A (small) end of an era

It was Jake's last day as a junior student today. In September he starts in high / senior school. Scary!

I remember that I loved junior school - I was the first picked from my year to be part of the football team squad, I made some excellent friends who I am still very close to today, I had my first kiss... it was good. But then I went up to senior school and I hated it. I was picked on for the first three years, school went from being carefree and a breeze to being a stressful, merciless place with a lot more hard work. I couldn't wait to leave and that's a fact. (Oh, and I had NO luck with the opposite sex, which didn't help!) **
I know Jake will have a better time of it. He has far more talent on the football field than I did at his age, and he has a natural ability to get on with anyone. And the girls seem to like him which is good! Still... my little boy's growing up.

Take tonight for example - he's going away tomorrow for a week or so with his mum, so tonight I thought we'd have something nice for tea (home made yaki soba - superb even if I say so myself) and then watch a film and spend some time together. I have, however, been banished from the lounge as his mate has just turned up! Typical!

Anyway - those of you with kids older than Jake will know what I'm going through. Those with younger kids, you have it all to come!

Have a nice weekend all. Peace.

** OR the same sex, before some smart arse says that...

Hey

Still around. Not much changed really, still not working (drag) but day by day I'm feeling a little more positive about things. I can't lie I still have relapses every now and then when everything hits me, but they are becoming less in frequency and weaker in feeling.

I'm toying with the idea of a complete career change. Soon enough the house we had together will be sold and I will have a nice little lump sum coming to me. Now obviously that is supposed to be for a deposit on my own house but I can't get a mortgage if I'm not working. So I'm thinking about using that as a buffer to change careers and maybe do something I really want to do. But I don't know what!

Don't get me wrong if an IT job came up in the next couple of weeks I'd jump at it, but if nothing changes I can't go on like this for ever. We'll see.

Anyway I'm still here and will keep the updates coming. Peace.

Your past self

So I've got kinda addicted to Life On Mars & Ashes To Ashes recently. When you're out of work you have to find something to fill your days with!
Anyway, in case you don't know what the shows are about, the basic premis is a copper (male in Life On Mars, female in Ashes To Ashes) goes back in time ('73 in LOM and '81 in ATA) to resolve some past issue. In both cases their child selves are around and this got me thinking - if you now could go back to when you were between the ages of say 6 and 12, what would you do? Would you seek yourself out, and your parents? Bear in mind that you'd be a grown up so you could meet your parents and they wouldn't know it was you. If you did go and find yourself, what would you say to yourself? What would you tell yourself?
Obviously, with what I've gone through over the past 10 months or so I think the main piece of advice I'd give myself would be that things do get better. When you're at your lowest point, and you feel that there could not be any more pain in the world, things DO improve.
So how about you lot out there? What would you say?

So I'm out of work

I don't think I mentioned this in a previous post, but I took voluntary redundancy from my job about 5 weeks ago. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do and I thought I'd pretty soon be moving into a new role. However, although I've had some interest and a couple of offers there's been nothing that I've really wanted. I made the decision because I couldn't face commuting to Birmingham and back every day and with everything else that was going on in my life I thought it the best thing for my sanity.
The problem now is that the days just draaaag. I'm actively looking for a new role and getting calls from agencies but it's still hard. And obviously I can't go out spending money left right and centre because I don't know when I'm going to be working again.
I've tried to be pro-active, going out for runs, walking to town and back etc. but some days are just hard. Today is one of those days. Very low today. I think I mentioned in a post a long time ago that I wished life were like the movies sometimes. Well it's not. It's so fcukin' not.
And I'm gonna stop there because getting upset while typing a blog is so lame...

A key word - adjustment

This is one of the words that really has been a big part of my new life.
I was in my relationship for 14 years. That's a long time to be with someone. We shared a home for 13 of those years. With my new life, I have had to adjust to being on my own a lot more of the time. Although while together I did my share of housework, cooking, washing, ironing etc. it's still a bit of a change to have to do it ALL. There is no one else to ask if they don't mind cooking for that night as you're knackered or to do the washing for that day.
Don't get me wrong - I have always liked my own company, and sometimes during my relationship I enjoyed the time alone I got. But having it forced on you is a shock. We share custody (I hate that word) of Jake so I do have company in him for half my week but adjusting to being alone in the evenings has been tough. Is tough. I'm still getting used to things. For a while I felt like I was going slightly strange with the amount of time to myself I was getting, sometimes with no contact with anyone for days at a time (when it wasn't my weekend for Jake for example). This feeling has started to fade (although that may mean because I have turned slightly strange...?)
Anyway - no real point to this post today, just a spouting of things I've been thinking.
Peace.

So have I learned anything?

See, the thing is, it's only with hindsight that you can spot the mistakes you shouldn't be making.
And by then, it usually too late.

If I had to give any advice to my friends / colleagues / readers of this blog who are in a relationship I would say this: Talk to each other.

So many problems in a relationship can be solved if they are talked out. Yes, I know, it's easy to just say "talk to each other" like it's the most natural thing in the world but sometimes I KNOW it's the last thing in the world you might feel like doing when things are going bad. You look at your partner and think "I do not want to be anywhere near you right now" or "it is utterly pointless to try and talk to you about this" but please... try. One of you, swallow your pride, take a deep breath and just ask to talk. It can save so much pain, confusion, anger, frustration.

I'm not saying that that would have saved our marriage but I do know that there were times when either one of us could have just talked and things may have been different. But we didn't. And so they aren't.

Take care people... it's a scary world out there.

I am now a statistic

I read somewhere that 76% of all modern marriages fail.
Well, I am now part of that 76%.

My wife and I have been officially separated since Easter this year. Although truth be told things kind of ended in January this year.

I won't go into all the gory details, they will stay between the two of us. All you need to know is now I have embarked on a new life as a single father living on my own. I am staying in the area we moved up to back in August to be near Jake and am looking to get a new job as a kick start to a new life.

Of course, during the breakup I was an emotional mess, and maybe in a later post I will try and offer some advice / insight as to what I went through in case it helps someone else who is going through the same thing. But for now, it's onwards and upwards for me. Enough time has passed of me avoiding my blog, Twitter, Facebook etc. and I decided to try and get back into it all again.

Thank you all for your patience and I hope those of you who drifted away will come back again.

So... what's been happening?