How many curveballs can there be?

Just as you think that life can't get any more ridiculous, life hurls a new curveball in your direction. 

Having spent another day spending time with myself and trying to get myself back on track - planning some travelling during my "gardening leave" and trying to figure out what I actually want from life, and how I can be satisfied just being me - solo, at 6:30pm an email pops onto my blackberry from an ex that I had written out of my life two years ago.

Turns out that he is in London on business and would like to meet for a drink / dinner tomorrow night. Having firmly assigned him to the trash folder of my emotional inbox, I considered just deleting the mail. However, given what is going on in my life I thought maybe it would be a boost to my ego to meet him and feel empowered through the knowledge that I did not have feelings for him any longer; proof to myself in fact that it is possible to get through heartache no matter how bad it may seem at the time.

In the interests of my newfound philosophy of doing what is right for me and allowing other people to fit in with that if it suits them, I told him that I am having dinner and watching footballs with friends tomorrow eve but could perhaps meet him for a drink beforehand or afterwards if that suited. His response was, and I quote: "I hate your indifference". When I responded that I didn't know what he meant, he said: "You are indifferent and it makes me nuts". This got me thinking back to when we were together; I would have given anything (a) to have been able to cultivate something that even looked like indifference in relation to this man, and (b) for him to have admitted to being nuts about anything that I did. It is strange how men do seem to respond very positively to women playing hard to get - not that I was doing that (I have simply moved on at this stage and am genuinely not interested - my heart is somewhere else).

It did get me thinking, however, that even as I try to remember the feelings I had for this man, which seemed so so strong at the time, it was hard to summon the passion and extremes that I had thought I was feeling at the time, and indeed the depths of the pain that I know I experienced in the aftermath of that relationship. But yet here I was, totally indifferent to whether I saw him or not....while I know there was a time that I counted the days until he came to London again....

It begs the question of whether we, women, are forever stuck in this quandry? Is it only now that I don't really care that I can truly be indifferent and as a consequence he is therefore interested?

As a woman who gives 100% to a relationship, how can I ever seem indifferent if I am willing to give everything to a person? Or is that a problem in itself? Is this the mistake I have been making? Perhaps the secret to a successful relationship is to always keep a little bit of ourselves back so that we do not give ourselves wholly to another person? In that way, if it all falls apart, it is not so hard to put the pieces of ourselves back together and remember who we were before a particular relationship, and then we are never totally dependent on a relationship or another person?

To dump or be dumped....is that a question?

Having been on both sides of this ubiquitous fence, I am trying to figure out which is worse. In the process of finishing my marriage several years ago, I was the person actively trying to draw things to a close. While this was a devastatingly painful process, I was, to a large extent, the person driving the process and I knew that it was the right thing to do for me to walk away. The painful part was that I hated hurting another person for whom I still cared very deeply.

This time, I am the dumpee, and I must say that it feels infinitely more painful and hurtful. The decision has been seized from me. Even in the days leading up to the ultimately final conversation, when I felt he was becoming more distant, and I contemplated "getting in first", I chose not to. Clearly, I was still clinging to the faint though dwindling hope that we would survive against all the odds.

So is the pain of a relationship ending in some way a function of having control wrest from you? 

If you make the decision to finish a relationship, does that make it easier, or harder, or just different? Or if the pain is greater this time, does it mean that I simply love(d) this person more? Unfortunately, I don't seem to have found the answers to any questions. Every day just seems to throw up additional questions....without answers.......

The cliches of the relationship wasteground.....

In the immediate aftermath of being spontaneously dumped, I was worried about being a cliche, having allowed myself to fall for a married man with the inevitable consequence that I am heartbroken because he ultimately chooses not to leave his wife. A good and wise male friend of mine suggested I should look at the situation differently: I happened to fall in love with someone who was married (though technically separated - that is important), and for whom I was willing to undertake muchissimo baggage in order to have a life with him. It's interesting that the same situation can elicit such different perspectives... This same friend did point out, however, that I would be a cliche if I allowed his behaviour to make me crumble and destroy everything I had worked so hard for.

I am certainly dangerously close to cliche territory.

I am trying really hard to focus on all the wonderful things in my life in London but he still pervades my thoughts almost incessantly. Each morning I still wake thinking that perhaps it has been a horrible nightmare but then the harsh reality hits. He has gone; he is not coming back and he doesn't care.

Today I spent hours walking around in London, just trying to clear my head. I am beginning to annoy myself with what feels like self-indulgent self-pity. But I found that everywhere I went there were memories of him - from walking past restaurants we loved to walking through the park where we used to run together to seeing the stupid Boris bikes that he was so happy I signed us up for.

