November in brief, and a tale of an Ex...

Right.

Lets get down to business, shall we?

Time for a quick catch-up. I'm going to bullet point it, because to be honest, a lot of it is not very interesting. My life has blurred into one long day, more or less, since not working leaves me with very little sense of what day of the week it is. I also have a feeling I've lived some days twice, but I do know that this is because I'm awake in the early hours when Facebook or Google tell me something like "it's so-and-so's birthday today!" and it still says that when I come back to it after some sleep. Confusing. Not very good for my brain, or sanity I'll wager. Anyway, I digress.

What's been going on then? Here is November, in no particular chronological order:

• Well, I now sign on every two weeks and get my jobseeker's allowance paid to me, which is nice.
• I stopped eating dairy - milk, cheese, chocolate etc. Not eggs though, eggs are NOT dairy.
• I saw New Moon with Phil and Rachel, and it was AWESOMES.
• I've read a LOT of books recently.
• We had an epic and very successful Hallowe'en party!
• Brittonito got a Facebook.
• I bought an AMAZING 80's prom dress on eBay for £16.99
• My most heinous ex-boyfriend, Mark, found me on facebook. Actually, this desevres to be written about in full rather than just being left as a bullet point....

*jumps down to normal text*

Right, this was by far the most stupid thing I've done a long time. I blogged about this guy on my old wordpress blog:

"Exhibit B – Was 6’2 with the spikiest jet-black hair you ever saw. He had a gorgeous face and a hideous temper. He had his nose, eyebrow, ears and tongue pierced and a tattoo on the back of his neck and was Angstier Than Thou. I fell in love. My parents HATED him. I actually met this one in a chat-room online, so goodness knows what I expected to get out of it. I certainly wasn’t banking on getting laid for the first time and spending 18 of the most complicated, turbulent, passionate months of my life with him.

The End – He was my partner in crime throughout my spiraling depression in my late teens and I think he probably cried and stopped more than I did and yet ironically, he left me when he thought things were getting too “intense”. Seven weeks later when I was back on my feet more or less he came crashing back into my life and I let him spoil things again. All told, I had the break-up I always expected from my First Love – about 10 months of agony and slow recovery.

The Lesson – Don’t date someone younger, angstier or more pierced than you."

The words are pretty glib, and certainly don't describe the horror of the bad moments, which began to outnumber the good moments really quickly. He was emotionally abusive and extremely manipulative and I'm glad to say that once I finally got over him, I never dated anyone quite like him again.

Occasionally, I'd wonder about him. One of the last times I'd seen him in Norwich was one afternoon in the Castle Mall, he stank of whiskey and was looking rough. He was 20 then and was dating a 14 year old girl. Yes, really. He still didn't have a job. He disapeared eventually and I stopped seeing him around, which was nice. I honestly thought that he was either in prison, or dead.

Some weeks ago when Phil and I went down to Portsmouth for his brother's 30th I got a message from Mark via facebook. It was pleasant, polite, well writen, chatty. So I did the ultimate wrong thing and added him as a friend, because, well, I was curious. We exchanged news and it actually seemed like he had changed for the better - well, it's not like he could have got much worse.

Long story short, when he realised that I was friends with some of his friends, including the half sister he's just found, he freaked and suddenly blocked me. Bear in mind that this half-sister of his shares the Dad that he would tell anyone who would listen that he had sexually abused him as a baby before leaving his Mum. I think he was worried that I'd mention it to his sister and I doubt it would have gone down too well. Honestly, instead of saying something to me, like "don't mention my awful lies from my teenage years and my terrible behaviour" he just blocked me, and then set about poisoning her to stop her from being my friend too. GODS! It was so juvenile it almost made me laugh! But in all honesty, it did make me pretty sad too for a while. How sad that someone like him doesn't really change after all :( It also brought back a lot of the revolting memories of the lenghts I'd gone to to keep him and make him love me, which lead to some nasty nightmares. *sigh* Anyway, it's done and my life goes on rather wonderfully just the same.

In other, better news, I am attending the Passing Out Parade for my brother in Dartmouth on the 11th with Mum and Dad. He's approached them again and even called me to invite me, so we're going to support him. I'm going because A) if I don't, it will just make things uncomfortable, B) I quite fancy a trip to Dartmouth with my parents. I even get to ride on a steam train like the Hogwarts Express. I know, I know, it seems so stupid, but ultimately it's a positive step for him and it will be nice for him to have us there - to show him that we;re not the awful family he makes us out to be sometimes. I'm not going to hold my breath though, this might be another moment of clarity which gets ruined again. But I'm going to wait and see.

Finally, tomorrow is mine and Phil's 2nd year anniversary :D :D :D :D Love him SO MUCH.