So this is an unplanned post, but today just led me to it. (I do that now: go with the flow!) Here are the reasons why:

Earlier today as I was interacting with one of the many people, wonderful people, on social media  I realised the date: I checked with Danny: who had also not realised the date: Twelve years ago today Danny sent me a text, after disappearing all night, to tell me he was leaving me and going with ‘her’. At that moment our world turned upside down and ‘The War’ was declared. You can read this part of our story here and here 

Neither of us had remembered, neither of us do remember we have moved on.

Now this was one of the reasons for this post; the other is that this year Danny and I celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary in August. I share that to give all those people out there drowning, hope. What more can we give each other?

So it made me think of how different these ‘anniversaries’ are: one we will celebrate: one we have forgotten. See you can forget; and you can let it go…

I have shared with you what happened on our first Dday anniversary in this blog and I thought that I would look at what I had written two years later, in what was now ‘my’ journal: The new journal that I had started to keep in 2008 to find myself. I was surprised to find that I had not included this entry in my book,  but it will be in it now:because actually a lot of what I had to say then will help others now. Here it is…

Friday April 19th 2009

When I started this journal I thought that it was all going to be about me; and that I did not want to bring what had happened to Danny and I into this journal.

But I now realise that I was wrong: I wanted to analyse me; and understand the person that I am. I cannot do that without acknowledging what happened: because that is the main catalyst for what made me the person that I am today. By trying to exclude it meant that I was never going to achieve anything from this journal: Which is mainly to get my head together and understand myself. 

I found myself sometimes ‘needing’ to write in my journal, but putting it off; and I realise that it was mainly because I have been running away from what happened and I can’t!!! And now the writing is flowing out of me. …

Two years ago today my world was turned upside down: the life I had died and my heart was broken; but as always I have got back up – I can’t stay down for long. 

I realised today, when I had my appraisal at work, how significant what I have just written was: At my appraisal I was told that I had achieved everything, and some! Every key objective achieved with added extras. It was a brilliant appraisal and coming home in the car, when I realised what a long way I had come, it did make me cry. 

Why?

I suppose some of it is that I have realised what a different person I am from that stupid fat lump that I was two years ago. I can always do it on my own, I am always on my own. 

April is not a good month for me: My mum died, Danny left me. I know now that part of the reason I had Danny back was to enable me to move on. Although it has been bloody hard it has also made it easier: because as I recovered and stood on my own two feet I could move on, on my own terms: not ones that someone else had laid down for me. 

Danny and I were talking the other week about how some people stay together for what they have got: for the lifestyle they have. Danny looked mortified and asked me if that is why I stayed. I lied, in part, and said no; but it is the whole package that made me stay not just my love for Danny.I do love Danny, but not in that total all consuming way that I did before. How can I?

The crying over the past two years has been a mourning for what we lost, because it is very sad: I loved Danny totally. But I have stopped crying for that loss now; whilst I still feel sad my grieving has moved on.

In the words of James Blunt (from ‘Goodbye my Lover’) ‘you can’t break my spirit it’s my dreams yout take.’ That is me: the all consuming, never let you down love does not exist.

But I also realised that Steve Maraboli was right when he said ‘happiness is a state of mind’; there are no happy endings, and if you spend your life looking for them you will constantly be chasing the end of a rainbow, and trying to catch that ray of light.’ 

Here & Now

I think that Moisy from ten years ago has said it all.

And that is where I was going to end this post. But I read it to Danny and he looked so sad: because I said that I still don’t have that ‘all consuming love’. I have tried to explain to him that what we have now is real. It is not something that is not real that we are striving to keep: people eat, they fart, they get angry, frustrated, don’t listen to each other, hold each other’s hands, laugh at each other, laugh together. That is real, that is true life: people are people; they cannot always look perfect, they snore in their sleep and if your love is real you will still love them.

That one is for you Danny Joseph: I don’t have an all consuming love for you; I have real love; let us not forget I am following my dream you didn’t take them away from me, I just found the real ones and that is why I live here in France with you, now.

Rosie

Making This Better the book is now available including the journal entries for the first 5 years of our recovery & the whole 21 days of ‘The War’. Available internationally in paperback and ebook  at Amazon and Barnes & Noble also available at Xlibris and Apple Books for iPad and Waterstones Bookstores for click & collect

I would love to hear your feedback.

Goodbye my lover James Blunt