Jetlag

It's 4am and i have been fighting sleeplessness since midnight. Time to give up the battle and blog!

Gosh, It's been a long time friends hasn't it? I've been away, eating croissants, shoving more art into my head than i could handle and spending a giddy week with Welsh in his mother land.

Paris was amazing. I am sure i am the first person to ever think that. Between the Louvre and designer second hand stores, the beautiful people and the city scape at night, macaroons and Mon Cherie, i well and truly fell in love with France.
It is just so visually stunning. I cannot work out if the people are so beautiful because they are around beautiful things all their lives, or if they surrounded themselves in beauty to reflect themselves. What came first? The Chic or the Eiffel? Either way, the man made magnificence of the place is truly one of a kind. Get thee to France!!
I met Mona and Venus, saw a handful of Matisses and Picassos, drank champagne with breakfast in the countryside and coveted every single outfit worn by every single french woman i saw.

Wales is the opposite. It is dominated by broad brush stokes of natural beauty. The landscape is so rugged, so obvious, so 360 degrees of impossible greens. In the distance you watch rolling hills and light dancing on the water then you look down at wild violets and baby lambs by your feet.
And of course, Wales in where Welsh comes from. It was mind blowing to see him there and this synergy, this snowball of falling in love with Wales and falling more in love with Welsh, and loving Wales because of Welsh and Welsh because of Wales, swept me though a week of sleeping in, country walks, endless cups of tea and meeting the entire population of his village. His family is gorgeous. His friends generous and kind. Our house is millions of years old with creaky floorboards and a stream on just the other side of the fence.
I have two homes now and i am itching to get back there and take my finger off the pause button of our lives together.

Melbourne is also great and I am happy to have six weeks of coffee with my friends, hugs with my niece and nephew, goodbye dinners with my family and hundreds of conversations and moments that I will file away in my heart for the year to come.

goodnight. xxx

Leaping.

Hi everyone!

How is everyone? It's a beautiful day isn't it? It really is.

So last night Welsh got on (another) plane and went away (again.) This time it's a more permanent move based on the fact that he cannot work in Australia and just hanging about on a tourist visa for the last month, was doing both of our heads in. Unemployed boyfriend=me never wanting to go to work and him wanting to annoy me for attention when i didn't.

It's been a chaotic relationship. Sometimes one foot in and one foot out as we tried to wrangle the immigration department, housemates, jobs as well as the whole getting to know each other thing and doing fun stuff like ice skating and going on a boat. It's been six months of wondering if we are really doing this, sizing each other up out of the corner of our eyes and considering if this is it. You know, it, it. Two funerals, a trip to thailand, a couple of resignations and a divorce party later, we have uncovered our answer.

And it is YES. Is he the person I want to be with right now? Yes. 5 years from now? Yep. 20 years from now? Well...probably. I don't even know if i want to be with myself in 20 years.
The point is, the answer is yes. This is it. The big love.

I am moving to Wales in June. I'm going to live in a village with the love of my life and write a book. I'm going to wear gum boots and whinge about the weather. I'm going to eat dinner at the local pub and chase sheep around the paddocks.

So here's to faith and crossing the ocean to give love my best shot.
Here's to leaping.

Incidental exercise.

It seems i have stopped running. It may seem this way because that is the actual truth.
I did do some sprinting and some strange toe-running with my trainer on Tuesday. But of course, i had to ham it up and start from the ground to try and make him laugh (that's what exercise is all about isn't it?) and i tore something in my groin. It hurt ALOT and i had to limp around with my hand between my legs for the rest of the session. Attractive.

So i guess i have to rely on incidental exercise to keep fit. Like walking to the fridge to get the chocolate coated scotch finger biscuits for example.

Let's make a list of things again. I like that game.

1. I love my boyfriend.
2. I love biscuits.
3. When i was married, a psychic told me that I had not met the love of my life yet. (i didn't ask him anything about love or my husband or anything FYI)
4. I wonder what the psychic would say now.
5. I love snorkling and scuba diving. It's so fun!
6. i have the next two days off. Yay!

divorce.

So i finally have my divorce papers in order.

