Like a number of other bloggers I've been thinking allot about whether to keep this online journal going.
It becomes tricky when you truly begin to know your audience, readers become true friends, and you realise that anything you vent out into the ether can actually have consequences.
But in the meantime I'm still here.
At least once of you was curious as to one of the subjects I touched upon in my last post, and I did promise a follow-up.
I came out of a two-year relationship last winter. Love and great times were shared but sadly we decided to part. I couldn't have wished for a more amicable split, and I feel blessed that I've gained a true friend who'll remain just that in the future.
It took me an awfully long time to venture back into the dating game, but as spring slowly turned into an early summer the time felt right to dip a toe into the water.
Still being of limited confidence after all these years, I decided to play to my strengths and joined uniformdating.com. Put basically, it's a dating site for those in the uniformed services (Police, Ambulance/NHS, Fire, Army, RAF, Navy) to meet other uniformed services, or 'civvies', and vice-versa.
The Yorkshireman in me managed to find an online promotional code giving me a month's free membership (which was a bonus). Joining the site was simple enough, however setting up a profile and choosing a suitable photo must have taken half an ice age. See, those who know me will know that one trait I despise in people is arrogance. I'm generally uncomfortable to crow about my own achievements and merits, so just how was I going to sell myself to any potential date?
Hours of staring at a blank cursor flashing on the monitor finally paid off and I put myself out there. Time to sit back, wait, an to be honest not expecting much interest to come trickling back.
But, lo and behold, women started to view my profile. Success! I hear you cry. However, not strictly not the case. Did they not read that I wasn't looking for women over 40? I mean, no offence. I've dated women a few years older but I would most certainly draw the line at a decade now. A few polite excuses were in order. The other problem was that the more interesting women quite literally lived at the other end of the country. I've done the long distance (read transcontinental) thing before and it ain't easy at all.
About a week later however I was messaged by someone a mere 20 miles away. For the purposes of anonymity in this journal I will refer to her as she.
She was attractive, fun, intelligent and bubbly. Even more surprisingly she wanted to meet me. I checked a few times. Yep, she was talking me.
Crikey.
We arranged to meet at a local chain-pub for our first date. Suffice to say you can tell things are going well that you're so deep in conversation that three hours pass in the blink of an eye. Indeed she was attractive, fun, intelligent and bubbly in person.
Wow.
Mentally checked again, oh my god it was me she had wanted to meet.
Date two would have been a lot sooner had I not contracted a pleasant case of conjunctivitis and a particularly chesty cough (I blame a stop search of a suspicious male I did who didn't quite have the best bodily hygiene shall we say). However she demonstrated great patience in waiting for me to get well again.
We arranged to meet again.
The rest you can say is history.
Some two months later and things are going very well indeed. We spend as much time together as work allows. We share similar passions in life, yet she's opening my eyes to new things.
One night she told me she loved me. I was blindsided. I never expected to hear someone look into my eyes and say that ever again. I too have fallen in love with her.
Quite simply she has been the most wonderful surprise. Without sounding cliched I feel like the luckiest man in the world. I expected a long trail of unsuccessful dates. She certainly sounded like she had experienced just that. But to strike lucky first time? I mean, really, what are the chances?
I don't have many exes to speak of, but at least a couple of them remain good close friends.
As I said to one of them recently "Each love is unique."
Treasure each love, mourn it's loss, but dare surrender yourself to the promise of something new.
Hopefully I am proof positive that it is possible.
Showing posts with label lonlieness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lonlieness. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Change
It being the end of the year it's time to do the cliched looking-back-thing, however I find myself for the most keenly looking forward.
I'm not saying 2009 is heralding the start of a personal revolution by any means, it's just that I am certain that the new year will being change on a number of levels.
Firstly, I've decided to move.
I moved to my present location primarily because it was geographically central to all the various locations my training and subsequent police station posting. Since I made the jump down here and managed to get myself successfully signed-off as a 'proper copper'- I now find myself living a little out on a limb. Though it was convenient and central for training, now that I've settled into the routine of policing a rural market town, I am tiring of the 50-mile round trip to work and back, the time wasted on a very dull- A-class road and the petrol burned.
