So, last week I received a pretty odd anonymous bitchy email about Kel. It was odd in that it was basically addressed to Kel, but sent to me at my personal email address. I’ll paraphrase as the original was pretty shockingly bad spelling and grammar. It went something like “Do you think you should be boasting about how much vodka you can drink when you’re a police officer and you teach people’s children?”

Seriously, what the f**k is that all about?

I had a look at all the old Facebook messages and it’s not like Kel’s said anything that 99% of FB users don’t say all the time. Clearly the sender of the mail was referring to a couple of jokey messages between Kel and a friend of hers from work about them getting together at the weekend but seriously, what the f**k? What’s it got to do with anyone else?

I’m struggling hard to figure out the motivation for sending it. Was it someone who has some kind of problem with alcohol themselves? Someone who has a problem with Kel? Was it actually someone to do with the school (we don’t believe that as we get on well with all the parents) or someone using that to cover their tracks? is it someone trying to have a pop at Kel for something to do with work, or to try & hurt me for some reason? None of it makes sense.

Whatever the reason it’s obviously caused all manner of upset now. To have seen those messages the person who sent it had to be on Kel’s friends list on Facebook and so then that now means she’s worried about what she says and who it might be. It’s got her so upset she’s now not even wanting to be at the school and so obviously that makes my previous worries on that front a million times worse.

One of Kel’s friends even suggested that it was someone’s misguided attempt to to get at Kel out of some kind of loyalty to me. Well if you’re reading this, I can tell you quite categorically that its’s not helping one bit. Yes we may have split up and Kel’s not interested in me any more but I still love her and Callum as much as I ever did and so anything or anyone that hurts her is also hurting me.

So, here’s the thing. If you’re reading this and you sent it, for fuck’s sake man up and own up so we can all move forward as at the moment you’re just hurting everyone.

So, a lovely bank holiday weekend to look forward to. Four days of chilling out and not doing much. Hooray!

Err, well more boo! My weekend consisted mainly of a detailed step-by-step analysis of what I can only assume was a proper good dose of the norovirus.

I felt fine on Friday morning but by mid-afternoon I felt proper grotty, horrible fluey symptoms – thick head, hot & cold and achey all over. I ended up going to bed at 6pm and apart from a quick drink about 10pm I slept right through until 10am the following morning! Even after 16 hours sleep I was totally wiped out all day saturday, not especially ill but absolutely hanging.

After another 12 hours sleep on Saturday night I figured I’d be fine. On reflection it was probably a bit optimistic of me to assume that ‘not actually feeling too crap’ on sunday morning equated to being over it. Trouble was I was feeling pretty stir-crazy but this point and not a little frustrated at the wasted weekend so I figured I’d venture out for a couple of hours walk/location scouting down at the Deer Park in Berkeley

(More snaps on Flickr).

It seemed like a good idea at the time and it was quite nice to get out in the fresh air for a bit, the only minor problem was when after a couple of hours I realised that: a) I was absolutely knackered, b) I really didn’t feel at all well and c) I was about a mile from my car, cross-country. Oops.

Probably not such a good idea in hindsight as I really didn’t enjoy the walk back to the car at all and by the time I got home I was kicking myself for being such a dunce, especially as double knackering myself like that didn’t make the evening any easier.. Not wishing to put too fine a point on it by tea time the lurgi had well and truly taken up residence in my guts and was hell bent on escaping by any means necessary

In other news, this single malarky isn’t suiting me one bit.

Problem is I still feel exactly the same way about Kel that I always did and I don’t see that changing any time soon. Obviously she doesn’t feel the same way and seems to be happily getting on with things as if the last 8 years never happened. I find that pretty hard to handle when I’m missing her & Callum like hell.

I’ve been trying to keep a brave face on it, just getting on with stuff, spending some time with mates, taking some photos etc. but fundamentally there’s just this massive void there smack bang in the middle of things and at the moment I’m struggling to see a way past it.

