I wrote this one back in October 2023…
It’s been a bit of a year for me, I split with my husband back in April, he abused my trust one too many times and I couldn’t just forgive and forget this time.
I had been starved of love and affection for a while and enough was enough. We all have our breaking point and he pushed me too far. I thought that we were going to grow old together, dancing on the beach in the Ibiza sunsets, but alas no.
In May when we needed to be out of our rental flat in London, I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go. I wanted to buy somewhere in St Leonard’s, but there hadn’t been any properties that I had actually wanted to buy come onto the market. I definitely didn’t want to stay in London. Then my friend Tash proposed moving into her empty house in the beautiful village of Harlaxton, her and her husband split not that long before, and this had been their family home, which was up for sale, but empty.
It was just what I needed, some time to be on my own, away from reality, time to rebuild and work out who I was, I hadn’t been just me for 12 years, who even am I anymore, I’d got lost in a relationship.
Come August and I am now sure that I could never live long term in such a sleepy place, the solitude did me well for a while and helped me to get over the relationship in a healthy way, but man was I bored. I’d started popping my head over people’s fences to say hello, they were all friendly enough, but I needed interaction and mental stimulation, Harlaxton was not the place for that. I was in need of connection, yet here I was in snoresville with only Jeremy Beagle for company.
Lady Luck was on my side as I managed to find a friend of a friend with a second home in St Leonard’s who was willing to let me live there for a couple of months so that I could search for a property.
The next few weeks were fabulous, an amazing wedding in Bulgaria and then another in Norfolk. I met someone at the wedding in Norfolk, it’s someone who I had previously met, but not in a romantic sense, we had lots of fun, giggles and kisses, it was so nice for someone to be paying me attention and fancying me. A lot of people tried to warn me off him, for various reasons, some undisclosed. The word abuse was banded around, which triggered something in me and I realised that I was still holding onto feelings, memories and pain associated with my abusive father.
My dad died back in 2007 and I’d since forgiven him. How I forgave him was a weird experience which happened when I was recovering from the car accident. I wasn’t sleeping well at all during that time, I was barely sleeping at all because of the pain. One night though, when I was trying to sleep, I met him in a dream.
He was sat at the head of a table, the dream was in complete technicolor, like a Disney movie. I was floating around the table which was surrounded by clover, a bright green blanket of four leaf clover. I always try to find a four leaf clover when I’m out and I see a big luscious patch of it. I’ve never managed to find an illusive leaf, but in this dream there was masses of it.
Back to Dad though, he apologised to me, and I thought that I had let it all go, I thought that was my closure, that and the I forgive you letter that I wrote to him in 2017.
But obviously not. I cried a bit which surprised me. I’m not a big crier, probably because of all the repressed emotions, but I did cry. I cried for the child me, I cried for all the love that I missed out on.
I realised that I have been holding a part of myself back for years, I’d been keeping myself small so as not to be hurt, I’ve been living a half-life in terms of loving and being loved.
I’d not always been like this, my first real love Stuart received the full effects of my love, I think that I smothered him, he didn’t love me as much as I loved him, that’s what I said to him when I split up with him. I had an idealised dream about love and how much I needed to be loved, I needed someone to love me with all of their heart, because I would do the same in return. I believed in the love that you see in films and fairy tales.
I never gave that amount of love again though, I never fully let anyone in, even my ex husband, which is so sad.
I want to feel able to love like that again, but to not need it to be reciprocated. I mean it would be great if it it was reciprocated to that level, but I would like to feel confident enough to give my love without my heart being broken.