Socially, those who live over this way all have families and don't tend to go out that much. Most of the friends and colleagues I've made down here are clustered near where I work. Therefore if my colleagues are going out for a social, it's a real pain to organise transport or places to stay, even for a simple few drinks after a shift. It gets a bit lonely at times.
So sometime soon, possibly even in the next few months, I'll swap this rural market town for another.
Change has come on a personal level too. You don't have to be Sherlock to figure out the identity of the girlfriend and probably have heard by now that we've sadly split up. It's nothing for me to discuss at length here, I have far to much respect for her to do that, however I am probably blessed with the most amicable break-up that one could wish for. I've gained a close and precious friend for the rest of my life; that much is certain.
At work I've learned that I'm getting a new line-manager / Sargent in January which has come to a bit of a shock to all of us on shift. Looking at the rest of the shifts at the station we're probably the closest-knit and I feel like I'm losing a mentor who shepherded me though some really tough times at work. It's another loss that I'm taking quite personally.
Change on a number of levels then.
Perhaps my life needs shaking up a little.
As the great prophet Sheryl Crow once wrote:
"A change, will do you good."
I'm not saying 2009 is heralding the start of a personal revolution by any means, it's just that I am certain that the new year will being change on a number of levels.
Firstly, I've decided to move.
I moved to my present location primarily because it was geographically central to all the various locations my training and subsequent police station posting. Since I made the jump down here and managed to get myself successfully signed-off as a 'proper copper'- I now find myself living a little out on a limb. Though it was convenient and central for training, now that I've settled into the routine of policing a rural market town, I am tiring of the 50-mile round trip to work and back, the time wasted on a very dull- A-class road and the petrol burned.
Socially, those who live over this way all have families and don't tend to go out that much. Most of the friends and colleagues I've made down here are clustered near where I work. Therefore if my colleagues are going out for a social, it's a real pain to organise transport or places to stay, even for a simple few drinks after a shift. It gets a bit lonely at times.
So sometime soon, possibly even in the next few months, I'll swap this rural market town for another.
Change has come on a personal level too. You don't have to be Sherlock to figure out the identity of the girlfriend and probably have heard by now that we've sadly split up. It's nothing for me to discuss at length here, I have far to much respect for her to do that, however I am probably blessed with the most amicable break-up that one could wish for. I've gained a close and precious friend for the rest of my life; that much is certain.
At work I've learned that I'm getting a new line-manager / Sargent in January which has come to a bit of a shock to all of us on shift. Looking at the rest of the shifts at the station we're probably the closest-knit and I feel like I'm losing a mentor who shepherded me though some really tough times at work. It's another loss that I'm taking quite personally.
Change on a number of levels then.
Perhaps my life needs shaking up a little.
As the great prophet Sheryl Crow once wrote:
"A change, will do you good."
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Two-thousand-zero-eight
Party over?
Oops!
Out of time.
[The other night I partied] like it was two-thousand-and-eight.
(With thanks to Prince)
Christmas was...
Different.
It comes with the territory that as an emergency service worker, chances are you're going to be working whist others are out having fun, sleeping, eating etc...
I worked Christmas Eve and Christmas Day nights for my sins, coming off-shift into Boxing Day morning.
Christmas Eve was ridiculously busy. Very little goodwill on the streets to men or women really. Fights going off all over the place and a colleague accidentally gave me a facefull of CS-spray during a scuffle.
Lovely stuff.
Christmas Day night was thankfully very quiet indeed and most of us disregarded the mounds of paperwork, patrolling and chilled out for a change. We all brought in food to nibble and had a bit of an impromptu buffet in the station. I'd slept most of the day before that, I was home alone and to be honest if I hadn't have watched the Doctor Who christmas special I wouldn't have noticed it was Christmas at all! So to have some sort of festivity later on was nice and heart-warming.
