Hope for me at the moment is a bit of a double edged sword! It’s lovely when things go your way, but kind of crushing when it doesn’t go to plan. I am the sort of person that is incredibly hopeful. I am a believer in positive affirmations (as you may have seen in my Facebook posts if we’re friends there) and I like to think that some of this positivity and hope manifests in the experiences that I have. I have been so lucky in my life and want to believe that this will keep going; but with quite an imagination and fairly limited patience, I am often miles in front of where I should be in my own head – something that doesn’t always go quite the way I would like.

I think I’ve always been like this… having conversation and playing out scenarios in my head that are never going to happen, and then being disappointed somehow when faced with a completely different outcome. I had a conversation not long ago with a girlfriend in a similar situation to mine, who said more or less the same thing. Planning things based on very lose conversations, and suggestions about things that might be possible, and then feeling let down in a way when that doesn’t happen. It’s a rollercoaster of emotion and anxiety… but without that hope, what do you have!?

I’ve been going through some of this stuff with the boys and their issues in the last year or so. They tell me things or I discover them, we discuss it and then in my head a whole plan is formed. My expectation and hope is that they will do as I have advised (Mum knows best?) and that things will get better… unfortunately my planing is not usually the same plan that they come up with, which has led to more hard conversations and the repeating of things that are not ideal. It seems a lot like going around in circles, but I guess some of that is letting them learn from their mistakes. As their mum, it is really hard (and much more now so than before) to let that happen, especially when you’re looking at a much bigger picture than they might be. Claytie was so much better with this stuff… he was so black and white, and with much less imagination, than me, that he never had the same level of disappointment and couldn’t always understand mine. It’s definitely been a learning curve – and work in progress for me.

I’m finding that I have the same issue with dating and romance. I think probably because what Claytie and I had was for such a long time and so lovely and honest, that I immediately expect a new match to be the same. I imagine romance and dating and flowers and all the lovely things, which apparently is my love language (another conversation with a different friend) – and it has led to me second guessing motivation, desire and commitment. Something that’s not particularly healthy or fair, but I am unsure how to slow myself down.

I really want that hope and I think I need to be able to try and imagine what a future with someone else could look like, but it’s driving even me kind of crazy at the same time. I know that often, I’m moving way too fast in my head, and catch myself when I’m sad about a different level actual response to the imagined one. But how do you move past the now into the next without imagining what that looks like!?

It’s hard navigating this new life of mine, without any sort of framework. I had the fairytale; and while marriage is hard and takes both of you to work at it, I didn’t have to work hard. This new world feels hard, and hope has been an emotional see-saw…. a new ride that I likely won’t get off in a hurry! Wish me luck navigating both the new nexts and the labyrinth that is my brain!