I'm Getting Old

Good Evening,

So today I went to a funeral. It was not someone I knew terribly well but it was someone I had shared several happy memories with. But as I sat there, dry eyed and holding on tightly to Miss Tweedle-Dumb's hand tightly watching everyone around me fall to pieces as we all watched a silent and still coffin, I felt myself grow a little older. Gone are the days now of drinking in the park and mucking around at school. Today I think I faced the fact that whilst I am still young, I am not getting any younger. 

Growing up is tough, but I think one of the toughest things is seeing those around you slowly disappear. I once asked my Nana as a young child what the worst part of getting older is and she explained simply that as we grow older, the more often we have to go into the wardrobe and reach out for that Little Black Dress, each time getting quicker and quicker in concession. 

You see as we all progress in the journey of life we realise that faces change, as do people and their personalities. Some change for the better and some not so much. You yourself as you get older and maybe wiser will change too. And again, some change for the better and some not so much. People will come and go from life as changing as the seasons. Some of the characters you will meet along the road may break your heart and will be the ones that got away. I know Mr. Workaholic is for me. But then I look at the situation I found myself in back in Northamptonshire when I was in my happy little blissful bubble with him. I was twenty and more than happy to settle down with an itchy finger and an empty spare room I needed to fill. Looking back now, albeit through rose tinted glasses, I now know it was not where my life was designed to go and if given a second chance again to give it another shot, I am almost certain now I would decline. Since Mr. Workaholic I have had many a dating disaster including Mr. Carrots, Mr. Coffee and Mr. Sick - Although I am hardly sure you can call that one a date?! Not all of them were awful though. For example I have met wonderful people like Mr. Cheese, Mr. Coffee and even a stint with a couple of lustful lovers over Tinder. But none of them being that all-illusive 'One'.

You will have noticed that Mr. Warehouse has been excluded from the above. Now this does not mean we are getting married (Step away from the facinator!) but nor does it mean that he is another frog in my quest for a Prince Charming. It merely means that for the first time in a while I am beginning to accept that this may be 'it' - Whatever 'it' is?! And after only six-months or so into our relationship it's hard to say if Mr. Warehouse is my one and only. When you have had something so perfectly perfect before it is hard not to compare your feelings this time around to that of how you felt last time you were truly, madly,deeply in love. But I know now that it wasn't perfect as I once thought.

In the long run I honestly don't think Mr. Workaholic and I would have ever worked out. We were not wholly compatible - But then again who is? He never ate vegetables and all that graced his plate was beige this and beige that. Living on chicken dinosaurs and Carbonara flushed down with Redbull was not a healthy or sustainable diet. How was I meant to raise children around a father who ate about as much greens as a breeze block? And whilst we had a laugh and fooled around a lot with minimal arguing, there were some things in life that are just not meant to be. I am in a much better place right now than I ever was with Mr. Workaholic. I am somewhere whereby I don't have to rely on someone else or their income. I depend on me and only me. I pay my own rent, my own bills (Lets not talk about British Gas!) and afford my own things. On the other hand, Mr. Cheese in his own right was wonderfully charming, good looking and very affluent with friends and family in all the right places, but lacked basic skills in the bedroom as well as the "fun and frivolous" department. I could never really be my true self around him, only a segment of me. I knew both at the time and now that if I had continued any longer I would have definitely been settling for something, never to be completely satisfied. 

Whilst the intellectual conversation surrounding politics, literature and other current affairs was there with Mr. Workaholic and Mr. Cheese I was lacking in other areas and although I am not stating that for a second Mr. Warehouse tick's every box, he does try and that is worth more than anything I could ever ask for. Today and the past week or so has really opened my eyes to the world a little and in a way I have come to the conclusion that one day it will be my funeral, and someone will be standing up there on the pew reading out my life story. I want to know that I will have lived life to the fullest and trying not to regret or dwell on what could have been, only looking forward in anticipation for what is to come. And so I end this weeks blog post in a somewhat thoughtful and reflective mood, leaving to ponder the possibilities that tomorrow will bring. 

'Til next time, Love A.Lou xx