Boxing day, early hours, I drove up to the parents in East Yorkshire. Presented myself about 09:00hrs, chatted over a cup of tea for about a half-hour before collapsing into bed. Woke up around 16:00 and helped the family get snacks & drinks together for the 'clan' get-together at our place a few hours later. After much chat, food, drinks, Jenga and board games I once again collapsed into bed.
27th - Relaxed. Did very little. Perfect.
28th - Mother & I hit the sales. Bought very little really apart from a new colour printer, and even that was from a Tesco Extra!
29th - I hung out with friends back Yorkshire-way who I hadn't seen for ages. All good fun, good company.
30th - Unfortunately it was back to work. Drat.
New Year's Eve, as luck would have it, I was on earlies. This meant that even with extended workign hours this allowed me to finish at 18:00 and still have time to drive down to see girlfriend and celebrate with her. Along with her lad we went round to some friends of hers for chat, drinks and board games for the evening. A good night was had by all. I was awoken at around 01:30 by the girlfriend as I'd fallen asleep on the hosts' sofa. They did however cut me some slack when it was pointed out that I'd been up since 05:00 the previous morning.
New Year's Day - Back to work at 15:00, however still plenty of time to sleep off the hangover and drive up back to work.
How did you celebrate yours?
Oops!
Out of time.
[The other night I partied] like it was two-thousand-and-eight.
(With thanks to Prince)
Christmas was...
Different.
It comes with the territory that as an emergency service worker, chances are you're going to be working whist others are out having fun, sleeping, eating etc...
I worked Christmas Eve and Christmas Day nights for my sins, coming off-shift into Boxing Day morning.
Christmas Eve was ridiculously busy. Very little goodwill on the streets to men or women really. Fights going off all over the place and a colleague accidentally gave me a facefull of CS-spray during a scuffle.
Lovely stuff.
Christmas Day night was thankfully very quiet indeed and most of us disregarded the mounds of paperwork, patrolling and chilled out for a change. We all brought in food to nibble and had a bit of an impromptu buffet in the station. I'd slept most of the day before that, I was home alone and to be honest if I hadn't have watched the Doctor Who christmas special I wouldn't have noticed it was Christmas at all! So to have some sort of festivity later on was nice and heart-warming.
Boxing day, early hours, I drove up to the parents in East Yorkshire. Presented myself about 09:00hrs, chatted over a cup of tea for about a half-hour before collapsing into bed. Woke up around 16:00 and helped the family get snacks & drinks together for the 'clan' get-together at our place a few hours later. After much chat, food, drinks, Jenga and board games I once again collapsed into bed.
27th - Relaxed. Did very little. Perfect.
28th - Mother & I hit the sales. Bought very little really apart from a new colour printer, and even that was from a Tesco Extra!
29th - I hung out with friends back Yorkshire-way who I hadn't seen for ages. All good fun, good company.
30th - Unfortunately it was back to work. Drat.
New Year's Eve, as luck would have it, I was on earlies. This meant that even with extended workign hours this allowed me to finish at 18:00 and still have time to drive down to see girlfriend and celebrate with her. Along with her lad we went round to some friends of hers for chat, drinks and board games for the evening. A good night was had by all. I was awoken at around 01:30 by the girlfriend as I'd fallen asleep on the hosts' sofa. They did however cut me some slack when it was pointed out that I'd been up since 05:00 the previous morning.
New Year's Day - Back to work at 15:00, however still plenty of time to sleep off the hangover and drive up back to work.
How did you celebrate yours?
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
My brain hurts
Even learning it piece by piece, the scale of what we're expected to know is seriously scaring the crap out of me.
Week fifteen now and I've almost filled my third ring-binder full of PowerPoint presentations, lesson notes and miscellaneous reading.
How the hell am I supposed to digest all of that?
Even slimed down to the basic 'definition booklet' which is the core of what we'e supposed to learn, there's still over a hundred basic definitions to memorise; verbatim. I'm not talking one-liners either... Paragraphs worth, for each.
Some of us are planning revision meetings when it gets to that critical time before our final exams, because learning alone is not particularly conducive.
