Patience is a virtue

That's what they tell me, anyway.

Hello out there reader (I know I have one!), it's been a long while since I last wrote.

So, where to begin? Well, since September 23rd I've been single, for all of 8 days (technically - does VT count the same as RT, do you think? I mean, I wouldn't dream of starting something RT with anyone new because that would be unfair VT, right? Or is that a weird way of looking at things? Thing is that to me, on the emotional level it's pretty much the same whether VT or RT - online and via phone calls, you get to know something about someone, enough to know whether you find the personality attractive. And I do. It is what it is. What it is though i don't think I could rightly say. I know it's been quite literally years since I experienced anything quite like this, and on certain levels it is something completely new. No names, no pack drill - some things I don't give away. Whether I'll ever meet him RT or not I don't know. I'm shy! I might joke about it but I wouldn't have the bottle to grasp the nettle and say 'come on then, come and visit'. Besides, think of all the housework I'd have to do to make the place properly presentable).

So, yes, single in some ways, for all of eight days. One day for every year I was with CtOR. I am a bad girl sometimes, and I have to say I think I deserve to be.

How I came to be single again is something I don't really want to discuss or go into. Do I have any regrets about it? Not really, not apart from wishing I'd been the one to make the break and to have had the courage to make it years ago. It wasn't as bad as I'd feared, although the immediate aftermath was tough. Great friends helped to drag me through that and out the other side.

Speaking of friends, I made some new ones RT through VT, if you see what I mean, folk I met at another chatroom I use which shall forever remain nameless. Never the twain shall meet, and with good reason. I love the internet for that, the fact you can meet people who have similar interests and what have you and develop friendships over months and years and then when you meet them you discover that they are true friends. I have fantastic friends and I love them all, slushy as that may be. Yes, if you think I consider you a friend and you are reading this, I love you too. Even you.

The biggest event of the last almost-month though is the death of my father. That belongs to another post, when I have had the time and the thinking space to sift through my memories and impressions. People say nice things about you when you're dead. Sometimes they don't marry up with your own memories or experiences, and I find myself needing to examine comments made and trawl through past events. I will be seeing many family members on Thursday at the service in England that I haven't seen in years, and we will talk and laugh and share memories and thoughts of him. That is something that oddly I am looking forward to very much. That will be my real farewell to him, remembering him in the company of others connected by blood and kinship, in laughter and in tears.

My head is in such a whirl. There are so many things for me to be happy for, but I feel bad for feeling happy. Not just because I feel as though I should be denying myself happiness while I grieve decently, but also because having just emerged from a long relationship I don't know whether the things I'm feeling are real or solid or anything more than ephemeral. And how do you ask a VT lover what his intentions are, anyway? Does he even know? I don't know. I won't unless I ask, I know that, but - it's that whole shyness thing. Is it real or just fantasy?

You could say the same about this dream that we call life.