vintage...

so earlier today, the same good looking guy from work that told me i was a 'good sort' the other day, suggests that him and i are the 'same vintage'...i don't really hear the start of what he was saying but hear '....vintage, right?'

initially i thought he was telling me i was a good vintage, which might be another reference to me being a good sort, but i think he was subtly (or not!) trying to find out how old i am....

of course, i am not one to be scared off answering this question, so after a quick discussion, where he has said to me 'early thirties, late twenties?' (as if!) i tell him i'm 42...

he then tells me he's 38 which is funny, because no sooner did i leave the conversation and walk back to my desk, did i start remembering what 38 was like for me...

and all of a sudden i was taken back to a time in my life which was (maybe then, but maybe not now looking back with the benefit of hindsight) much better than now...

or was it?

and as i start on this line of thinking i realise i have confused 38 with 39, but for the sake of an interesting read we'll go with 39, as for the life of me i can't recall what happened in my 38th year...not in any detail anyway

so at 39, i'd had my birthday (another one solo), then a trip to Melbs to celebrate the 40th of a good friend, which was followed by a month of feeling v v lonely...then i met Ben and for the remainder of that year (my 40th year) it was a great year...one of love, being in love, sharing, intimacy, and the start of what i thought would be something quite permanent and special....

and then i turned 40, and the day itself was ok, but by then, the cracks in my relationship with Ben had already started to show...despite that i had a wonderful 40th birthday party surrounded by friends and family in Manly...my health declined, my stress levels increased, my grandfather had a stroke and passed away, and finally i told work that there was no role for me and that i wanted redundancy...

only to find that they agreed with me and let me go...out into the big wide world and even though Ben was still a big part of my life, i felt that i was doing this very much on my own...

the next few months went by in something of a blur as i grieved the loss of not only my beloved grandfather (who passed away on 9 April 2009...the very day I departed from corporate life) but also the loss of me, my identity and my meaning...

truly, an existential crisis started to unfold, and i can honestly say, that is has taken the better part of nearly 3 years to come out of that...

wow! what a roller coaster it's been - what a journey of self knowledge - i feel so proud of myself, to have had the courage to confront many of the demonds of my past, and the best part of it all, is that feeling i have of being, right now, truly happy and content with my lot in life...

not a bad place to end up on a thursday afternoon!

happy weekend ahead xx