Plus it just reminds me about being cold and lonely anyway.
Which accurately describes the bed also, to which I will soon retire.
Week fifteen now and I've almost filled my third ring-binder full of PowerPoint presentations, lesson notes and miscellaneous reading.
How the hell am I supposed to digest all of that?
Even slimed down to the basic 'definition booklet' which is the core of what we'e supposed to learn, there's still over a hundred basic definitions to memorise; verbatim. I'm not talking one-liners either... Paragraphs worth, for each.
Some of us are planning revision meetings when it gets to that critical time before our final exams, because learning alone is not particularly conducive.
Plus it just reminds me about being cold and lonely anyway.
Which accurately describes the bed also, to which I will soon retire.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Cold Water Music
My mood had already plummeted since Friday. I'd been due to go out on the evening with some work-mates but cancelled on them. We had a 'halfway' test earlier on that day and the result I got back was rather disappointing. I passed, but it felt like I scraped. I thought I was coping, I thought I was getting by OK, but clearly that was a big wake-up call.
This ain't easy, it never was going to be, and it isn't going to get any easier, anytime soon.
I don't know what to put it to, maybe it's my learning style, maybe I just clammed-up in the test. Maybe it's the fact that I'm not sleeping well, maybe I just need more good old-fashioned hard work, or more often than now, maybe it's my lack of self-belief.
So I text a friend to say that I would only leaden the vibes if I headed out with them, and that was that. Since I had no particular place to go, or anyone to see over the weekend, i just closed the door and let the weekend unfold at its own pace.
Spent most of this weekend...
Reading through Saturday's Guardian
Downloading new episodes of Lost and Battlestar Galactica through the wonder of YouTube
Weeding in the garden
Food shopping
Expertly finding new ways to avoid study before realising that that may be the key to my ultimate failure
Nursing bottles of wine
Reloading the washing machine a few times
Reading really interesting news articles online
Trawling Google/YouTube for aforementioned cheesy 80's track
Watching V for Vendetta
Playing any relaxed, funky loungy music to hand
Starting reading The Time Traveller's Wife
Going through some old clothes to donate to a charity shop in town
Sitting still, and listening to the quiet whisper of the gas fire as the day darkens into another cold night
Things are OK, if-.
Nah, forget it.
Been there before.
Anyway, again my quiet self-pity is put into sharp focus with breaking news from Iraq. Four British Servicemen are reported killed in Basra.
And, oh god, it's Remembrance Day.
This ain't easy, it never was going to be, and it isn't going to get any easier, anytime soon.
I don't know what to put it to, maybe it's my learning style, maybe I just clammed-up in the test. Maybe it's the fact that I'm not sleeping well, maybe I just need more good old-fashioned hard work, or more often than now, maybe it's my lack of self-belief.
So I text a friend to say that I would only leaden the vibes if I headed out with them, and that was that. Since I had no particular place to go, or anyone to see over the weekend, i just closed the door and let the weekend unfold at its own pace.
Spent most of this weekend...
Reading through Saturday's Guardian
Downloading new episodes of Lost and Battlestar Galactica through the wonder of YouTube
Weeding in the garden
Food shopping
Expertly finding new ways to avoid study before realising that that may be the key to my ultimate failure
Nursing bottles of wine
Reloading the washing machine a few times
Reading really interesting news articles online
Trawling Google/YouTube for aforementioned cheesy 80's track
Watching V for Vendetta
Playing any relaxed, funky loungy music to hand
Starting reading The Time Traveller's Wife
Going through some old clothes to donate to a charity shop in town
Sitting still, and listening to the quiet whisper of the gas fire as the day darkens into another cold night
Things are OK, if-.
Nah, forget it.
Been there before.
Anyway, again my quiet self-pity is put into sharp focus with breaking news from Iraq. Four British Servicemen are reported killed in Basra.
And, oh god, it's Remembrance Day.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
This lonely planet
Interesting sights driving back down from Yorkshire this evening. Every town, every city I passed may well have been at war, such was the intensity of fireworks lighting up the night sky.
