half an hour ago, I suddenly realised what the silver lining is.....

Things can only get better!

Today.... I feel a little stronger

After my episode the other day I've been gradually getting a little stronger. Little things have helped like a good driving lesson, silly stories my work colleagues have been telling me and small moments of success. I'm not totally there, I don't know whether I will ever be totally there but I'm a little better which is good news at the very least.

I still loathe my ex. At least he has had the good sense to leave me alone, but then he only ever contacts me about his stuff. Very materialistic.

Ah well, it's not hurting so much but I know as soon as I speak to him or he contacts me it will open up old wounds. I suppose it's a testament to how much I loved him. I don't think I still love him but I guess I must do in a way. Just don't want to think too much about that one.

I was talking with a colleague today about job interviews and it made me recall what was happening two years ago. Yes it really is two years on Monday since my Grandma passed. That crazy 2 weeks when I applied for my current job, she had her heart attack, died, funeral, I got an interview (on the day of the funeral), moved the interview to two days later and travelled the length and breadth of the country to fit it all in. Work wouldn't let me take the week off as sick leave because I hadn't said the phrase 'I am off sick' (I'm sorry but is grief not technically an illness???) and I couldn't use the doctors note I had because of the interview. I then had one of my managers refuse to give me a reference because they interpreted one of the application questions differently to how I had but fortunately my new employers agreed with me.... happy days.....

The point I guess I'm trying to make to myself is, I survived. I managed. In fact in the following two months I had to juggle work, pack the house (all by myself) and I broke up with the guy I was dating at the time, on my birthday no less. Yet I'm still here and I have had moments of wonderful happiness in the past couple of years.

I still reckon someone up there has it in for me though. I must have done something really really bad in a previous life. I also have an irrational dislike now for this time of the year. April/May is a horrid, horrid time. A time when people die or I become single again. A time when I'm usually job hunting. A time, many many years ago when I was revising for exams. I don't think I'll ever get over that and will approach this time of year in future with great mistrust.

I'm still in a tunnel, but I can see a chink of light in the far off distance.

Just wanting to give up

I just want to give up on life altogether. I don't expect anyone to understand but right now I don't feel there is a whole lot left for me. Everyday is a constant battle. All I've even done is work hard and do my best and it just never is enough. I've lost my job, my partner and I'm clinically depressed. I'm not on any anti-depressants because I had such bad side effects last time. I feel so alone and in so much pain.

I don't even have anything to look forward to. Going home is just going back to a miserable existence I hated. I get on with my parents fine but I don't know anyone round there, the town is full of drug addicts and violence. There's nothing to do and I'll just give up the will to live even more, if thats possible.

I have no one to talk to. All my friends are chatting about buying houses, getting engaged and their careers. I'm the only single one, and the only other person without a job at least has a finacee and bits of work. My partner was my best friend, and I thought my soul mate, the only person I could confide in and even he's gone.

I wish I could give up utterly and entirely, but I'm too much of a coward to do anything about it. I'm too scared to jump off a roof or wander under a train on the way home. I think about it all the time, I'm just a coward and won't actually go through with it. But if someone offered me the chance to just be erased, to have never existed.... I'd take it. Right now I'd take it. I want life to stop being so hard and for once, just once, get offered an easier option.

A break up is made easier.....

when you discover your ex-partner is actually a bit of a fruitcake. That or he's never developed any adult sense of how emotions etc work. Either is likely.

So here's what happened. He e-mailed me and explained what the problem was. Fine I thought, or should I say finally! Not much you can do when you don't know what the problem is. I asked if we could work through this... no apparently. However he wants to be friends and he'll always be friends with me even if I'm not friends with him... what?! Is that supposed to make sense? Hey, I don't want to be with you any more, I think you need help, but I will always be your friend.... right... and good friends abandon their friends when they need help right?

As I say, the man's a fruit loop! He keeps trying to be chatty, he's even been texting my mother 'happy birthday'. Thing is, he's refused to try and talk through and resolve the issues and effectively wants to pretend they're not there and go back to being all happy friends and everything fine. He's an idiot. You can't brush things under the carpet and expect it to lie flat.

