This is my truth. Tell me yours.

As I was tucking my son in tonight he asked me what 'fiction' meant. As he's five I told him it meant stories that people make up that aren't true. However, this chimed with a number of thoughts I have been thinking that were crying out to be blogged. I have been questioning where fact ends and fiction starts.

My ex told me that an old friend of ours had contacted him for a chat. The reason this was done was that this old friend had seen me in my bitter early days following the split and couldn't believe what I had said about him was true. The person she'd always known and the person I described just didn't intersect. However, when I considered things more closely I did recognise that my ex was two people: the person I married and the person I split up with. She used to know the person I married and I would never have split up from him. However, the person I split up from was different and it's better that we are apart these days.

Then another old friend pointed out, in a lawyerly fashion, that my ex ought not to see this blog as it might prejudice any future divorce proceedings between us. I've had a re-read and whilst it's not particularly complimentary it doesn't outright libel him. I've said a lot worse to his face. Am I being unreasonable writing this? I don't think so and I'd like to think that maybe in a decade's time he could read it and grudgingly admit that all the things that attracted him to me are demonstrated on these pages. Or maybe not.

So, what is my truth these days? Well, I'm just so happy that I can't even explain it without drooping down to some trite simile. I'm confident, I'm my own person and I'm totally happy with myself. For a number of years I've been hidden away from the world because my marriage was so dire and my self-esteem was rock bottom. One friend recently told me that, until recently, I was the most lonely person she'd ever met: always home alone and often in tears from some marital spat. I would say that I can't imagine being like that any more but that's not true. I see it every day, in reflection, when my ex comes to collect our son. He's so lost and depressed and guilty about the split. I truly wish him well and wish that he could feel happy.

This is my truth. Tell me yours.