Changes.

Thinking a lot about the way in which a relationship can develop from love to friendship and vice versa. The ex and I might be classified as friends now, and he certainly used that term to describe us the first time we met up after splitting. I would like to be his friend if we aren't going to get back together, he is lovely and sweet and so nice and I love having him in my life. On that theme I spent this morning re-reading 'Anne of the Island' in which Anne Shirley finally realises she and Gilbert are meant for each other. I adored the Anne books when I was younger and this one became the most re-read for some reason. Not really sure why as it is not the best, but perhaps it is because Anne is still young and lovely rather than immature and silly (which becomes rather a pain to re-read when one is older) and is still not yet sold down the river to motherhood. Commenting in my last entry about poor old Natasha getting a raw deal at the end of 'War and Peace' reminded me very much at the time of Anne Shirley. She was terrificly wonderful, popular, intelligent and had aspirations to write books, but she hankered after Gilbert Blythe and as soon as that wedding ring was on her finger she became boring and dull, had no career or life of her own and started to pop out lots of children. Said children she didn't even really bring up but had a full time nanny and indeed in the later books Anne is only a shadowy sort of figure in her children's lives. I hate this about old fashioned books: we want our heroine to marry the hero but after the bells have finished pealing I for one would like them to remain intelligent and interesting and not just some sort of facet of their husband and am empty vessel about the home.

Anyway I think my original point was that relationships can alter and become something quite different. The ex and I were not friends before we got together but I really hope we can become friends now. It is best that I get myself used to this idea in fact as I don't think we are going to be anything else and I want above all for him to remain in my life. Let us go with the notion of friendship. About time I moved on properly, it has been over two months now, but the summer vacation is so horribly long that I think I will allow myself these additional two weeks until term starts again before I make myself pursue other options and other men. I am also already sick of referring to him as me ex, I don't like that term and so I have decided to give him a name out of one of my favourite books (and of course of the real list historical figure) and so I have gone with Germanicus, out of 'I, Claudius'.

Confusion.

A few weeks ago I started writing emails to my ex-boyfriend by instead of sending them to him I have saved them all in my draft email folder. It feels really cathartic and cleansing to be able to tell him all the things I feel about our split and about him, and yet for him not to know or respond. While we were together I used to tell him about how I felt and he used to not properly listen/ change the subject/ totally forget what I had said a few minutes later and so this way works even better as it means there is now no reason for me to get cross with him for having failed to listen to me.

I used to think that men in real life were not a patch on men in books and while this remains largely true I must add the caveat that men in books also fall short of the ideal. I know think that ideal men are probably best illustrated by film rather than fiction. Mr Darcy in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was a cold fish who was very rude to Lizzie Bennet and his only redeeming feature was his wealth, Anna Karrenina and Madame Bovary had a rotten time with men, Rhett Butler only amused himself with Scarlett O’Hara and then left her for merely being the same person she was all along and I can’t think of a single book in which the man both beautifully professes his love and then manages to live up to it afterwards. 

My ex and I have been split for slightly over two months now, two very long months in which I have not had nearly enough to occupy my time and so I have brooded rather while he has made himself very busy indeed and underwent no period of mourning where you don’t stir out of pjs all day and eat way too much while watching a lot of Murder She Wrote… We met up a couple of weeks ago to exchange our things which I found weird but he seemed to like. He wanted to see me again, in fact was most eager to do so and on Monday we did. We not only had lunch together but then met again in the evening for dinner and drinks. I am not being vain, I truly am not when I say that he wants to get back together. From some of the things he said, the way he tried to hold my hand several times etc. He does. And yet he doesn’t. He is not the kind to make any great romantic running after me, he is the type to sit back and see me lots of times and just wait for something to happen without planning anything romantic and without even thinking to himself that he should dress up, take me somewhere special and say wonderful things before kissing me. He will have no plan because that was the way it was when we got together in the beginning, he just kept asking me out and eventually things progressed.

I don’t want to sound bitter, I am not. In fact I was the one who split up with him. I am only confused and unsure of what I want. He is lovely and although there were other things behind the breakup the catalyst was definitely his pulling out of our plans to live together. That is what makes it so confusing: I split up with him because I loved him enough to live together but because he didn’t and I felt a great need to protect myself by not staying with someone who didn’t love me as much as I loved them.

What makes it all more confusing is that I can’t think of a single book where there is the same dilema! Even the torrid romantic life of Natasha in ‘War and Peace’ did not encounter this problem. On a side note I was frightfully disappointed by the way she ended up. She was stunningly beautiful and charming and catnip to men and yet she ended up with the most boring chap in the whole book and turned out frumpy, fat and a complete housewife. I was horrified! I saw the opera of the same book last year and thought it rather marvelous although in it for some ridiculous reason they missed the whole ending and Natasha actually didn’t end up with the bore which I found rather amusing!