New Project for Sister Zaria

I felt it was time to write again as poor Sister Louise seems to be keeping the site up single-handedly! Sadly, as I cast my mind around for something to write I found myself totally devoid of subjects. For the first time, for a long time, I am properly single. Normally when I have been single I have had someone to keep my interest up, so to speak, but this time I can genuinely not think of anyone I even fancy. So, short of going out with a couple of boys of my acquaintance who I could go out with but don’t really fancy, I am on my own.

Walking home tonight, in the first bit of sun we have had in ages, I got to thinking that I can’t go on thinking that the man I want to meet is just going to turn up at my door (especially as I am 3 floors up and the security to my flats is like Fort Knox)!
So, I have come up with the following plan in order to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. In order to help me both find a man and get some content for the blog I solemnly promise that I will try to do one activity a week to actively try and meet someone!

I have thought about ways in which I can meet a new man and have come up with only one idea so far. The idea does however have drawbacks. The idea is to join the squash league at my local gym. The drawbacks are three fold- 1) I have never played squash before, 2) I have absolutely no hand eye co-ordination, 3) If I do succeed in getting a racquet and enough skill to get a game with a man, I will be meeting him as a sweating heap!

So there we have it. Tomorrow I will go to my gym and enquire about joining the squash league. That will be week 1’s activity. I will, of course, report back next week about how I have done but in return I would like you guys to suggest the next thing! I am completely devoid of ideas apart from this one, so far, so all suggestions will be gratefully received.

Oh – just one little thing on the suggestions – please don’t suggest internet dating, I simply cannot get my head around that one just yet!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

After nine days in Devon/Cornwall/Worcs/Lakes = Heaven, I am truly cheesed off this week. London is one of those places that you become conditioned to. This week my conditioning has become unconditioned and I have no patience. Usually I reply to my boss in a polite manner despite his curtness, this week I'm responding in his tone of voice, despite his obvious superiority. As I left the office ON TIME (6pm) for once, he called after me "Yes... bye Louise"... simultaneously making a point about my lack of pleasantries and also pointing out the fact that I've left before 9pm...for once.

And you know those people... sorry guys...it's always guys... those people that can see that the tube is full to bursting and yet just as the doors are about to close, they launch themselves into the carriage, getting stuck in the doors in the process? Well this evening, one of them smacked their elbow into my head as he launched his 6ft frame through the doors at the last minute and then stood pressed with his crotch into me for three whole stops as I tried to refrain from hyperventilating. I'm sorry I do NOT pay £4 a day for this madness. Why do we put up with it? Just because we're British?! I disown my Britishness, my Huguenot blood is running hot - Viva La Revolution! But I put up with the madness, because I love the theatres, the South Bank, Gordon's Bar at Embankment and the unusual opportunities that come my way. But one day in the not too distant future, I am so outta here!

Re-wired

"Listen" I say, pausing mid-conversation. "My flatmate is playing really beautiful music". I stumble off my bed and into the lounge next door, raising the receiver into the air to catch the notes. I bring him back to my ear, "It's Chopin he says, we used to listen to it when we went to sleep, don't you remember?" And in a dark, distant cavern in my head a switch is flicked. A light has lit up a corner of darkness. The wiring to this switch is old and uncertain, it sparks and sputters all the way down the tunnel of my throat and comes to rest in one panging, electrical surge in the mains box in my chest. Yes, I remember.

Life Training

We spent a ridiculously good three days in Devon with everything on our side. No traffic going down, pouring rain at the most appropriate times and beautiful sunshine just as we arrived at Bude beach on Tuesday and Fingle Bridge on Wednesday. Three of my oldest friends and three children (how times change) had a blast. We ate, drank, sunbathed and journeyed home with sunburnt shoulders and sand in our hair. So when the awful call came, it was juxtaposed against a happy three days with best friends and beautiful children and was thus ever more poignant. There are seven of us that have been friends since school days and it was one of the seven that rang to tell two of us (from the seven) journeying back from Devon, that another of us had had her 12 week scan and the baby had died. I was taken off guard; I thought the call was to find out how our Devon mini break had gone and thus all the words that I could muster were “oh my god – no” repeatedly, until it sunk in. And as my friend in the driver’s seat took the news in, I saw her brush away a tear as she put two and two together from half a story and understood the enormity of the call I was taking. And an innocent voice from the back called out for sweeties or a wee wee and mummy silenced her with a “not now darling, Auntie S isn’t very well” and the innocent voice knowing Auntie S replied “I like Auntie S mummy…what’s wrong with Auntie S?” Auntie S has been trying for years for a child of her own and this is quite possibly what all of us dreaded and all of us prayed wouldn’t happen. And I remember the first day we started senior school in all our youthful innocence and I want to throw my arms around her and make it better but I can’t. And she has a husband who is her rock, as she is his and they’ll get through this, I just wish they didn’t have to. And the thing that’s struck me lately, is that for all life’s beauty – of which there is plenty, there is equally some terribly, sad and difficult times and recently I’ve watched my friends pick their way through troubles and realised that this is life. I think until now, I’ve always felt that we’re in training for life… We go to school, and then maybe Uni and we look for a job and we work out how to get a promotion and we get a boyfriend and we learn to look out for the nice guys and leave the bad ones alone and eventually we might get married. And I’m sure that we’ll always be in training to a certain extent, but it feels like this is it now. Life. We’ve done years of training and this is what we trained for. And life will bring magical Devon mini breaks and it will bring terribly sad times. And that poem that says “With all its shams and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world” is so true. And Auntie S probably won’t believe it’s a beautiful world right now. But the six of us and her rock will do our utmost to get her to a place again where she can possibly believe that it might be.

