A confession, and a memory

So... where the hell had I been?!

It is hard to believe that I had not posted for so very long - more than a year!  Yet it is true.  So what happened?

For one thing, I notice that my last post had been just before I began my current job.  Hardly a coincidence; daily under-appreciation is not exactly inspirational.

But the main reason that anything I wrote felt false and inadequate, or simply too personal to share, is that I have committed what I consider to be one of the worst sins of all - I had out-sourced my self-esteem.

I could not be sassy or witty or clever, because I did not feel sassy or witty or clever.  I could not write about self-sufficiency, because emotionally, I was no longer self-sufficient.  I could not write about self-image, because I had lost my image of myself.  For an astonishingly long time, I no longer knew who I was.

But time has passed and somewhere along the way I found myself again.  After many tears, many hours of boring my friends, even more hours of pouring my heart out in my diary, and far too many words sent to the person in question, I have come out the other side.

And who am I?  I am who I always was, but with a loss, and a gain.  Lost to me is the notion of myself from a decade ago, the image of the "utterly irresistible" little sex-goddess that I had held close - even when it threatened my marriage, and even though really, it detracted from the grown-up woman I was now living the life of.  That little temptress no longer exists, and I have been forced to acknowledge it.  Lost to me too is the ability to look up to this person as a father-figure-lover (always intermingled, and always perfectly natural); to sit in awe of his wisdom, and to be petted and adored in return.  But gained is the chance to be a real woman - to at last truly take charge of myself and my sexuality - this time from within myself.

I once believed that he had taught me to believe in myself, but all I had learned was to believe in his opinion of me.  From now on, I will believe in myself for my own sake and for my own purpose.

And, I will write on my blog!  I will post the pieces that have lain in wait for too long.  Next time... my not-so-green thumb.  I advertise this now as a promise... to myself.


But before I go, indulge me please in a moment of nostalgia.  And nostalgia it is, now that I understand that I can never go back, and now that I accept that going back is not what nostalgia is for anyway.


Eleven years ago, life gave me a romance.  It felt like a dream, even at the time.  It took place in Scotland, amongst the rolling countryside surrounding Balmoral Castle, during a cool, misty summer.  For two perfect days around two perfect nights, I was given a fairytale.  A soft-spoken, sensual, older man flew me to his side to indulge us both in a time of pure pleasure.  We talked, we dined, we listened to Frank Sinatra, we bathed together, and we made love.  He escorted me from beautiful scene to beautiful scene: drinking sloe gin to a private view of unspoilt hills; kissing by a rambling stream; smoking and drinking and eventually making it to bed in our lodge by the loch.  For these days, and the further scattered days and nights I was granted back in London, I was always at his command, and it was always my pleasure to follow his charming lead.  I discovered that I could, if I chose, be a perfect fairytale princess to a perfect fairytale prince.

This I have had, and nothing can take that away from me.  And now this memory can take nothing from the life I have today.