Country life...

I've spent the last 96 hours in the country. Proper country...as in back of Suffolk: no tarmac roads (who am I kidding?! no tarmac roads for 200m. This is England after all!), eggs from the neighbours, cake from the neighbours, lifts from the neighbours, bike pumps from the neighbours...catch my drift?! Plus the odd gossip here and there to lighten up Saturday afternoon tea, if the cakes don’t do it for you. And it’s amazing. It’s delightful, some might say. I mean, I woke up to the sound of a cockerel crowing. I thought I would be annoyed, but given I’d gone to bed at 10 pm, and the thing’s body clock is a little late (he crowed at 7am), it suited me just fine. I had a little moment. I discovered that I could be happy here. If I opened my mind a little, breathed in the country air, and felt the warmth from the hearth. It’s my Little Women fantasy all over again. It took me back to being 7 and going away to the farm (in Kenya, we call this shagz, but I understand this will create considerable confusion given its British slang meaning), helping ‘till the land’ all day, learning to milk cows, chasing chickens for dinner (clever little buggers) and occasionally being hounded by the bull.

These last 4 days have reminded me about what’s important in life. I realised that I am happy. I am fortunate enough to have parents willing to do anything to give me every opportunity in life. I have siblings who will think of me every single day, and will never stop trying to do things for me; a pleasant complaint to have. I have amazing relatives and friends who add a certain something something (in the words of Maxwell) to my life, like kindness, bitchiness when I need it, a kick up the back-side when I’m feeling pitiful and those that are always handy with a smile and welcome silence.

But all this perfection got me thinking...what’s so great about cities anyway?! I spent a month in Melbourne. It was the kind of working holiday that everyone dreams about...I spent days ‘working’, nights partying, weekends travelling, but mostly, I spent time discovering the city and getting terribly lost! I found a beautiful grungy (not a common combination of adjectives) restaurant bar set in a warehouse, next to a bar with grass on the roof top and a 2 year waiting list for membership. I went for ‘after-work’ drinks to cool places, met interesting people and made new friends. I discovered beaches, architecture, art, food, and streets that sell only cake and chocolate. And then I realised why I love the city, any city, so much: I can dream. It’s never perfect, there’s always something more to do or discover, a way to make myself better.

The country life can be perfect. It very often is, and it calls you to be content and perfect. But the city...concrete jungles where dreams are made of. Someone (!) was on to something when they came up with that line. The city allows me to be pleasantly ridiculous. I can lose myself in a world of discovery, I can decide that I am miserable and want to meet total strangers that will tell me how amazing I am. I can develop new interests that do NOT include walking, bicycles, or taking in the country air.  I will discover zumba, steak diets, new shoe shops, noise pollution and the newest cocktail. So I’ll hang onto my world of dreams, where I can rediscover myself, recreate myself and then, wait for it....do it all over again. But every now and then when I lose myself and forget where I am or want to be, I’ll take myself back to the memory of country life.  No matter what your station in life is, there’s a little perfection to be found everywhere (my few days in the country makes me an expert on this)!

Conversations...

Conversations happen every day. Part of my morning routine is standing in front of my mirror in messy pjs and scrutinise the flaws that need hiding that day. Conversation 1. I then open my door and shut it, walk down the stairs to the bathroom and voila...conversation 2! Everyone else in the house is now aware that I am in the shower. Half an hour later and numerous more silent conversations, and I'll utter my first words, usually throwing caffeine loosely in there..

'Morning...tea?'..or 'Mmmmning...tea!' or some other variation of a request for tea. Either way, many conversations have been had.

The last few months have seen many things go wrong for many people that I care about. It has been soul-destroying watching them go through the motions...

Week 1:
'He broke my heart. I feel so sick. I miss him so much...' My reply is often the customary hug and nod.

' I lost my job. My girlfriend wants to be with someone else. My life sucks...' Silence is an appropriate response to this particular vent.

'I know I broke her heart. But maybe, she'll forgive me and give us another go.' Wit evades me, so again, silence.

6 months later:
'I need to move on. I am so much better than him. He was never worth my time...' Feminists everywhere struggle with their own coats in celebration.

'I have to take a hold of my life. She was so horrible. I have a job now.' At this point, I offer up some words of religious encouragement, like, 'Door closes, God opens a window' or something along those lines.

'I have to move on. I have done everything and it's not enough for her. So that's my loss.' Hug it out..come on now, hug it out.

(Anyone notice the theme?! No?! Oh dear.)

Then comes the worst bit, usually a year later, but to be honest, many of us live our lives at a far greater pace and so these time frames can be considerably accelerated. It may have happened in a week...

'I just need to know why he stopped loving me. Maybe if I knew..' and this particular statement more often than not, leads to resumption of a toxic relationship.
'I still love her and want to keep trying...' Ditto.
'Maybe if I try hard enough she'll...'

Ok, so you get the picture. Relationships. Conversations in relationships. Conversations with ourselves in relationships.

I never understood why women could spend an age talking about one man. Surely if the relationship was over, nothing new had happened, and we all knew about what had gone before...so what the hell were we still talking about?!

Dealing with a break up, or rather being dumped, often begins with lunch dates with the girlfriends, then drunken nights out,with brunch the next morning to analyse the night, then the phone calls and texts (usually when said monster is spotted by any member of the group), and most embarrassing, the haranguing of his mates (either directly, or via your own possie...possie- good word) to find out what post code in relationshipville his mind currently occupies. Recent evidence suggests that men seem to go through a similar process....there's a lot less chat, but the intentions are the same. We are all trying to find out wtf happened.

I would be insane to think that any of these initial processes can be done away with. I've been there, and were it not for the Power Puff girls in my life, I'd probably still be in the same bed covered in scales and the unmistakeable odour of a 'pitiful sod'. What baffles me is what happens thereafter. I learnt very early on life that 'getting over a break up' was a rather contrived process, often informed by happenings on 90210 (the old school one), and in recent days, the lavish world of gossip girl. I often felt like shit, but I still engaged my brain into making decisions that would inform my progress. A couple of statements that I have coined over the years...

'You are so full of horse manure that I cannot even possibly cry over you or stop my life to wonder why'.
'You had this. You lost it. I will be the living memory of how idiotic you are.'
'Okay. Let's cry. But only once. No one else in the world will respect me if I admit to this cry, let alone let it happen twice.'

And that has been the end of it. In recent years however, people have developed a self-torturous ritual of going over  the same things twice, hating someone so incredibly that nothing else in their life can happen, and then every few months, going over the same things again, just in case you know, the hate diminished a little or something. This baffles me...the conversations that I tend to repeat in my life are routine, such as getting up or having a shower. I can't say I was born in the process of breaking up, so why the hell would I want to make it routine?!

My point is that we draw out the hurt and self-depreciation by insisting on having the same conversation more than once. Take a minute and be brutally honest with yourself about your situation- take out all the emotion, and for a fraction of your miserable day, engage your brain. Make a decision. Sweeping statements like mine are only devised after years of hard practice. Start small. 'I will not call him today' or 'I will not call my friends to have the same conversation, especially if nothing new has happened'. And by new, I mean an actual physical event. New thoughts in a mind clouded by break up red mist...not so new.

Take it one day at a time...small achievable goals and hooorah! You'll be in a completely different place even two days after a break up. Just promise yourself not to have the same conversation twice. Ever. In your relationships, in your life's cock-ups, in your work, with your family. So much time awasted, and nothing achieved.