I find him irritating, stupid beyond belief right now and generally incapable of dealing with the world. Bizzarely this helps as it's hard to still love or feel any affection for someone who so blithely runs over your feelings and expects the world to be all happy clappy and nice for him. So clearly I'm the only one whose been getting upset, not sleeping and running myself into the ground over this and have made myself ill. I'm very very clearly better off without him.

The plan is, just let the damn friendship die. I'm certainly not going out of my way to see him, spend time with him or contact him. Why should I? I live in the real world rather than la la land and have better things to do with my time.

Like my new hobby. I've taken up embroidery. We'll see how long it lasts but it's very soothing and I'm not rubbish at it so it bodes well :)

Back to the beginning

Oh dear, it seems if I have any luck it never runs for long. I'm back to it never raining but it pouring. Not only am I soon to be out of a job, a job I love and never want to leave, but my soul mate turned out not to be my soul mate. As my wise sister tells me, 'it works out with your soul mate', which means they don't suddenly stop loving you but only admit to it when you ask it to them straight. How long that's been going on for I have no idea so I have been lied to, led up the garden path and used. Right now I rather hate men, and it's kind of unsurprising.

So it looks like I'm going to have more time on my hands. More time to come back to blogging.

This is just a short one as I have to go to work whether I feel up to it or not. Got dumped yesterday evening so as a consequence haven't really slept all night. The slimy, cowardly toad probably slept very peacefully. He's finally got rid of me without having to actually have the balls to come out with it himself.

There is a lesson in all this. Never date your best friend. They're no better than the rest of the b*stards you could hook up with.

Life changing

It's been over a year since I last wrote on this blog. So much has changed since then, not least the fact that a few months ago I finally managed to get a phone line organised and now have internet access at home, bliss!

I'm still in my not so new anymore job and still loving it. It has given me more challenges than I know what to do with and my list of skills on my CV has almost doubled. I organised an event, a whole event! I've never done one before yet I succeeded. I'm more confident, I'm happier, its just so amazing. If you has asked me in May of last year if I ever thought my life would be like this, I would have said no.

I have friends I get to spend time with here. I went to Devon only last weekend and went canoeing! I've never done anything like that before. I've never even been to Devon save for a couple of meetings in Exeter and Plymouth and they don't really count. I have a social life. Ok so I started taking Italian lessons last September but this year they don't have the next level available at my local college so I've had to stop. Yet I still got to do the first course. A new skill!

I did make one pretty big mistake since I last posted. I dated LB again. I wasn't over him so when the opportunity arose to get back with him I did. I eventually realised my mistake after he told me I was at the bottom of his priority list and I finally let go. Whilst I say it was a big mistake, given how miserable he made me for a short time, in some ways it was the best mistake I made. I say that because it finally got me to see something right in front of my eyes.

I was reading my last post and couldn't help but chuckle. I mentioned LB thinking I was going to run off with someone in my regiment. I thought it was ludicrous because the guy was my best friend. Yet the funny thing is, the thing neither me nor my friend realised until very recently, was that we were very slowly but very surely falling in love with one another.

I know a lot of people who know me just think 'oh he's the next boyfriend' but I do really believe that this is something a bit different. We'll have to wait and see what happens, we may live happily ever after, we may not. I just want to enjoy the beautiful relationship I have with him and the love we share. He knows me better than anyone, although we still have a lot to learn about each other. Things are just wonderful and I'm happy with that.

So why haven't I posted for so long? Well the answer is, I'm really really happy for a change. I have my ups and downs, don't get me wrong, but I'm not as angry at the world as I used to be. I no longer do a job that doesn't fulfil me, I am no longer in a relationship where I am constantly trying to make things work because they aren't, I live by the seaside! So I haven't felt the need to rant about my life, or small things that annoy me like motorists going through red lights when the little green man has just come on to say you the pedestrian can cross.

I don't know if I'll post again. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. For now though I don't feel a need to other than to let you all know that life does get better.

Busy busy busy

Where to start! Keeping up with the blog has been a bit difficult when I have such limited access to the internet. The only time I can post is when I access the library computers, which has been really difficult lately. Half the time I work in a place where I have to commute by train to so by the time I get home the library is closed. Then when I'm working nearer home I keep going in and finding that all the computers are taken, there’s a queue and the library will be shutting in the next hour and a half. Ah well, I'll just have to keep writing at home, putting it on the memory stick and post loads at once I guess.

