The Beginning, Again.

Well this is exciting! The last time I blogged regularly was over a decade ago. I blogged about my adventures living and loving in London and then in France as a twenty-something single Aussie girl searching for … what? Searching for her way forward after seven years in a disastrous relationship that ended in heartache and devastation- both emotional and financial.

The writing was on the wall four years in when we chose termination over parenting, and running a restaurant bar together over marriage. Fast forward three long, expensive, ‘character building’ (bloody awful) years and I was jetting out of the country alone, having narrowly avoided bankruptcy and thanking my lucky stars. I practically ran onto that plane, waving my passport like a prize; The Great Golden Ticket Out Of Here.

Materially I had lost almost everything, but I was young at only 26. I had loving parents and friends, I had health, I had faith- with a small ‘f’. I had a future that I knew would be better, and I was running towards it at full speed. I wrote off the hundreds of thousands of dollars invested and lost, thanked the universe for releasing me from the bonds of owning my own business (i.e. the business owned me) and finally forcing me out of a dysfunctional, destructive relationship. I was free.

Sort of. The painful process of untangling myself from the emotional hangover of that period took several years, but as I have said to my little ladies (Miss M is 8 going on 18, Miss A is 6 going on about 14), I really am so grateful that my ex turned out to be such a dismal disappointment. Honestly, thank god. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have joyfully boarded the plane that day, spring in my step. If I hadn’t gotten on the plane that day, I wouldn’t have eventually made it to that little wine bar in Montpellier two years later where I met their father- and they would not even exist.

At this my girls laughed hysterically. The craziness of the very idea of a world without them in it! Indeed, my life would not be right without the three of them. I love my life, I do. I am blessed beyond belief. But something’s not right. It hasn’t been right for years, and I need to make changes. To do that, I need to be brutally honest with myself and those around me, and I need to be a little bit brave. And that, in a 430 word nutshell, is what this blog is about; the beginning of the next chapter. Feel free to join me on the ride. I’m not sure where we’re heading, but I know it’s somewhere good.