Even in my apartment there are constant reminders of him; a huge photo that he bought for me of the largest sea stack off the coast of Great Britain depicts the sea stack with the sea raging wildly around it. He always used to to say that he was my rock and I was the crazy tempestuous sea. But after his sudden disappearance, and no contact at all in 4 weeks now,  I don't really know what to think. What do you do when someone behaves so out of character that they are almost unrecognisable? Do you assume that something so dreadful has happened to them that they are literally having a meltdown, and therefore deserve your compassion, or do you have to accept ultimately that you made a terrible mistake and were totally wrong about someone you have known for seven years? I don't know the answer to this.

I do know that no matter how much I try to drag myself up by the britches and force myself to be strong, sometimes the loneliness is still so crippling and the pain and hurt so acute and raw that I just want to pick up the phone and scream at him, demanding answers. Somehow, however, I don't think this would help, so I don't. As I keep telling myself, you can't force these things.

So I guess you just have to keep on keeping on and hope that time really is a great healer. All I can say is that right now there are definitely good days and bad days. Today was definitively a bad day.

At least I have made one decision, in relation to my career. In this regard I can make a choice for a fresh start and a new beginning so I have decided to throw all my cards up in the air and quit my job. The plan then is to do some volunteer work - maybe in London - and potentially some travel - who knows? Fingers crossed please that I do not find myself turned into that cliche........ :-D

Psychic solace....?

In an attempt to find some peace, or at least be able to get some sleep and feel vaguely sane about what is going on in my life, I decided to get some spiritual guidance from some psychic friends. The problem is that I am a bit worried that I am becoming addicted to hearing readings of what will / may happen in my life.
However, I feel this is the only way I can really cope right now, and if it helps, and is not harming anybody, where is the problem?

I have found the readers of Michele Knight to be absolutely wonderful - so supportive and caring. Furthermore, the messages from a variety of the readers have been remarkably consistent. Now, however, I am frightened of how let down I might feel if things do not transpire as I expect / want them to...

It has also made me think that despite our free will to choose our own destiny within the parameters of the hand we have been given from the house of cards that is life, there is, on some level, a sense of the universe sweeping us along at times and forcing us to go through tests and initiations that ultimately hopefully make us stronger as individuals and better equipped to deal with the challenges of life.

Love......the Holy Grail?

I've been giving the whole "love debate" thing a lot of thought recently, as you'll be able to see from some of my recent posts...

Having recently come out of a relationship that I thought was deeply loving with the person I wanted to spend my life with as a partner, the shock and sudden absence of this person and the emotional support and companionship of the relationship has forced me to stare at myself hard in the mirror and assess what I need to do in order to be satisfied with life on my own and whether, indeed, that is actually possible. I don't think I have an answer yet - I suspect it may take some time.............

I am a successful professional woman, financially independent but emotionally numb right now. So I am focusing on my career, and my relationship with my self. I read a comment by Tamara Mellon recently in which she said:

"Make your money and buy your freedom. I would love to inspire women to take responsibility for themselves, not to be dependent on men. Because then you can be truly happy and successful".

An admirable theory indeed but harder to execute in practice in my opinion. Of course, I understand the desire to succeed professionally and financially - I definitely subscribe to this club. But I keep coming back to the question of whether it is enough. Having a relationship with ourselves is wonderful but doesn't the search for love and for a partner ultimately make life more bearable? Can anyone ever honestly be "truly happy" without companionship and love? And if we give up on finding someone to love and who will love us warts and all, what are we really here for?

Some of the greatest writers of all time buy into the concept that love is the ultimate goal in life:

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves...." (Victor Hugo)

"Love is not a matter of what happens in life. It's a matter of what's happening in your heart" (Ken Keynes)

"Love is a butterfly, which, when pursued is just beyond your grasp, but if you will sit down quietly it may alight upon you...." (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I do believe that the desire for love and to be loved and the constant quest and seeking of it helps to give us a purpose in life. The possibility that it might be just around the corner tantalises us, and enables us to reboot our emotional systems even when they seem to have suffered fatal errors.

Maybe the desire for fulfilment is so great that the anticipation ensures that the reality will never live up to the ideal. When we put any relationship under so much scrutiny and pressure to succeed, are we ultimately setting it up to fail because nothing can ever be perfect in this world? We try to force ourselves, our relationships, our careers, even our appearances into preconceived shapes and concepts of what they should all be.