The biggest thing is that over the past eight years I’ve made some pretty massive decisions based on the fact I had Kel’s support and that we’d be working towards things together, but now of course that’s all gone out the window and some of those things which I did thinking we’d be together forever are now hanging around my neck like a yolk. Whatever I do there’s no simple way to either move forward or to be able to draw a line under things and walk away.

Given that I’m normally pretty positive it’s really not a very nice feeling to feel that someone else has such a hold over my life and there’s sod all I can do about it..

Ah well.

Listening to: Letting the Cables Sleep from “The Science of Things” by Bush

Well it would seem that that, as they say, is that.

I went over to Kel’s last night (weds) and had a bit of a chat about stuff, some of it personal and a few bits to do with the school. All perfectly amicable, if not a little odd. It just seems so weird after 8 years to sit on a sofa with someone but feel like you might as well be in another country.

Could spend hours going over boring details and over-analysing stuff that is of no interest to anyone else but the simple fact of the matter is she doesn’t love me, and hence doesn’t want to be with me any more. Simple as that really.   

It’s all just a bit surreal now, especially given that it was only a month ago that Kel told me she did in fact still want to get married. (Bearing in mind this was after her finishing with me, telling me that getting engaged was the biggest mistake ever and then subsequently telling that after all she didn’t in fact want to throw away seven years so easily and would I please consider giving it another go etc.)

Anyway, when she said at christmas I was understandably well chuffed and had a proper little scheme hatching in my mind. I was planning to buy her a replacement for the engagement ring she’d lost last year and then take her away for a ‘finally out of debt’ celebration weekend where I could surprise her with a ‘proper’ proposal.   Having seen Ian’s awesome shots of an engagement celebration in Paris I was thinking about something like that to make it extra special. Hmm, that was literally only a few weeks ago and then WHAMMO - so long, and thanks for all the fish…

Still, like I said, I’m not blaming Kel or holding any animosity towards her. If it’s not right and it’s not making her happy then there’s no point in me getting arsey about it is there? Sure it’s hurting like hell at the moment but I’m doing my best to keep it together for everyones sake. I’m really hoping we’ll always stay close as friends if nothing else and I’m going to try and do the best I can from my side at least to make sure that happens.

Got to admit I’m pretty gutted about the whole situation for Callum though. He’s never had a particularly good relationship with his Dad and ever since he was about 5 I’ve been around. I did ask Kel to be sure to explain to him that this was her decision because I’d hate for him to hold any resentment towards me about it all because I know how he feels about his dad. We’ve been pretty close over the past few years (hey, I was even planning to have him be my best man..) and there have even been times when he’d said to Kel he wished I was his dad because his real one was crap. The feeling was mutual and it hurts doubly so to lose him too.

Soo, anyway, I’m making no apologies for having a bit of a rant on here though as it’s one little way of maintaining a bit of sanity at an otherwise weird-as-fuck time. I am also taking a bit of consolation from the fact that having talked this over with some of my mates (including a couple who are mutual friends with Kel too) and they’re all pretty much in agreement that this just seems a bit (lot) weird and Kel wants her head read! That at least makes me feel marginally better!   

According to my friend Bev, Kel’s officially a ‘bloody nutjob’ and should read this but I’m not sure I want to be anybodies ‘second best’ thanks! Perhaps I should buy her the book though eh?

Ahh fuck it… Man I was so looking forward to this month and this year as a whole, planning to have a big celebration for finally being out of debt after so many years.   I don’t regret getting out of the rat race for a moment but the financial mess it left me in was something of a challenge to say the least. I ended up with about £45k in debt and it’s taken nearly seven years to pay that off so you can imagine what an ace feeling it is to finally get there. Well, it would have been an ace feeling if I’d not just had the rug pulled out from under me like this. It would have been really nice to have been able to feel good about something, even if just for at least a few days eh?

Still, I suppose it does at least mean that instead of spending it on expensive jewellery for someone to lose I can spend it on new tech for me instead, and now I don’t have to turn down those requests to take naughty pictures of good looking girls any more either!

See, I knew there had to be a silver lining somewhere!

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