It’s been over a year since my ex-wife moved out, and I have been trying to fathom why these last three months have been some of the worst. Then a couple of days ago I figured it out. I had been hiding. I know that sounds odd because I have been talking about everything a lot – maybe too much. I have been fairly happy for the first half of this year with a few down days – maybe a week, but on the whole I had been coping. Then in July everything went downhill fast. I will admit – I was suicidal twice since June, one time even phoning the undertakers to check on the price of funerals. I had just enough money to cover it but something happened that stopped me – but I won’t say what that was. I do, however, think it it had something to do with angels. Whether you believe in angels or not, they are around us – helping us – guiding us. But sometimes I think things get too much for them as well.
In this last week I have started on an upward trend again – not being quite so paranoid and accepting that there is a good reason for things to happen, not people going out of their way to avoid me or me upsetting people. I have started to realise that if someone is unhappy it’s not because of me. One of the things that helped me see this was being a rock for someone who was in desperate need of help and encouragement. Some of my humour has started to come back as well, although I very much doubt I will flirt for a very long time – maybe even put that part of me behind and leave it forever.
How I had been hiding was by going away every month to see friends and getting away from everything – the town, the people, everything that reminded me of the problems I was having. Now though, I haven’t been away for four months. It took me by surprise at how long it’s been, but these last months have been very slow motion for me with good news then bad news then good then bad plus feeling like utter crap because of how I know I had made people feel. I have now had ten weeks of counselling and I feel I am improving. I just hope that this is the way forward. I really don’t want to fall again as there’s only a certain amount of times that friends are willing to catch you. I do thank my friends for being there for me through all of this. This time I feel there IS a light at the end of the tunnel and not some sod turning the lights off and on.
After the hassle I’ve been having with AOL, I have decided to change my provider to BT. This wasn’t a decision I made lightly as I was getting a connection of:
When I was looking at a change of provider, I did a check and it said that my postcode could get up to 3mbps whilst my phone line could only mananage 0.526mbps. I stopped short the first time and decided to hold off a bit with AOL, but then my connection went again and again. I know it was AOL as one of my neighbours also had the same problem and is also with TalkTalk who took over AOL, whereas a neighbour in between us who is with BT kept her connection.
Yesterday, my provider changed to BT after a hitch, and I have just run a speed test as it was a little fast downloading a program earlier. This is the new result:
I definitely made the right decision to change.
Courtesy of Wil Wheaton
The dark doesn’t scare me. Hasn’t done since I was a teenager, after reading James Herbert’s The Dark and that stopped me from sleeping with the light off for weeks. Then I got a girlfriend who lived in Deal and had to walk home through dark country roads at midnight. No lights – no torch – no nothing. Just me and the darkness.
I have just gone outside to get the washing and looked at the sky. I know 10pm is dark, but the darkness tonight scared me. It was oppressive, and all around. I couldn’t wait to get back in. It’s like the light has been swallowed with no way of letting it back out. I came inside and my crystal fell off of the TV where it has been for ages. This mixed with a picture suddenly falling off the wall last night has made me freak. *shudder*
I am completely hacked off with the way FaceBook is playing up at the moment. It’s not just me. Half the applications don’t work, and the chat keeps signing people out and in again. I have just sent a message to Facebook to their ideas section:
The idea that I have is to sort the bloody thing out so that you can allow us to use it. You are going to end up losing a lot of people if you don’t deal with this. I’m sure MySpace and Bebo can use the custom.
Maybe more servers or getting rid of the crap applications. It is utter stupidity not being able to get on. Please let me know that you will deal with this.
Thank you very much
Alastair Forbes
I am hoping that this will get a response that at the least tells me what is happening.
It has often been said that Life Begins at 40. It is one of the most used quotes for people as they either reach their thirties or are in their thirties. I was always looking forward to it, but I have now realised that just because your life has begun again, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the way you wanted it to go.
I turned 40 in 2007, and some things have come to light just recently that cut so deep it shattered whatever I had left inside. When I was married, we were in dire straits. For Christmas one year, we managed to spend £5 on each of our kids for presents, and borrowed money so that we could have a Christmas dinner. But we went with a debt agency who helped us to sort our debts out and even got rid of a couple of them completely. The following year was tight as well, but the year after that was great. By the time 2007 came, we were almost sorted. I had my 40th birthday – which was fantastic. I had a surprise party done for me. Although I’m not silly, I still haven’t told her that I knew what she was doing. She was too eager to get me out of the house overnight. I was very surprised at who was there though. That was in June. In August, we got the house where I am now, in my ex-wife said it was the best move we could have made. In November she was so happy that I was going to see Within Temptation with her at the Carling Academy in Brixton. Even the day before and that morning she was all excited about how much she loved the fact that I was going to a gig with her – to see one of my favourite bands. Then of course the following year we split more through my fault than hers.
Then a couple of weeks ago, I was told that the night before we went to Brixton and the night after, she had been crying in the bedroom listening to My Immortal and how much she no longer felt anything for me. Going to see them with her was one of the highlights of my married life, it meant the world to me – going to see them with her. Even after we split, I looked back and said “it wasn’t all bad – we had within temptation”. But it seems that was all just a lie. So now, I can’t bear to listen to any Within Temptation at all. It hurts and and it angers me at the same time. I suppose I do deserve it after a fashion for what I put her through. I am selling my WT albums on ebay at the moment as I want rid of them and I threw out my t-shirt. I have also asked my kids not to listen to any of it in the house – although I have not told them why. They both took the music off their phones and their x-boxes but asked to leave it on their MP3 players which I said yes to.
