very proud of self...

yep, it's true...i did something today that i never thought i would have the courage to do, not in a million years...

remember the post where i mentioned i had managed to say something out loud, not only to myself, but also to my therapist? well, that very same thing had to do with a fantasy i have held onto for 29 years...you know the fantasy about 'him' where he would (at some point) turn up and we would be together because i believed we should be together - of course, this was (is) the fantasy of a 13 year old girl, but seemingly the 42 year old in me, had never quite forgotten it, or given it up...and in fact him turning up seemed to re-ignite this fantasy, even though it made me very frightened, given everything that had happened...

how does that happen? how do we hang on to something or someone from our past and idolise them, put them on a pedestal, only to have them actually turn up, and be nothing like we imagined? sure, physically he's exactly as i thought he would be, but he's not really (when i'm discerning, and behaving like an intelligent 42 year old woman) the sort of man i want to be with...

certainly he looks the part, he's big, tall and i felt safe in his arms (and that is an entirely different story), and he's smart, successful, presumably well to do etc....but the sad thing (or maybe it's actually a good thing but i just can't see it like that yet) is that the more i get to know him, the less i actually like him...and that means that the fantasy is starting to diminish and the power that the voice of that 13 year old girl who had him on a pedestal is suddenly starting to quieten down...

see this is a man who doesn't value what i value - he has admitted to me (seemingly with no guilt, but of course i can't really know that) that he has cheated on his wife...almost brags about it...and this is SO not the sort of man i want to fall in love with....i want to be with someone who wants to be with me in the same sort of way i want to be with him, someone who wants to build a life together, someone who wants to be a true partner in life and someone i can grow old with...and sure, perhaps some of my fantasy about relationships is why after so long i haven't found 'the one for me' - perhaps it's just a bit too unrealistic, but i'm not willing to give it up just yet...

see there are sides to him that i find very unattractive - you know the glibness, the suggestiveness, his seeming inability to remain serious when i finally start to open up, his way of questioning me which becomes rather clinical/medical and leaving me feeling like my experience doesn't count - and so that makes it increasingly difficult to hold onto this fantasy, at least with him as the central character.....of course it doesn't help that this person, albeit as a child, did something that hurt me and betrayed me, his best friend and childhood love, and in doing so has meant that since that day i have struggled to trust anyone...and yet, the fantasy of my childhood still has a pull...although it is becoming slowly apparent that he is NOT the sort of man i want to fall in love with, even if, in my head, for 30 years i have assumed he was...

soooo the last few weeks (which were mainly quiet as we had no contact over the xmas period) have been an interesting time and one where this fantasy actually came to light...that was pretty tough for me to accept and then to realise that it was driving some of my behaviour/responses with him...but then to realise that perhaps the reason i didn't want to say goodbye to him (at least not yet) was because of this...scary stuff...it's amazing just how powerful a notion developed in childhood can stay with us so long, even when it really is a fantastical notion and even though we lived 13,000 kilometres apart for so long, a small part of me has held onto it...the other thing i realised was that in hiding this fantasy, not only from myself, but from him, he only saw a certain side of me - the tough cool exterior that i don't really like and isn't really me, but i was afraid and frightened and not sure that he was/is someone i could trust and so today, what i did, in sharing with him what's really going on for me, was perhaps the first step in learning how to trust again...him certainly, but more importantly myself...see since that time, i haven't trusted my judgement with men and maybe just maybe the healing starts here...with trusting him and myself with him??

so what i actually said was this: 'No, I don't think it is...sure on some level I think it might be interesting to explore but my visions of being with my childhood love do not include an affair with a married man...even if I never forgot him and always thought the universe might find a way for us to be together thinking s I did that we were meant to be together...see at the heart of it is my romantic fantasy and imagine how hard it has been to have that co-exist knowing what you did and how you betrayed me...and when you hugged me the first time we caught up i felt safer than i had for such a long time, and then the confusion set in...so there you go, i've said it"

sooo in a way, him telling me that he is not faithful to his wife, made it so much easier to say this to him, as even though for 30 years he has been on that pedestal in my head, the foundations of that pedestal are fast crumbling beneath him....

i feel as though a huge weight has been lifted and strangely, i feel as though my chest infection may have been a reflection of my need to get a whole lot of stuff off my chest, as it were! it's funny how our bodies so often seem to mimic what's going on in our mind

soooo i'm very proud of myself and as i said to my good friend earlier when she rang to see how i was doing (thanks Nat), i feel as though telling him was not only a step in learning how to trust others, and him, but in trusting myself and my judgement about what i needed to do...

all good!

nite xx