Happiness

How many people can say that they are truly happy on their own? And truly is the operative word here, because “I’m truly happy on my own” is different to “Just f*ck off, I’m not a sad singleton, I don’t need anyone, I’m happy on my own” said in an ever so slightly defensive manner. For those of you in long term relationships, “happy on my own” can not be qualified with “well I was single for a year when I was 19 and yes I was happy” because the difference between who you are at 19 and who you are at 29 is huge. I’m not saying relationships are a cop out…or suggesting we should leave Mr Right, in pursuit of single-minded happiness. No I’m not saying that at all, because even in a relationship you can still lay claim to “I am truly happy on my own” for despite being one half of a pair, you are still ultimately alone. Nothing is guaranteed in this life, except that you have yourself until death do thee part from thyself. So if you are truly happy within yourself and your partner is an added bonus, congratulations! I think you may well have cracked it!

But everyone who feels happy should examine that feeling carefully; does it truly come from within you? Or is it reliant on someone or something?

Recently I received an email from a close friend who had been to see a mutual friend of ours who has just given birth. My emailing friend announced that baby was big and bouncy and ‘mummy’ looked…truly happy. I pondered this announcement for a moment, it jarred with me but I didn’t know why. Then it struck me. ‘Mummy’ has not been happy for years. She has struggled desperately with depression and feelings of self-doubt. She has been on anti-depressants, drunk too much at times, struggled with direction in finding a job and about two and half years ago, suddenly met and married a man within six months who, it would seem, is as complicated and unhappy as she is. Am I to believe that now she has a baby, she is suddenly truly happy? Or, is it more likely that now she has a baby, she no longer needs to concentrate on her own happiness and the relief has allowed her a tentative joy? OK, so the counter argument here is that maybe, it doesn’t matter that it took having a baby to make her happy? But babies grow up and go to school and mummies get their time back, time to ponder their happiness and well being and deep rooted anxieties rarely disappear on their own… Furthermore, how do we make our kids happy, if we never learnt the secret of happiness ourselves? Do we just tell them to go and procreate because that’s how we found it?

It’s not just babies. We might pour our life energy into our careers, our hobbies, our friends, our family, making money, our boyfriends… or our pursuit of a boyfriend. But it’s never quite enough… ever. We’re so busy in our pursuit of happiness that we forget to actually be happy. A few years ago, if someone said I’d be working on a global advertising account on the money that I’m earning now, I’d have said, wow that’d be great! What do I think of my job now? I don’t think I earn enough and I don’t think that I’m high enough up the career ladder for my age… that’s what I think. I have persecuted myself over my inability to get over KP and hold down a relationship since him. If someone tells me I’m pretty, I’ll reply “but I’m so spotty”. I’ll work myself into the ground to try and prove myself to my superiors and I’ll bend over backwards to make a man happy… because if I get recognition from my boss or my man…then I’ll be good enough won’t I? Then I’ll be happy… won’t I?

No. I won’t. Because I could wait forever for that recognition and it may never come. It’s a fact of life that you can move mountains for people and they’ll let you do it, but they won’t necessarily give you the recognition you want or the love you crave, just because you busted a gut moving that f*cking great big mountain. Furthermore, life can be tough at times. It can knock you sideways and you can’t always rely on the thing that makes you happy to pick up the pieces… especially if it’s the thing that makes you happy that has exited your life. The only way to deal with the crises, is to know even in your weakest moment that you are strong enough to be happy again and that you can achieve that mostly on your own (with a bit of help from your friends), if needs be.

