reclaiming the space...

is a task i am now faced with...

see for most of my relationship with ben he lived with me at my place so of course i made a big effort to make it 'our place'...

initially i didn't want to come back here - a few days after it all happened i went to canberra and then melbourne and i noticed as the time to come home drew nearer, i got more and more anxious and more and more unhappy :-(

and that in itself is sad - see i'd lived here for 4 years by the time ben moved in and so it was well and truly 'my place'...but i just couldn't imagine that i would ever feel happy here again or that it would feel like my own place without all the memories (good ones i mean) and the constant reminders of our life together...

so my mum has been great - she helped me put the study back into something resembling what it looked like before ben moved in, she cleaned everything from top to toe so my home looks lovely and clean, but still i feel a wee bit sad...of course all the photos of us and notes and cards he wrote me are no longer up, but still, it's as though his energy is still here...

so i'm gonna try and do some 'reclaiming' so that my home becomes truly mine again - and i must say, that since mum left and i had to get used to being here on my own again, i have made progress...initially i didn't want to even be here on my own and invited people around and went out so that i didn't have to be here on my own, and reasonably quickly that shifted and i started to crave time in my home - which for so long has been a haven...

if i'm honest, there were times towards the end of our relationship where i would have liked the space to myself - see ben was here a lot more than me...anyway, that's now irrelevant...

so my plan for the study is to move the chinese cabinet to a place where it doesn't have to house the modem, phone and printer, and where it can simply be a 'decorative' item and it's surface freed up to house a zen sand garden and some candles and perhaps even some oils/incense - perhaps then i'll do a ritual cleansing...see this room was where ben spent most of his time and as such it has been the most difficult room to reclaim...

the bedroom is another story - i am slowly adjusting to him not being there, although there are still times when i wake up in a cold sweat wondering where he is :-( this is hard....of course i have more wardrobe space now - is that a good thing or not?

so perhaps one step at a time - the study is an important room for me to reclaim as i work from home when i'm not seeing clients, and it's important (if i'm to be successful) that i feel that it is both inspiring and welcoming and not a constant reminder of what no longer is...

i can see why many people choose to stay in relationships that perhaps aren't just right for them coz it would certainly be easier - easier not to have to hurt the other person, to put their life into turmoil, to have to divide up the assets (we didn't have to do that thankfully), to watch them walk out of the door for the very last time...just heartbreaking...

anyway, i've written enough today - i'm finding the blog very cathartic right now even though my innermost and private thoughts are not here....

back to the couch!