What would happen if we just took everything a little less seriously? Would we have more chance of achieving our goals if we relaxed and allowed ourselves space for difference, thoughtlessness and compromise?

In order to achieve a truly great and sustainable love, whether that be with a partner, with ourselves, with our careers or with friends, must we in fact accept the restrictions and limitations of reality, and the fact that elements of the reality we yearn for may be unattainable.

Maybe it is time to accept that affixing all our desires and wishes so firmly to a particular ideal will always let us down. Perhaps another person, a career, or a friend will never be able to truly free us from loneliness if we remain spiritually starved deep within ourselves?

When men make it hard...

Having decided to focus on "me" in the midst of the relationship graveyard I have found myself in, I have decided that in order to heal myself and my heart, I must remain resolutely single for the next six months. In theory this should be simple enough - correct? 

But then I go out for a drink with a former colleague, a senior investment banker - I hadn't seen him for a couple of years so we were just catching up over a couple of drinks - all very innocent. It was nice to see him and catch up informally and hear how everything was going for him but after a couple of martinis I decided it was time to leave. He lives close by, with his wife and kids incidentally, so we decided to share a cab.

This was apparently my first big mistake.

He seemed to assume that sharing a cab meant I wanted him to kiss me which he proceeded to try to do. I was pretty shocked; I know I was absolutely not giving off any signals of availability or desire for anything to happen. Having set the record straight, we pulled up outside my apartment, where he asked if I was sure I didn't want him to come inside with me!! I told him "no" one more time and fled into the building.

Speechless is the only word that would adequately describe my feelings at that moment. Was it possible that he had genuinely misread the signals so badly? Or is it simply the case that many men believe they are God's gift to women and everyone wants to sleep with them? Do they have no thought for the consequences of their actions? What would have happened if I had been open to his amorous intentions? Thankfully, despite my very vulnerable emotional state, I seem to have extricated myself from this particular accident waiting to happen.

A darling male friend of mine, to whom I relayed the incident, suggested that maybe the behaviour of said man was a version of apology from the male species for the way I had been treated by my ex-boyfriend....an interesting theory but it definitely did not make me feel any better about myself. In fact, I think it just reinforced the fact that men often do still objectify women as another possession to be acquired. Or perhaps I really am now in danger of becoming rather bitter and twisted.....

My karmic curse....with a married man

My long-term boyfriend has just unceremoniously dumped me (well, two weeks ago). We had been living together in London for the last two years despite him being married to another woman who lived overseas. He kept saying he would leave initially, then he said he needed time to sort out logistics etc because he has children. I accepted all of this and promised to give him all the time he needed as long as he was ultimately coming back to me. I thought he was.....

Having procrastinated for two years as to what to do, he suddenly left London 3 weeks ago. A week later he called to say we both needed to move on, and two weeks later I went to his apartment and he had arranged for all his belongings to be moved out. I have heard nothing from him since...although I still have a bunch of his belongings hanging in my apartment - the apartment where everything I look at reminds me of him.

I'm sure many people will say that I have got what I deserved. And maybe I have....I certainly am beginning to believe in the concept of karma...and all my bad karma seems to be coming to get me right now.

However, no matter how much I might have "asked for it", we can't help who we fall in love with. The only thing I can say is that I love(d) him absolutely, I didn't see this coming and it has left me devastated. I have cried more tears than I ever care to cry again.  I have stayed in bed for days, I have gone out to get outrageously drunk with friends (and strangers!) in the hope that I could maybe make the pain go away. I am incredibly disappointed with his behaviour. I feel utterly betrayed. He was supposed to be better than this. I think it feels particularly raw because it took me so long to open my heart to him because of previous relationships, and he knew this. He promised me that he was different and would not hurt me in this way again. But it seems that this was a serious lack of judgement on my behalf....again.

So I have decided that enough is enough. I am tired of focusing on relationships with men who always seem to let me down. My pre-new year resolution is to focus on a new relationship: the one with myself. I am going to try to nurture myself, heal myself and figure out what really makes this London Chick tick when she spends time on her own and embraces the loneliness that seems so pervasive in the aftermath of a relationship demise. Let's see what happens.....

Female of the species and the piranhas

As a professional woman, I feel like I am constantly running the gauntlet of trying to be taken seriously professionally while simultaneously maintaining my femininity, which I believe is what differentiates me in the predominantly male environment in which I work.

I work hard in order to prove my worth and earn my keep, and I believe I am good at my job. I regularly receive praise from clients and colleagues which one has to assume is because they share my view...