So here’s the deal. I’m single and I need to be right now, because the minute a man I like comes into the equation, my pursuit suddenly becomes all about making him happy in the deluded sense that he'll love me for it and then I’ll be truly happy. So for a week I am resolutely single. The reason I am not suggesting six months, is because that would be putting undue pressure on myself and if I failed, I would then persecute myself for being useless at being single. Plus a week is a long time when you can’t remember the last time that you didn’t have at least one date in the week or at the very least a flirtatious phone call!! So, I am properly single for one week and I’m going to be alone with this person who's been with me consistently during these last 29 years. And maybe, I'll finally give myself some recognition and as a result, some happiness. And this is a small stepping stone, but one day, when I have a child of my own, hopefully, I’ll be able to set her/him on the right path to finding their own true happiness.

To Click or Not to Click?

I feel immensely privileged to have been asked to write a blog following my recent experience, so I hope I can do you proud, although the pressure of the occasion has caused me some angst!

As you might have read on Sister Zarias’ recent blog comments I have been somewhat stuck in a dilemma over a man that can only be described as genuinely decent and lovely. So you must ask why have I chosen the difficult option of calling it off?

Well, it’s experience that has guided me this time. Last year, having split from Mr Love-of-My-Life I decided to start internet dating (like Sister Louise before me), partly to prove to Mr L-O-M-L that if he can move on then so can I.

My first date was nothing less than a disaster and from there on in there were some valuable lessons to be learnt on my cyber-journey!

Lesson one…always, always make sure you speak to the person you are about to meet. The words received on a text message do not always give an accurate reflection of the person. Once a voice is added, the picture can change significantly! I lovingly refer to date number one as Gollum!

The second date, arranged for the day after Gollum (my theory to things like this and job interviews is “it’s a numbers game”!) was OK, but when his name mysteriously went from Tim to Colin overnight, I think there was another big lesson to be learnt here.

Lesson two… crap name, crap everything else! Bit harsh but mark my words.

The third date didn’t happen, thank god, as having learnt from Lesson One, I decided to call him before meeting him - Neil turned out to be a Norman, not by de-poll, but by character…which, in my mind qualified him to be assorted into the ‘Lesson Two’ male category and I decided thenceforth to give him a wide birth!

Lesson three… well; at this point, I decided internet dating just wasn’t making me happy.

So there my internet dating was postponed. Until just recently, when I decided it was time to shake up my life a little – I must be a glutton for punishment. So I joined a different dating site, for fear and shame of bumping into the other half-wits again.

Within a very short space of time I had a couple of hopefuls hooked on my broadband line, including Mr Genuine. Very quickly I discovered that I was completely drawn to him and wanted to know more. Then it all started to go wrong.

Mr Genuine sent me some more pictures of himself in exchange for a few of me…it turns out I definitely have a “type”, the same type that Mr L-O-M-L also fits into. Hmmm not the best start, but I convince myself that he will be different, so onwards, I must.
Emails turn to texts, texts turn to phone calls, phone calls turn into dates. This man is really kind, caring, funny and best of all he really, really, likes me.

Now, I’m not saying I’m high maintenance, but it is fair to say I have expectations of what I want to find in my other half. A tough lesson I learnt from Mr L-O-M-L is that love isn’t always enough.

You see the thing is I could have seen myself falling in love with Mr Genuine, but I know it just wouldn’t have been enough. You see he doesn’t tick some of my fundamental check boxes in life, in fact it’s those very same check boxes that Mr L-O-M-L failed to find the ink to complete and I could just see history repeating itself. Furthermore, the uncanny resemblance these two men shared with each other was never going to be a positive thing – even down to the same birthday month and dislike of cheese and tomatoes! Were they in fact one and the same?

Saying farewell to Mr Genuine was not easy and not a decision I have taken lightly, but when a relationship is young and still your gut instinct is causing you restless nights, you do end up questioning whether your head knows better than your heart.

So I’m left wondering if all these lessons add up to one greater teaching… can the internet really help you find that person in life that you really click with or should you just click the off button and start living?

Written by Soul Sister for Sisters In The City.

Blue Moon

Am highly entertained by life’s little coincidences. My colleague just handed me a card (she is not familiar with the blog). It’s a promotional leaflet from a film company. She was taken with this fact inside…

It says on the front “Happy Blue Moon” and inside it says “A Blue Moon occurs when there are 2 full moons within one calendar month. Only 41 months per century has a double full moon – June is one of those rare months, so this Saturday (it was actually this weekend June 30th) make sure you are doing something you would only do once in a blue moon!”

I’m not making it up, I swear. So I saw Blue Moon on the Saturday when there was a Blue Moon… on the weekend that I met his friends and family... which, in itself was a happy weekend but sadly, I believe, will be a once in a blue moon event!