Special thanks must go to the eejits who let off a number of airbombs right next to the motorway. I mean that's not going to scare the crap out of high-speed drivers now is it?
Glad I got back in time to watch Planet Earth though and duly spent the last hour utterly mesmerised.
What a contrast though when it's followed by the latest news, unsurprisingly dominated by Iraq once more. Makes one wonder sometimes when we really earned the right to shape this planet so completely, not just for ourselves, but the innumerable species with which we share it.
This teeming, noisy, yet lonely planet... Millions of miles in either direction?
Silence.
Special thanks must go to the eejits who let off a number of airbombs right next to the motorway. I mean that's not going to scare the crap out of high-speed drivers now is it?
Glad I got back in time to watch Planet Earth though and duly spent the last hour utterly mesmerised.
What a contrast though when it's followed by the latest news, unsurprisingly dominated by Iraq once more. Makes one wonder sometimes when we really earned the right to shape this planet so completely, not just for ourselves, but the innumerable species with which we share it.
This teeming, noisy, yet lonely planet... Millions of miles in either direction?
Silence.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The scream
[Spooky!! 31/08/06 - The missing copy of said painting was recovered today in Oslo!]
It's all going a bit Edvard Munch down here.
Oh I give up, I just went on a really big rant about a ridiculous subject; typing away furiously. Spent about ten minutes before deciding no, that sounds fucking ridiculous and hit delete.
Nothing important anyway.
I'm tired.
The house is mine once again, and I've had it up to here with assembling flat-pack furniture, how ever lovely it looks when finished.
Several friends have been real nice in talking me through my sudden lack of confidence and drive. I can't explain quite where and when it hit, but that I still feel turbulent when I should feel settled and real proud of myself.
I'm getting more and more terrified that I've made yet another mistake.
I want to walk out the door and into the middle of the forest out the back of the house, stand in the centre where the paths merge and scream my lungs out through shear frustration.
Thing is; it's pitch dark out the back, I watched The Blair Witch Project again the other night, and the nettles near the entrance of the wood sting like hell.
Ah well.
This crisis of confidence is one of my own manufacture, I know, I know...
Give me a week, this will hopefully blow over.
It's all going a bit Edvard Munch down here.
Oh I give up, I just went on a really big rant about a ridiculous subject; typing away furiously. Spent about ten minutes before deciding no, that sounds fucking ridiculous and hit delete.
Nothing important anyway.
I'm tired.
The house is mine once again, and I've had it up to here with assembling flat-pack furniture, how ever lovely it looks when finished.
Several friends have been real nice in talking me through my sudden lack of confidence and drive. I can't explain quite where and when it hit, but that I still feel turbulent when I should feel settled and real proud of myself.
I'm getting more and more terrified that I've made yet another mistake.
I want to walk out the door and into the middle of the forest out the back of the house, stand in the centre where the paths merge and scream my lungs out through shear frustration.
Thing is; it's pitch dark out the back, I watched The Blair Witch Project again the other night, and the nettles near the entrance of the wood sting like hell.
Ah well.
This crisis of confidence is one of my own manufacture, I know, I know...
Give me a week, this will hopefully blow over.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Reverse Cheers
Although work is going well, and the general feeling is that of wind in my sails, still something's missing.
This house, lovely as it is, feels a little empty.
Much as I toy with the idea with buying a pet, I've got to think responsibly here. Early next year my work schedule becomes as predictable as roulette, and any time off I have coming I plan my escape abroad for a few days.
Come to think of it, I have time off in October. If I'm feeling lonely here, I may as well loose myself where nobody knows my name.
Now, I've only got to decide where.
This house, lovely as it is, feels a little empty.
Much as I toy with the idea with buying a pet, I've got to think responsibly here. Early next year my work schedule becomes as predictable as roulette, and any time off I have coming I plan my escape abroad for a few days.
Come to think of it, I have time off in October. If I'm feeling lonely here, I may as well loose myself where nobody knows my name.
Now, I've only got to decide where.
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