Best bits?

The lovely Dulwich Divorcee tagged me with a task / meme which is to write about my five best bits of 2009.

I must have at least five, I thought to myself as I looked briefly through last years posts. I know I have had some very heady moments over the last year, though often I have not been able to write about them. Most of these have been with my S.O: Getting to know him; spending time together; our holiday and snatched weekends all of which have culminated in a whole year of best bits.

Those best bits though, have been interspersed with the turmoil of still living here as a family. Feeling a stranger in my own home, and seeing the children attempting to cope with their new reality. It has been an emotional roller coaster of a year, and I had no idea it would flow so smoothly into the next. Nothing much, on the surface seems to have changed. Yet while re reading some of 2009's early entries in order to remember my best bits, I realised I have moved on a little, if only in accepting things I cannot immediately change, being completely certain of what I am doing, and, very strangely, accepting my present circumstances here as a new sort of reality and way of living that although unwanted, I can manage to exist with. Just.

Whilst reading I realised why I don't often look through my posts from last year, particularly the early part of it. It is all too recent. Saying that, it is a new year and I am itching to move on more than ever.

Last week I did manage to make my mediation appointment despite the snow. The mediator, put me at ease, talked me through how things would be and took some of my worries on board. He seemed very sympathetic, but then that is his job.

It seems husband has also been there and agreed to the process. The next step is for the two of us to be in a room together, with the mediator, to thrash out custody arrangements for the children. A date has been set. We have 90 minutes to get through and further appointments if not enough ground is made. I am dreading it. He can bully me and speak over me very well. The mediator is there for a reason. I hope he is good at his job. I have a bottom line regarding arrangements, I know what I want and what I will concede. I hope he has a compromise in mind too.

So all being said and done, a new year does not really mean a new start, not yet, not for me. I have said it before but this time last year I really thought it would all be over, done and dusted. How wrong I was, how glad I am that I didn't know!

So rather than best bits, here are some good things that have come out of the last year; perhaps next year I will post my best bits.

I no longer live in the past.

I am learning how to be thankful.

I am loved.

I have some wonderful friends.

I have the opportunity to be the sociable person I once was.

All in all I have 'found myself', not completely, but enough to realise I didn't like living in the shadows. I am lucky, and one day I will realise my goal.