Morning walk

One of the highlights of my day is my walk to and from work. I take the train from my home at 7:15am and travel for just over an hour into the city. From there I walk for about 40 minutes to my workplace.

It’s not the most scenic of walks. There is a lot of traffic, many pedestrians, many roads to cross, but I love it. I use those 40 minutes to think. I listen to my music and walk with the beat sometimes. The repetitive motion soothes me and assures me that I am ok.

Today there were the most delicious aromas to be savoured. A distinct, delicious burnt sugary smell wafted around me at some point. My workplace is surrounded by many different cafes, many of them tempting us with international cuisine. Breakfast was being served this morning. The smell of bacon and freshly roasted coffee made me wish I had foregone my usual two slices of vegemite on toast with tea and waited to sit in a warm café with friendly waiters willing to bring me such delicious morsels. Maybe something like that would be just what the doctor ordered. I don’t know the names of the vendors, but we recognise each others faces and wave and smile everyday – the smiles genuine and welcoming. They are actually the first friendly faces to greet me every day lately. I kind of like that we have that connection. Food is such a companionable thing.

I am lonely in the morning as I eat my toast & vegemite and drink my tea. I only realised how much so this morning as I smiled and greeted familiar, nameless faces.

Strangers

I think the aspect I am finding so difficult to come to terms with is that we are strangers now. I do not recognise this person standing before me. Not. At. All.

I find it difficult to even believe that we shared intimacies, thoughts, dreams, conversations, jokes...even food.

I find it sad that actual strangers in the street, the supermarket, the marketplace, get more positive eye contact and niceties than you and I give each other these days.

With you I am placing just one foot in front of the other on a daily basis. When I am out of the house and away my step is light and free, filled with assurance and confidence.

I don't know when we became strangers....and I think we've gone too far to become acquainted again, sadly.

Validation

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days…actually….ever since Saturday. A number of things have kind of fallen into place. There have been one or two uncanny things. All have helped me along the road since Saturday.

The other day, I was perusing blogs over at the other diary site (I’m still there, I just don’t write anymore) and came across this:

When I was young and tumultuous my mother told me that before I could fall in love with someone, and feel love in return, I needed to love myself... otherwise the most I could hope to achieve was more uncertainty, doubt and fear. As much as I hated her for the cliché, she was right, and it took being at peace with myself before I could understand my feelings and let them guide me to something wonderful.
Trusting birth is a process similar to falling in love: before I can trust others, I must be able to trust myself; and then let that peace ground and guide me through all the difficult decisions, challenges and emotions that I have never felt before. Now that I've found that place again I can finally feel at ease in the presence of others without worrying that I will depend too heavily on them in times when I shouldn't. It's so easy to unwittingly give your autonomy to another when you're scared, and that's why it's so important to find your confidence.(Babyslime)

I know I have possibly known this for a long time, but for some reason I haven’t known it or owned it. I’m going to own it now.  

Don’t we all want to feel validated by another human being at one point or another? Don’t we all just want to feel like there’s someone out there who thinks we are beautiful and special?

I realised that validation is what I have been asking for from my husband for the whole time I have been with him. I also realised that he was looking at me for validation too. I thought I gave it to him. Honestly I did! But my validation wasn’t enough and he needed further validation…so much so that he was willing to pay for it……..

The rest, as they say is history…..or our history for the past 12 years anyway.

However, when I was reading the diarists blog the other day, this bit here just screamed at me from the screen:

“before I could fall in love with someone, and feel love in return, I needed to love myself... otherwise the most I could hope to achieve was more uncertainty, doubt and fear.”

I had been living all this time in uncertainty, doubt and fear. Even now as I write I realise that I have been living in that my entire married life. Somewhere, deep down I always knew that it was a matter of time before he would betray me. I can remember thinking it. I don’t know why that didn’t disturb me at the time! It does now. Why was I so quick to sacrifice myself like that, just hoping that he loved me enough? Why was I so quick to sacrifice my hopes and ideals?

I realised that it has never been my husband’s role to validate me. I needed to validate myself. I’ve always needed to validate myself. It was never my job to validate him either. I couldn’t possibly fill that role. It was unfillable! He had to do that himself.

For the first time in my life I am going to work on loving me – totally, completely, wholly. I’m going to look at finding that peace inside myself that surpasses everything, that assures me that I am on the right track; that tells me that I am going to be ok even if I am so completely and utterly alone. I am going to work on validating myself and knowing deep within that I am beautiful and loved, without needing anyone to tell me I am.

I don’t know how to start going about this exploration. Maybe I might start off with being kind to myself. I feel like a massage and facial. I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t recognise the face looking back at me, but I know that she deserves a bit of loving right now from the one person who knows her best – me!

Just as a side note, one of my colleagues from work told me that she had a very vivid dream about me last night. We were driving along in her car and had stopped somewhere during a chat. We were talking about life and where we’re at, my current situation. All of a sudden she realised that I was also in the back seat of her vehicle – there were two of me. The one in the back seat was a younger version of me. All of a sudden the younger me looked at the older me and started exclaiming passionately, “This is NOT what I planned for! This is NOT what I wanted!”

I believe it was a message. Back in Bible days God would speak to people in dreams. I’ve certainly been thinking a lot about that dream. It’s certainly been a message to me. What to do with that message I don’t quite know yet, but it’s made me sit up and take notice.

I think I might start blogging this journey of self-indulgence. It may be interesting.