It seems odd to send them off into the post with just a regular stamp. I feel like i should sprinkle them with magic dust or do some sort of severing ceremony as i drop them in the box.
Getting married is so much more....celebratory. You get garter belts and funny traditions like sleeping separately the night before. You get to wear something blue and borrowed, you get a certificate. With this, you just fill a form and chuck it in a regular post box. Where is the undoing of all those other things? Can i throw a bunch of flowers forward over my head and see who will be next to get divorced? Or perhaps walk backwards down the isle and donate all the wedding gifts to charity? It's an odd thing.

I went to get the papers from..him....the other day. I woke him from an afternoon nap and we drank tea and talked about the cat. He handed me the papers, and a paperback novel. He told me to read the inscription. It's a book about a social worker who became a writer. He'd had the author sign it for me; "To Katie, for inspiration."
Sometimes I remember why i married him.

Then we hugged awkwardly as usual and i dropped him down the street to buy mince. All so normal. All so civil.

And now i am moving forward. I have this life with Welsh and gorgeous plans for togetherness and our future. I'm moving out of my apartment, going to Paris to turn 30, then moving to Wales for a spell to live in a village with farmers and nothing but houses and a local pub. (and some sheep, the farms, perhaps a tractor or two.) And I am happy.

In essence, this is why we are getting divorced. Because we both knew a greater happiness existed out there for us. His is living a solitary life with no links or responsibilities and i respect that. And mine is with a man who loves me more than life itself and a future filled with affection, support and love. We could never have given each other these things.

I love the book by the way. It's about a woman who leaves an unhappy marriage. As much as i remember why i married him, i also remember exactly why it didn't work out.

Happy Thursday blogland.

xxxx

Getting ideas.

I've been awake since 3 this morning writing the first chapter of a book.

I've always been more of a short story kind of a girl but this book is writing itself. What i mean to say is, this story has existed for a long time but has been laying trapped in my head. It was always going to be written eventually.
It's my story. The story of love, the story of loss. The story of standing in an airport and wondering what i will tell my husband. It will not be a typical novel. The chapters will sometimes be one sentence long. It may jump here and there and tie itself in to knots. But that is how it is with life and loss-it's messy and raw and poetic and irrational.
It is chick lit i think. In an Elizabeth Gilbert pair of shoes. But it will not always be easy to read. However, i feel that it will be easy to understand. Relatable.

I am going to write a chapter in Paris next month. It seems appropriate.

Sunny days.

I love Sundays. Especially when it's a sunday of the public holiday kind, which means no work, no wandering to said work and no coping with strange people at said work.
This is all very lucky really considering the size of my hangover.

You know what else i am doing today? Seeing my smallest, most favourite friends in the world; AKA as my niece and nephew. And i am going to take Welsh along-how could i not after my niece squealed "I love Welsh!" down the phone to me yesterday? (her memories of him consist of him burying her in the sand, shoulder rides, milkshakes, stickers and being pushed in a shopping trolly up a bumpy lane way. What's not to love?) I like watching Welsh with them. Just saying.

Also, I have decided to go to Wales in June for a four month visit after visiting Welsh's village via google street view. Holy crap, i have never seen anything so beautiful. There's a stream that runs right next to his house. You can fish in it! But before that, i am going to do some art therapy based project work which seems exciting, as things do when you have not started them yet. And i am going to make more of an effort with writing (ie publish something somewhere) and just write more in general. I get bored of myself with my writing at times though. i always just want to write abut my divorce. Its so complex though! so thick with emotion. So many angles. So much to say.

So it's work for 4 weeks, go to Paris (omg omg omg) then come home and work for 5 weeks, then go to Wales! This plan sits better with me than anything has for the last 2 years. Excited.

Needless to say, i have not jogged for 2 weeks.

What I'd give for a quiet week.

Ahhhhh hello my friends.

It's exciting when "stuff" happens, isn't it? Drama invigorates us, stress motivates us, change helps us to grow and challenges make us stronger. Well thank you universe, but i have had enough of that for right now. It's been a topsy turvy last few weeks filled with Welsh leaving, my divorce party, starting a new job, going to Queensland for my cousins funeral, Welsh returning, planning for my trip in 5ish weeks and wondering if i should move to Wales in April for 6 months. And wondering when i am actually going to get divorced. (may have jumped the gun with the party....He says he will "let me know" when he has signed the papers. meh.)

I'd really like a week where nothing happens. Where I wake up, go to work, no one threatens to kill me, then i walk home, cook dinner, maybe watch some tv, then fall asleep. ahhhhh.

I also need to tell my housemate that i am moving out. I hate awkward conversations. I wish i could do it by email....