So if someone says life begins at 40 – tell them you are happy with the one you have.
I know that everything happens for a reason, I have said this before and I truly believe that. We also each have a destiny in life. We have a point that we will get to in our life which is the end. How we get there is up to us, but there are points in our life that we must go through. These points are static and cannot be changed. I have had some of these points that I know of in my life – and I thought I would share them – missing out names of course and not necessarily in the same order that I have encountered them.
I met another father when I took my kids to school – I had seen him a few times before in a local shop as he was easily recognisable – and got chatting with him. I go to know him as a friend and my ex-wife got to know his wife and we became good friends. Years down the line both couples split. He was told that I slept with his wife (which I have never done and never will) and he stopped speaking to me. Myself and his wife helped each other through the initial split which lessened the pain at the start.
I was introduced to somone online through my ex-wife and I created a social networking account to talk to this person and help this person solve technical issues with their computer. This was another person who helped me through the early stages of my split – although this I believe is not the reason that I started speaking to them. They live in a different county to me. I started talking to this person more and more and they introduced me online to another of their friends. I spoke to both of them, although they had not spoken to each other face to face for quite a long time. After chatting for a couple of months and myself talking to the pair of them, they now see each other weekly, sometimes more than once a week. This, I think, was one of the reasons for me talking to this person.
When I was 22 I got into the drugs scene, and was introduced to someone who later became a friend. This friend introduced me to another one who used to do roleplaying. So I started roleplaying on a Sunday – every week. After several years this mate joined a band which sometimes did practice on a Sunday. One Sunday I went to this mate’s house for roleplaying and there was several other people there who were in the band. As soon as I saw one of them, I asked another mate if she was with anyone. Well – eventually I married her and we had 2 kids together.
I was going to my friends house for role-playing and I saw a car coming down the road. It swerved a couple of times before mounting the pavement and making contact with a lamp post lifting the back of the car slightly and causing the lamp post to bend. At this point I was standing beside a phone box, so I quickly dialled 999 and directed the emergency services to the scene, and then ran to the car and talked to all of the passengers to make them comfortable before the emergency services arrived.
These are just 4 points that I have gone through that have been essential in my life as well as other people’s. The first person was so that we could help each other through splits, the second was to bring 2 friends back together again, and the last was so that I could have 2 wonderful kids. This is why everything we say and do has an effect, some large and some small. So remember – when you start talking to someone, there may be a specific reason you have started talking to them. Alternatively it could be one of them points where you are just meandering through life.
I got my decree absolute through the post this morning. I am now officially divorced. I am happy that it is finally over. But it’s a major part of my life that is gone. It’s odd how you can feel happy and upset at the same time. I’ve been wanting this to come through for ages, and now that it has I feel gutted.
So I’m going to go into the kitchen and cook stuff.
It’s getting near the end of the summer holidays now. For a lot of people, they go back to school next week – 3rd September, but for my kids and a lot of schools in this area, they go back the following week – 7th September. This is odd as I don’t remember the last time kids went back to school on a Monday. This year is going to be completely different though. My son is in his 3rd school, his first was the one that he broke both of his wrists so we moved him out of there and moved him into his second primary school. He was there from part way through year 4 and through year 5 and then was statemented and sent to a special needs school. When he changed from year 6 to year seven, the change was the colour of jumper – navy to black. His school tries to make the transition as easy as possible as children with autism, aspergers and other ASD’s (Autistic Spectrum Disorders) don’t cope very well with change. The other major change was to change from all lessons in one class to moving between classes. My daughter is also about to go into her third school – she moved schools when we moved from Hawkinge to Cheriton. This time she is going into secondary school – high chool – big school – whatever you want to call it. This is a major change for all of us. My son’s transition was simple – change jumper. This time it’s change complete uniform and go from 58 children in her year to over 200. Also going from a school that is just down the road to one that is across town.
I am scared shitless about her going to this school. I know she’ll do well, but she is my youngest and she’s going to secondary. She is a lot more confident than she was in her first school, and she has a lot more friends. Some friends children in Leicester also helped with her confidence. Next week we are going to do shoe shopping and trouser shopping. We have the uniform for her apart from the trousers. Have the PE kit, have the pencil case with stuff in it, and she is really looking forward to going. I’m the one who’s quivering. I suppose it doesn’t help that my memories of secondary school were anything but good. I know she’ll do well, I have faith in her.
Haven’t done this bit for a while …
Although circumstances beyond your control could give you reason to fret today, you should be able to handle the emotional tension and even channel it to increase your productivity. A powerful adversary may be surprised by your ability to maintain your composure under fire. But your goal isn’t to impress anyone; it’s simply to survive, and even thrive, in the current storm.
The only adversary I know of at the moment is myself. Will see what happens. 
-
Recent Comments
Coyote Ugly on To hide or not to hide mothergothic on Change of Broadband Provi… mondrak on Strange … mothergothic on Strange … Bowch on Facebook
Gamer Tag
