D’you know, I started out with a really good feeling about 2010. This was going to be the year when I could finally start moving forward and crack on with all the things I’d been held back from because of debts left over from when I gave up the day job. Woohoo – here we f**cking go!
But hey – don’t go getting too comfortable or actually having something to look forward to eh! Suffice to say, déjà vu has reared it’s ugly head in an almost spectacular carbon copy of this time last year. I appear to be single again.
Piss.
As I said, it’s all pretty much about the same stuff as I wrote about before so it would be far simpler to just refer back to those posts again ( here and here) as they are a pretty fair summary.
So yeah. Arse.
Fact is, since all that happened last year things never really changed, not for want of trying on my part but I’m afraid it’s all been a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The biggest problem for years has been that because we were both properly skint, after I left my old day job I ended up massively in debt and it’s taken the best part of 7 years to pay all that off. Having such a restricted budget meant there was sod all chance of getting our own place or actually being able to move forward with any plans and so Kel’s pretty much reached the point of just giving up because she just couldn’t see anything changing and I guess she just figured that was my fault and therefore down to me to sort out.
Frustrating then isn’t it that within a matter of weeks I’ll be out of debt. Yup, zip, zero, zilch, nada. Finally able to actually start making some plans and move forward. How ace is that!
Well, you’d think so wouldn’t you? Trouble is, whilst I’ve always had confidence in my future-vision for how things would work out, unfortunately Kel doesn’t share that confidence and no matter what I try, say or do, she’ll always default to what shes got now or had in the past. The reality of the here-and-now will always overrule any potential future benefits.
That’s massively frustrating for me when in the past i’ve always been super-positive and had tons of confidence in things working out ok in the end. Can’t do it all on my own though can I? isn’t a relationship is supposed to be about two people complementing each other, a synergy where you balance out one another’s strengths and weaknesses for the good of the whole (relationship).
After all that stuff last year, once again, Kel readily admitted she’d been digging her heels in and letting me make all the effort. She knows she does it and yet can’t explain why. It’s very much a case of “I’m not happy because I can’t see anything changing so I’m not going to take any kind of action that might actually help change it”. The doubly frustrating part is that she readily admits the fact but that still doesn’t make any difference. Thing is, I can’t feel bad towards Kel for that, as I know it’s all a matter of self-belief and you’ve either got it or you haven’t.
Again, I know I’m venting a bit but I’m really not blaming her. I think it’s just a case of some deep-rooted protection mechanism where she’s convinced herself that for years all she had to worry about was her and Callum and whenever things are a bit tough the huge brick wall goes up with them on the inside and me locked out. It seems that no matter what I’ll do, I’ll just can’t get past that.
Classic example, a few weeks ago she arranged to go on holiday with a friend from work, just her and Callum with her friend and her kids. It’ didn’t actually matter that I pointed out that if she went with them that would probably put a spanner in the works for us being able to go away somewhere, both in financial terms (well unless I paid for everything of course) and also in terms of Kel using up holiday entitlement which she then wouldn’t have if we wanted to go somewhere. She didn’t even acknowledge that, it was just like I was irrelevant because the next thing I heard was it was all booked anyway. Boy, did that make me feel special! I’ve still not managed to get my head around that one at all.
Still, in spite of all that, I’d still been firmly focused on the fact that this was going to be the year when things turned around. Finally debt-free and able to start cranking handles and moving forward. I’ve been looking forward to this point for such a long time now, literally the past 7 or 8 years and psychologically it’s massive. I’d even decided that the first thing I wanted to do when I’d paid off that last payment was to go and buy Kel a replacement ring for the one she lost and then take her away somewhere nice so I could surprise her with it ‘properly’ this time. Bloody good job I didn’t buy it eh! The only reason I didn’t was because I couldn’t find the receipt for when we had it sized to be able to order the right one…
Anyway, thankfully we’ve not fallen out, and I really hope we never will. I’m not holding any kid of ill-feelings towards Kel at all, I just thing that the circumstances sucked, big time. I still feel exactly how I always did about her and Callum, but I really don’t think there’s anything I could say or do right now that would make any difference. The ball is well and truly in Kel’s court.
Not really sure what i’m doing from day to day at the moment. It’s all a bit surreal. Kel’s still teaching and training at the school which is ace but she did specifically say she needed to be alone at the moment so apart from the school stuff I’m having to bite my lip and let her get on with things in her own and way an on her terms. It’s absolutely killing me each night when it comes to the sort of time I’d be phoning her up to say goodnight but to be honest, Kel’s happiness is more important than mine right now and I’m not about to try and force this issue and spoil that. Especially as ongoing her friendship, and her and Callum’s happiness is really important to me.
So, what am I going to do? Well, I dunno!
To be honest, this past couple of years has just knocked all the wind out of my sails and I’ve got to figure a way to get the old mojo back. I hate the fact that all this crap has eroded a huge part of what I suspect attracted Kel to me in the first place – unfortunately yet another self-fulfilling prophecy.
At the moment I don’t have a massive plan but it has to be said the old self-belief batteries are definitely in need of recharging at the moment so I’m trying to get back into a few of the things I used to be into such as making music and working on some creative projects. I’m making some plans to make more of my photography, which should hopefully involve a bit more travel too.
I really need to get off my lazy arse, sort out my diet and get back in the gym. For me, training and confidence are totally inter-twined and I find it hard to train if I’m not feeling good about myself and vice-versa. Over the past year I’ve been feeling pretty crap for a lot of the time and so I’ve just let the training slip. Pretty much undone all the good work I did a couple of years ago and I’m feeling a bit like Mr Blobby’s stunt double again. Hoping that a few steps in the right direction with the other stuff will help inspire me to crack on in the gym again too.
Next step after that is to really sort my school out. I want to expand, but I don’t want to be doing that all myself so I need to figure a plan to either get someone else involved or how I can work the finances to be able to pay an assistant instructor to coach some extra classes for me. In the past those plans had all been reliant on Kel’s support so I guess I’ll need to make them a slightly longer, different approach but it’s still all do-able.
So, yeah, stuff. It sucks, but I suppose it could be worse. There’s plenty of people out there who are a million times worse off than I am at the moment so I’ll just be grateful I’m not one of them eh?
“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure — the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.” –Sarah Ban Breathnach
Suffice to say, that was just about the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ve had about 20+ sales, silent or recorded message calls in the last week and so I decided to order myself one 
I 