However, it is difficult to maintain the belief in your own self-worth when situations occur that would seem unimaginable for a male colleague.

For example, on a recent work trip abroad, a senior colleague of mine proceeded to get so drunk and be such an irritating pest on a flight from London Heathrow to North America that I truly wished there was an ejector button I could push to get rid of him over the Atlantic! He swapped seats so that he was sitting right next to me, and as he drank more and more (the crew continued to serve him incredibly!), he was grabbing my book, putting his hand in my lap, and tearing tiny pieces of his newspaper and throwing them at me across the small divide. Obviously, I was utterly mortified and politely but forcefully continued to ask him to stop.......a futile request as it turned out. Seven hours later we landed at our destination and he could hardly walk but had convinced himself that I was "grumpy" because I did not want to have a conversation with him...... The following day we attended meetings together and he had the audacity to ask if I had any painkillers since he felt he was coming down with bad flu.....clearly this is the modern euphemism for raging hangovers - perhaps I just missed the coining of that particular phrase...

Furthermore, after a recent dinner to celebrate the closing of a deal between lawyers and bankers, I went to the bathroom and upon leaving the cubicle discovered the law firm senior partner standing outside, suggesting that we skip the after party with everyone else and continue it in his room...! Clearly, I extricated myself from the situation as politely as possible, explaining that, while flattered, it was an inappropriate situation and I was not interested. Frankly, I was outraged at the presumptuous audacity of the man to think that such behaviour was acceptable or, indeed that I might acquiesce....! Unable to unleash my wrath upon him given his relative seniority and the ongoing professional interaction we were likely to have, I smiled sweetly, left the bathroom and reintegrated myself to the party.

Reflecting later on, in the comfort of my hotel room alone, I got to thinking as to why he had thought I would be interested - had I led him on? I am a friendly, polite and charming person but beyond that I didn't think i had behaved in a way that he could have misconstrued. Evidently, I had still been unclear about my disinterest as I received an SMS from said senior partner, notifying me of his room number and suggesting that if I changed my mind I would be more than welcome to join him! I waited until the following morning to reply, saying that I found his behaviour disrespectful and deeply insulting, and probably damaged my long-term career prospects in the process...but one has to surely draw the line somewhere...?

Is it ultimately possible for a professional woman to achieve an effective balance whereby men respect her as a professional and treat her respectfully, or at least in a manner that is commensurate with the woman's reciprocal behaviour? Indeed, I think that all we really ask for is to be treated with the equivalent respect (or disrespect) as our male counterparts. Surely that is justified.....but is it realistic?

When botox isn't enough....

There comes a point in the aftermath of every relationship breakup where we wonder if we will ever be able to open our hearts again and trust somebody enough to give them our love. Normally, however,  if we give time time, we seem to recover enough and get back into the relationship game. I am wondering though if sometimes a hurt can be so deep that one never opens their heart again or at least not in quite the same way.

As women, we spend so much time trying to hold back the years visually with anti-aging creams and surgical procedures etc. But these mask only the physical scars of time.  What about the emotional scars on our hearts? After decades of relationships, heartache and love, is there any way that we can botox our hearts?

Has the sisterhood disappeared?

Okay - so we all know that we couldn't get through life without our girlfriends...they are quite literally our lifeline in times of trouble and strife. We trust them absolutely; they know our deepest secrets, fears and desires...

So how can this deep empathy that is so abundantly present in women manifest itself sometimes as such deeply rooted jealousy, envy and backstabbing? What happens to turn women into these creatures - where they are incapable of being happy for any other female of the species who happens to be more successful, attractive or luckier than they are? How come women do not use each other as a support network to further themselves and their fellow sisters? We hear often enough about the old boys' network and how men are skilled at using their connections to one another to get ahead in life; why are women unable to think beyond their individuality to achieve the same thing?

Modern morons

What does the word "moron" make us think of these days? The dictionary meaning of the word denotes stupidity and idiocy. For me, however, it has evolved into a connotation of laziness, lack of empathy and overall irritation.

In the endless quest for happiness and attainment in modern life and the interminable quest for perfection, have we all turned into morons?

While I think many women continue to subscribe to the idea of wanting equality and independence in terms of career and financial security, a common conversation I seem to keep having is that woman did not actually expect to be the main breadwinner in a relationship. Not that they ever thought they would have a problem with being the breadwinner in the event that this turned out to be the case. But.....it turns out that they do have a problem with it...

