The Butterfly, The One & Mr Moment (Lil Miss D)

I don’t know about you guys, but this post by Lil Miss D about break-ups and the idea of ‘The One’ was definitely something I needed to read 🙂 

Thanks lovely!

Miss Twenty-Nine xxx

I have read Miss 29’s posts this last week and have been reminded all too well of how painful a break-up can be. Six months on, there are still times when I cry myself to sleep at night over my ex-husband.  But there are other times when I now feel an overwhelming sense of relief that we are no longer together.

I’ve always been rather free spirited in my attitude.  I’ve always thought you should take any opportunity that life thrusts in your path, and that my glass has always been half full. Even in times of dire straits, when my heart is on the floor, I’ve still been thankful that my eyes can see and my ears can hear and I can walk and talk and other stuff that probably seems quite hippified to you reading this! I digress! Anyhow! Very much like Miss 29 I love to travel and to try new things and grab the world by the balls, and reading Miss 29’s posts this wk I have realised more than ever that my ex was just not as free spirited as me. He was sensible, which is a good thing in moderation, but sometimes he was too sensible leaving me feeling like a carrier pigeon who’s wings had been clipped. I do like risks. I do like freedom. I do like to just take off sometimes at the weekend and recklessly drive to wherever!

This will sound corny and cheesy but I look back and I now feel the following sums up both out personalities and our relationship, and why, in hindsight, it would never have worked forever…

I was a butterfly, and he was a butterfly catcher.

Not content with watching the beauty that was the free spirit of the butterfly as it fluttered from one flower to the next, he caught the butterfly and placed her in a jar so that his eyes alone could marvel at that which he loved. The butterfly felt trapped and unhappy as she knew there were so many flowers out there for her to learn from and experience.  She would do all she could to be free, including trying to persuade the Butterfly Catcher to come with her so that he too could wonder at the great beauty of all of the different flowers that life has to offer, knowing that he too would learn great things from any adventures they would have.

But, sometimes the Butterfly Catcher would get tired and frustrated at the Butterfly’s will to be free spirited and he would take her out of the jar and angrily pin her wings to a board. Helpless, almost lifeless, the butterfly almost gave up on who she truly was ……. Almost. One day last Summer she was freed. Her wings may wear the pockmarks of the pins, and they may be a little tattered and shredded but with the sheer will power and determination of her mind she learned to fly again………

This sums up how I now feel.

My ex was content to get in from work, plonk himself in front of the TV and not move – ever. Except for weekends when going out on the lash was the done thing. And he resented me doing anything that did not involve him. Now, I do love a bit of TV and enjoy a good tipple, but having Ground Hog Day play out countless times over 18 years is not how I’d envisaged my marriage. I wanted to go and do things, and experience life to the max.

Which leads me to the here and now. Miss 29 mentioned grief. And yes, any relationship that ends will cause you grief in varying forms. Whether that be through death or someone leaving your life. The death of an adored pet gives a different feeling of grief to the death of a parent, to the death of a niece. All things I have experienced and all have hit me very differently. As did the grief of me and my ex-husband.

And I don’t think that grief of that magnitude ever truly goes away. I think the shock and longing for what was or what could have been, fades with time, but there are some holes that cannot be filled. So don’t try to fill them. Instead accept these holes and learn to step around them when you need to keep a clear and level head, and at other times when the pain is great, stare into them and remember what was or imagine what could have been as only then can you fully experience the grief which will in turn, and in time, allow you to move on.

You see, we don’t just grieve the loss of people. We grieve the loss of situations. Of what was and what could have been. I first of all grieved the loss of my ex-husband, not waking up beside him, not hearing him say my name each day, not feeling his familiar kiss on my lips, but once the grief of the initial loss subsides you grieve other things too. And like Miss 29 I grieved the loss of what I thought was my happy ever after.

I believed marriage was forever, and I believed in “The One”. What I wasn’t prepared for over this last 6 months was a total shift in my outlook.

I no longer believe in “The One”.

There. I’ve said it. It’s out there. I don’t want to smash the mirror of dreams for thousands of you out there. And please don’t throw stones at me – let me explain…..

I am not trying to upset anyone here. I am trying to offer hope, so please read the rest before deciding you want to rant at me…..

So, I no longer believe in “The One”. But!  What I do believe, is that there are many “One’s” that fit you perfectly at different stages of your life.

We change massively throughout our lives and what once fitted perfectly may change to be ill fitting and unsuitable. A bit like a woman into 9 months of pregnancy trying to fit into her size 10 dress. You see where I am going with this.

My Mum and Dad were together until he died. Yes, they loved each other but they had many unhappy times as well as happy. And I massively doubt that had they met 10 or 15 years later they would have fallen in love as they did. Ok, you may argue that rough and smooth is part of marriage, and it can be, but when the unhappy outweighs the happy then it’s time to find some new happy. Sometimes people change, and what was perfect 10 years ago is now flawed and may no longer work.

So instead of “The One” which romantic media is obsessed with, I have decided to coin a new term – “Mr Moment”.

Mr Moment is the person who makes you happy at that moment in time.

He, (or she), may make your heart skip a beat, make you smile like a Cheshire cat and make you tingle from head to toe. But he is in the here and now. You’re not alive in the past, nor in the future, you’re alive in the moment. So plan for the moment. Not 5, 10 or 20 years down the line. Cos you’ll change anyway so your plans will change too.

I currently have a “Mr Moment”. I am still seeing “M” who I wrote about in a previous post. He fulfils what I need at this moment. This is passion and laughs with good food and stimulating conversation! He does not get heavy on me. He does not try to have meaningful “relationship” talks. The very thought of the “R” word still leaves my chest tight and short on breath. So we just accept that we enjoy each other’s company and that’s enough. We have still not defined what we are. I do not want to define what we are. He broached the subject and I said I was happy with how we are, i.e. seeing each other with no ties and no definition of what we are!

I was in the jar for too long you see, and so I am terrified of going back there again.

So instead this lil butterfly is happy to flutter from one flower to the next.  From archery classes, to Spanish lessons, to backpacking around New Zealand. And if M is my Mr Moment whilst all of this is going on then fab. But I shall still explore the flowers of life and enjoy them to the max, with or without him.

And this is because I’ve realised something over this last month really – I’ve started to have the greatest love affair of my life so far –  with myself! I have rediscovered who I truly am and am getting out there and doing things I enjoy and trying out new things on the way. I don’t love myself in a “Oh I’m the best thing ever” kind of way. Far from it. But I am learning to explore and accept who I am, warts and all, and it’s ok.

People seem to be hell bent and too busy searching for “The One” to complete their lives.

But “The One” already lives inside us.

We are told by the media that we must find “The One” to be happy, but true happiness comes from within. If you’re not truly happy in yourself, unfairly putting the responsibility on someone else to make you happy is like trying to bake a cake out of a shuttlecock and leaves. It just ain’t gonna happen!

What we all need to realise is that we only need to look inside ourselves to find that last missing jigsaw piece to complete us. It is in there. I promise. I took 18 years to find my last piece so don’t give up. 18 years is a loooooooooong time!!! And when you find it I promise you, you’ll feel freer and more alive, and better than you’ve ever felt before. Because nothing beats feeling happy in yourself, by yourself.

Lil Miss D