So, big company dinner the other night, with good number of senior managers coming too.
I'm sitting beside one of them. I know her a little, but not that well.
We have a really lovely time over dinner chatting about everything and anything. We're getting on really well.
Then she becomes quite self conscious and hesitant, and say that she hopes that she's not speaking out of turn, but that she hopes I'm getting over the trauma of it all.
Well, she's been one of the first people to bring it up in a direct way. The only other from this company was about a year and a bit ago, when she asked me how I really was.
Anyway she's so hesitant and self conscious about it all, that I have a good while to absorb what's happening and decide very consciously on how to answer (even through the large glass of wine I'd had).
In my answer, I basically skip straight to the very positive part of the process, where I'm very much living my own life and loving my life. I do mention that we'd been together 18 years and M 15, and she was somewhat shocked to find out it was that long. I say nothing whatsoever about the A(s). Everything I said and felt in my answer was absolutely genuine.
I felt I handled it all **very** well. And I'm pleased with myself.
I think I'm understanding one thing. That people respond to what you say and the way you say it. And if you can put your journey across in a positive way, they respond with positivity.
I know that there are other feelings lurking below (shame, anger...), but I feel that those are for myself to process. And to share with a **very** select few people.
But I at the moment I really need to feel positivity from other people as regards what's happened.
A kind of 'teach them how to treat you' sort of thing.