Several friends have told me in recent weeks that they are exhausted from working long days and coming home to find their partners slumped in front of the TV (having been at home for several hours longer than their female counterparts)....only to find the sink full of dishes, the washing still in the basket and the bed unmade. On top of this, when it comes to paying for holidays, meals, cinema tickets, these women find that the default is often for them to pay for everything.

This seems to be the ultimate role reversal. Historically, the role delineation between men and women was clear: men went out to earn a crust while women stayed at home to look after domestic duties and take care of children. In a society where it is totally acceptable for these roles to be reversed, has it in some cases gone too far? Have some men become used to using their women as a gravy chain for an easy life? Or are women being unreasonable in their expectations of what a modern relationship should be?

Surely everything has to have some balance and if anything becomes too one-sided, there is a danger of reaching a tipping point. These same friends of mine find themselves with  questions such as: what would happen if I wanted to return to education in order to fulfil myself? or what happens if I want to take three years out of my career in order to care for young children? Are these reasonable rights for women to expect their men to provide for? Or have we gone too far to the point of wanting it all?

Many of my friends have deliberately opted for men in traditionally less financially secure roles because these guys tend to offer more emotional security than those men striving for financial world dominance. They have enjoyed emotionally rich relationships with guys who always have enough time to spend with them, never needed to cancel an evening or a weekend because of work, and are more able to talk about their feelings and emotions. But now that other factors are coming into play, this is not enough either.....

So...where do we draw the line of always wanting more in relationships? Is "happiness", which is what everyone is chasing, ultimately an unattainable ideal? Is it time for us to accept that we must settle for being content with what we have in our relationships, our jobs, our lives as a whole?

Just a I need time, is it running out...?

Having recently experienced myself what can only be classed as a substantial life accident (i.e. the termination of a serious long-term relationship), I have found other people's reactions, and my response to their reactions, to my fate increasingly interesting.

When a serious relationship finishes, friends are often the first people to rally to pick up the pieces. At least, this has always been the case in previous situations for me. Perhaps things become different as one gets older. Many of my married friends have been relatively unsympathetic, telling me to "just get on with it", "forget about him and stop moping" or, and this was a classic: "move on as fast as possible because time is running out and you really don't want to miss the boat on having children". As a woman who fervently hopes to have a family one day, I found this advice surprising and perhaps a little to close to the truth that I ultimately find so frightening.

I do feel as though time is running out....but I am so wounded by what has happened in my last relationship that the thought of meeting another guy / hurling myself back out there into the dating pool is deeply horrifying.....

Furthermore, surely rushing into a new relationship, which would inevitably be a classic "rebound" situation, would be the worst thing I could do. Surely what I need to do is take some time for me to figure out exactly what I want from life on all fronts. But the conclusion I keep coming to is that this is something I probably should have done when I would have genuinely felt that I could allow myself the time....

Autumn

As the days close in and we begin to think towards the end of another year, I have to also ask the question of whether our tempers and our patience have become shorter as well? 

Perhaps it is the passing of the seasons, and this manifests itself through the dissatisfaction of relationships. But what if there is a deeper dissatisfaction at work? 

Women have spent so long thinking that they want to be independent, emotionally and financially, that it has got to a point where it is difficult to do a 180 and turn back. Many of my peers could be financially independent if they were single, but they have ironically found themselves in relationships with men who are neither financially nor emotionally independent, and therefore they feel unable to walk away. 

Women of my generation seem to have spent so long chasing the ideal they think they want; and now they have it, and don't want it, they don't know where to turn - which brings us back to the original conundrum of "be careful what you wish for......." 

Transformational times

So many female friends of mine right now seem to be going through major transformations, questioning the foundations of where they thought their lives were going. Have we become so focused on trying to have everything that we are in danger of ending up with nothing? 

Most of my friends left uni 5-8 years ago determined to chase the dream in London and pursue an exciting and fulfilling career (in fields as diverse as finance, journalism, fashion and engineering), with the expectation that somewhere along the way they would also meet the "right" guy and that was the way that life was simply meant to be..... 

Now, as many of us hit or approach 30, we are finding that everything is not as it seems. Some of us are already have a marriage, and in some cases a divorce, under our belt, many of us are utterly burnt out from years of working so hard in competitive industries, some have some wonderful children but are burnt out for different reasons because they are desperately trying to juggle motherhood and careers, while often times envying their single girlfriends who seem to have so much "me time" while the single friends are busy panicking that they need to really stop thinking about career and focus on settling down to have a family. All in all it is a huge conundrum - and no one seems to be particularly happy. Have we all got so good at papering over the cracks to prevent ourselves from falling through them that we don't know where we are headed to anymore?