Closer to closure

SOMETIMES all you need to do is take a step back and look at things from an outsider’s perspective.
And if you can’t distance yourself from the cause, get someone who is on the outside to give you the wake up call you so desperately need.
You’ll know yourself that it’s a lot easier to work out a friend’s problem than even contemplate your own.
My help came in the form of an email with the subject line ‘WARNING: the following contains a long and offensive rant about your favourite ex’, and followed the news that I’d finally bitten the bullet and told him how I felt.
That particular conversation had ended with me being satisfied that he was still the same guy that I’d fallen for in the first place seven years ago. Depending on who you ask, this isn’t necessarily a good thing.
On the whole, the email contained an unbiased observation about our relationship which scattered the clouds of my judgement.
The writer reckoned it was now or never, and basically put into words what the angel on my shoulder has been trying to tell me all along.
It also reminded me that there is a colossal difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. Unfortunately for me, or us, we both hold different definitions for the feelings we have.
After our little telephone tête-à-tête I feel like a massive weight has shifted.
I’m not just putting a brave face on things because they didn’t go my way. I’m genuinely relieved that finally I had some kind of closure.
The reason a first love makes such an impression is you have no reference point to which you can compare how you feel. Worse though, they then become the reference point to which all other relationships are compared to.
I’m now free to get on with things, without the temptation that the grass could have been greener if I’d hung around long enough. And now if he’s interested it’ll be me he’ll have to wait for.
I only wish that I had listened to the same people when I was wasting time on Mr Can’t Attach, Won’t Attach, who it seems now can and is.
He said recently that maybe if I had waited long enough for his epiphany I could have been his Provence bride next year, but I seriously doubt that.
We’re back to being what we should have been in the first place before other temptations got in the way — one young writer and her esteemed colleague — and I’m very happy about that; and that he’s at last found someone for whom he’s attempting to change his bachelor ways.
I don’t think that I can wait until the new year to make a fresh start so I’m just going to start now. I’m cutting all emotional ties to anyone I can even remotely describe as an ex and just getting on with it.
And what an opportune time to do so. I hate to tell you but there are a mere 1,639 hours to Christmas as I write this.
My diary is filling up with plenty of functions, festive and otherwise, for me to find the next unsuspecting ex.
Only last weekend, a few days after the make or break phone call, I was out on the town three nights in a row. I have to say it wasn’t very good for my constitution but it was very good for my self esteem.
It was like my eyes were open. Not once did I pick up my phone to text him, or worse phone him, and I don’t think I even compared anyone to him.
Things worked out so well that I felt empowered enough to tell him not to come up for my forthcoming birthday celebrations. All I’ve been thinking and worrying about is that he was coming up, and what would happen when the inevitable seven hour build up of alcohol hit the inevitable seven year build up of frustration.
But now all I can think about is what it should have been all along, without any old baggage overshadowing it — a great excuse for a great night out, with great friends. And not a ex amongst them.
If the boys don’t appear on the night, I don’t mind. I’ve got my girlies — all dressed in pink and good shoes. What more could someone ask for?