A gift

The best reward is watching someone change in ways that gives them a happier, more fulfilled life; especially knowing that I have helped to facilitate that change. Usually I know through my own experience of our relationship and our work, but occasionally someone tells me themselves, through words or a gift and that always touches me deeply.

Passport - more delights

Oh! And they have cold and warm fronts too!

See picture to demonstrate some of the delights - fronts, weather symbols and dragon fly.

Passport

So my new passport has arrived, valid until mid 2023, a date that doesn't seem real.

Unlike my old passport, I look like a convict. Gone is the smiling face of my Williams passport and here is the stern face of my Shah passport. I do hope this isn't representative of my life!

I assumed with it's fangle dangle chip thingy, that the pages would be tear proof. If Aussies can make money that is tear-resistant, surely the UK passport people can make tear-resistant passport pages. It appears not.

Other than the photo, the obviously fake expiry date and the (now) torn page 5, I am in love with my new passport. It has sparkly wave and bird designs and then other birds in blue and grey, and dragonflies and fishes. It delights me. I was almost in rapture, but not quite there, when I notice the weather symbols. It would appear that new passports have weather symbols, one for each page, in the style of the BBC weather site and so far I have spotted snow, rain, sunshine, cloud, broken cloud with sunshine, thunder and hail or sleet (not sure of what the last one is).

I never imagined getting my passport would be so entertaining and interesting. I urge you all to check the hidden delights of yours, if you have a new one; and if you don't, yet, I wish you much happiness when you finally do!

(See Passport - more delights for more delights!)

The curious arrival of The Jumper

We found a navy blue jumper at our house around the time we got married. It was hanging on the handlebars of one of the bikes. It looks like a man's style. It's small, Jeff Banks, with pale blue stripes going down the arms... Smells of man or hard work or something. I don't recognise the smell, which I was sure I would and I find this odd.

If anyone reading this post owns the jumper, let me know and we'll keep it safe rather than taking it to charity.

Marriage and commitment

It’s a funny old thing, marriage. I have always been ambivalent about it, on the side of anti-marriage if I'm honest, primarily because I have seen it trap otherwise happy people into something that makes them unhappy. I have also always felt that commitment is in my heart, not on a piece of paper, despite the laws in this country that make marriage a safer union legally than other unions. Don’t get me wrong, the ambivalence is not about commitment for me, it’s about the institution, or so I told myself.

In the lead up to my wedding, I felt nothing but anxiety and stress. Little excitement glimmered through the fog for me. In between the complex layers of planning, I began to lose sight of my man and I started to panic, forgetting the whole reason for getting married, and I needed to keep looking him in the eyes, to remember who he was and why I was marrying him. All this stuff you are required to do in order to have, what was in my eyes, a traditional wedding, takes so much away from the whole point of getting married, which is to be with someone you love and to tell the world how you feel.

I thought that the ambivalence would continue to my wedding day, but, unexpectedly, the day of my wedding, and especially as we spoke the vows to one another, I felt happy. Unambiguously and unambivalently happy. I also felt a mild surprise to suddenly know in my heart the full extent of his love and commitment to me and I realise that this brings me closer to the truth of my ambivalence: I had never seen a marriage with the kind of commitment I wanted and so I didn't believe it was possible for another to give me what I wanted and needed. This being the case, why would I want to commit my life to someone forever? I know it's not necessarily about being married, legally, or I believe it isn't that, for me. For me, it's about a public declaration of commitment, in whatever manner it might have happened.

In the last week and a half, I have felt an odd sense of safety and security that I have never known in my life, not even as a child. It’s a sense that someone really does have my back and really truly does love me. I didn’t know this feeling existed, never mind that I was missing it.

So yes, I admit, I am happy. Though one would hope this would be the case only a week and a half into a lifelong commitment!

Work

Slowly slowly, one day at a time, I'll get there. Just been offered one day a week school counselling in Reading starting in September. Only half an hour cycling from the flat and not a million miles from my swimming pool. It's all very exciting.