Humpty Dumpty has a black eye

I know it's New Year's Day, and many of us are recovering from the excesses of the season (me included)- but yes, you are reading this correctly: I've got a really stunning shiner. And to add insult to injury, I've also go the flu. What a way to see out the old year

I wish I could say that the eye is from the deranged cretin who lives upstairs. At least that would be somewhat interesting. But no, the sad truth is that I did this to myself. It's self-inflicted!

On Wednesday, Christmas Day, I went out for a very nice Christmas dinner. That was fine-well, almost fine. I had some enlightenment that day-and I will tell you about it in a minute. First the eye!

By Friday I knew I was coming down with a virus: sore throat, sniffling, aches and pains, and so on. Honestly-too many people breathing!! And when I get sick, my voice goes very, very deep. I wish I could keep the deep voice without all the other nasty stuff, and I'm still trying to figure out how I can do that...

Well - my kitchen cabinets are at eye level, and I wasn't paying much attention to what I was doing; I was listening to music as I opened the cabinet door, a little too forcefully. I caught myself right in the eye. For a moment I was stunned; then I thought I'd lost my eye, there was so much pain. So I stumbled into the bathroom, swearing (I didn't know I knew so many swearwords). My eye was red and teary - but not missing!- and I was developing a huge lump under my eye-swollen, painful, red, turning to a shiner that made me look like someone had taken a swing at me.

On went an ice pack, on went the Arnica cream, and that was how I spent my weekend: nursing a flu and a black eye. Lovely. At least I kept out of trouble!!

But now it is 2014, and my eye is just a little bruised and painful, but nearly all the swelling has gone, although it does hurt when I blink (please don't tell me not to blink!). And the police were here-twice, once on the day before Christmas and again on the 31st. I have, at long last, with huge efforts and by perseverance and making a pain in the butt of myself, managed to get the police to issue a harassment order. This means that if he hurls abuse and threats again, he will be arrested and taken to the police station. And he will have to go to court. Will this do any good? I don't know, because the man is most definitely insane. Ever since my first noise complaint, he has been after me, and things have become so much worse that I wonder when-not if-he will snap, and what he will do when he does.

So it's a matter of wait and see, be very careful, stay out of his way, be prepared to seek a restraining order (from the court, and much better and more formal-and safer for me-than a harassment order).

And, of course, carry mace (illegal as hell, but who cares!!).

So that was my week. But at the Christmas dinner, I sat next to Jane, a woman from Trinidad originally. She was very nice, but very quiet. During the course of the meal (and after a couple of glasses of wine), Jane opened up and told me that she had been married to an abuser for nearly 30 years. He hadn't hit her, but he had shredded her self esteem until she had none left. He constantly threatened and belittled her, and mistreated her. And I could not help drawing a parallel between us; it was no coincidence that she sat next to me. I looked at her, face drawn and etched with sadness and misery, and also-defeat. She went on to tell me some of the things he'd done and said, and when I asked her when she was able to leave-she said that she had developed stomach cancer fifteen years ago, and he didn't seem to really care. He had no human feelings of caring and compassion at all. So she knew she had to leave in order to survive. And leave she did: with nothing, just as I did, only Jane left fifteen years ago! Yikes!! She has been on her own ever since. She had breast cancer a few years ago, and had to cope with that on her own, too. Amazing and brave woman, I told her.

But-and there is a "but"- she still feels anger and resentment, and bitterness at the ex and the way he treated her. He has remarried, too-and she can't understand why such a miserable, bullying bastard (her words) can have a good life, when she is so unhappy with her own.

It was as if someone had shot an arrow into my own heart, because I thought I had dealt with my feelings of anger and bitterness-and then I received that LinkedIn invitation (sent deliberately, just to piss me off, I'm sure: a classic Bob tactic. That worked). I said to Jane that for fifteen years she has been free of a very insecure and evil man, and that everything he did to her will come back to him one day. Don't wait, I said, don't wait to be happy. You will wait forever if you wait for justice. Screw him, let him be happy. Leopards don't change their spots. And I said that the best revenge she could take would be to be happy, healthy and successful. Don't waste another minute on him, I said. And I also told her that some parts of her story parallel my own. She asked me to tell her my story-and, to my surprise, I heard myself say that I'm not going back to that terrible time anymore. I'm not discussing it. I need to let it go, and so does she, if she wants to be happy.

When we were all leaving, I said goodbye and good luck, and wished her a happy Christmas and New Year, and said be happy in spite of him-and because she's rid of him. I hope that got through. It certainly got through to me!!

I usually don't make resolutions for the new year, because I break them almost immediately-like, within the first week. Or the first day...and they are the ones everyone seems to make: more exercise, lose weight, eat a good diet, sleep better, meditate, less stress, be nicer to people (okay, well that last one is one of mine..ha..).

This year I made one resolution, and it really covers all those listed above. It is to go into 2014 with a different mind-set, a different attitude, a different way of doing things and thinking about things, to go into 2014 with a clean slate, with a consciousness that is different from (and more evolved than) my consciousness in 2013, which I decided I want to leave with last year: in the past.

The past belongs just there: in the past. So that means I need to work on my forgiveness: not only do I need to forgive the ex, but also the three cripplers (I still call them that, clearly I've got some more work to do!). I don't forgive them for them, because what they all did was inexcusable and disgraceful. But not one of them cares what I think, or feels badly about what they did to ruin my life. So I am carrying all this negative stuff around for nothing-and it is all hurting me, not them, because I'm the one who is affected.

It sounds good, anyway. It may be difficult to forgive, to move forward, to dump the anger and resentment - but I don't want to end up like Jane, wasting fifteen years over someone who couldn't give a rat's patootie. Did she want him back after she left him? No, she said, absolutely not. And did I even entertain the thought myself? I think the words "hell", "freezing" and "over" spring immediately to mind. So let them - all of them - bugger off, I'm a lot stronger than I ever believed-and I never would have even suspected that if all this hadn't happened (I would still rather it hadn't happened!).

I'm still walking, exercising (boring, but necessary!), and I won't stop until I get that 80% back, no matter how long it takes. I may be a pain in the butt of certain people, but that will never stop me. I refuse to give up. I will not quit. I'm funny that way! Just watch me.

Happy New Year. Health is more important than anything else (ask me, I'm an expert on that), so I wish you all the best of health, and happiness, and peace, don't take prisoners, and always carry mace.