Well so much has been happening I don't think I can really cover it all in one post but I'll try. Work has been a bit mad. The two places I work are exceedingly different, and both are very different from my previous job. I go out on site visits! In one month I've done about 7/8 site visits, which is about as much as I did in two years in my previous job! I'm respected, and my opinion actually counts, it's even asked for on occasion! In a way it’s quite sad that I'm so excited about that but hey, it’s the little things that count. I've done site visits with a colleague and site visits on my own, including one to the major site in the centre of one of the cities I work. Big site, lots being found from prehistoric, to medieval right up to Victorian, very interesting site.

As if that’s not enough I almost had a heart attack the first day I worked in the other place (the place I commute to). I got asked to block out a week for them because we have a film crew coming to film a well known programme in our area. At first I was pretty excited (despite the fact I know they're not great when it comes to being accurate and recording the work they do) but now I'm just wanting to get it over with. I'll write more about it next time, but lets just say I've been getting a bit frustrated with them and the prospect of spending three days watching them probably mess up is no longer thrilling.

Last weekend I finally got to go to my first big muster with the SK. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for, but to be honest I absolutely loved it. I mean lets face it, how many people can actually say they're on a 17th century gun crew and that all the bangs are real, not clever pyrotechnics! I'm also in the best regiment in the whole thing; they look after you and take you in as one of theirs no questions asked. At no point did I feel they were taking pity on me or making a special effort for me, that’s just who they are. Kind, helpful and lovely without any hidden agendas. I really really enjoyed it and can't wait to go on another. I'm missing the next one though because of the filming this coming week :(

The SK weekend was a fairly important one in some ways. It was the first time I've seen LB since we split. I've been so angry at the way I felt he treated me and just didn't want to go anywhere near him. I was even arranging for someone to hand over his stuff that he'd been texting me a lot to get back, rather than me having to see him. In the end I decided I had to do it myself, otherwise I would just continue to avoid him for the rest of my life and get worked up over it and it was about time I started letting go. Ok so I wasn't too friendly and didn't want to be mates to begin with, but we did chat and one of the first things he did, unprovoked, was apologise to me for the way he'd been. That shocked me, I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting the arrogant LB who I was under the impression thought I should get over myself and that I felt wouldn't let me grieve. He also made a very good point. We're both in the SK and we both work in the same, small field. We can't really avoid each other so we should try and get along. It took me a while to come round, I'm incredibly stubborn :) Suffice to say, after some very long conversations we're back to being friends. It seems I can't stay angry with him when I see him in person, something I've always known deep down and it perhaps half the reason I was avoiding him. It was really nice to chat to him again, we really do have an awful lot in common and he's one of the few people who understands my life. Even my parents don't understand some things as well as he does. It may irritate me no end that he knows me so well (he noticed I'd had about an inch cut off my hair to make it a little neater, a very tiny change really!) but there are times when you're grateful someone knows you that well.

What I did find somewhat amusing is LB thinking I'd run off with another member of my regiment. Makes me realise that perhaps LB doesn't know me as well as I think he does. We did think it might be funny to perpetuate this idea if necessary but decided against it as it seemed more cruel than funny. Besides, it’s a bit early to be getting a reputation, especially a false one!

In some ways I feel more at peace now that I have done in a while. I have a good job, live in a lovely house, and have a great hobby, and I have finally resolved the conflicts in my life (or at least I think I have!). Ok so the not so positive things continue to happen. My uncle had his surgery and had to go back in because of an infection, but that all seems to be resolved. This morning I had a phone call to say another relative has died. I wasn't too close to this person and because I live so far away and have a busy work schedule I'm absolved from going to the funeral. My Dad is the executor of the will it turns out so all the legal bits and pieces will go on a while for him. I'm glad it happened finally. My parents visited her last weekend and she didn't know who they were or anything. She's been fitting for days and generally been in pain and not well. She's finally at peace. Yet despite all these things, I don't feel the horrible weight and despair I was feeling a few months ago. I guess what I've learnt is that nothing is forever, and that includes misery. There is often something better just around the corner that you don't know is coming. I don't think I'll ever stop using the phrase 'it never rains but it pours', but right now, life is looking up.