Finding my way - part 4

[Meghan]

As a reminder to myself, here are just some of the ways that life is better now that I'm living on my own:

I sleep in the bedroom, not on a futon on the living room, and I ordered a new queen bed that's due to come next week.

I can eat what I want without having to cater to someone else's tastes and perceptions about what makes a filling meal.

The dishes get done every night before bed (okay, almost every night...)

I watch a good deal less TV and read and listen to audio books more.

Some of the bills are reduced and I can work on getting them down further.

The living room is a real living room again and not a sleeping annex.

I'm vegetarian again and I get to eat all the beans I want.

I can have people over any time.

I can buy whatever furniture and housewares I want and arrange them any way that I please.

I can't say that these things make up for the loss of companionship and what good things I thought we had, but I think they do suggest - once again - that there were underlying problems that would need to be dealt with if we made any kind of a move towards reconciling.

I really do feel a lot more freedom now than I expected. In our last session (I went solo), my MC said that people often get used to difficult things in their life over time and come to see them as normal. In many cases, those things keep getting worse, or more things get added into the mix, because we're so good at adapting. Looking at it now, there are quite a few things on that list that I don't think I fully recognized the problematic nature of until I didn't do them anymore.