How the other half live

I spend a lot of my time dividing the population of the world into two groups. There is the group I belong to and then the group I don't. For instance, I am a member of the group who refuses resolutely to ever use text writing and indeed I tend to shudder whenever I see text writing. I belong to a minority group in this but I do feel that when a semi-colon is required in a text, it should be used. I also believe that there is a verb: 'to text', and that this verb has a past participle of 'texted' i.e. 'last night I texted her', instead of the grammatically reprehensible: 'last night I text her'. Another set of two groups is the pedantic camp and the non-pedants. I think it's clear which camp I belong to...

However, you can change camps, and become one of the other people. Clearly, this does not mean tht da blog is guna bcum fulla txtese lol, because I actually felt just a little bit sick when I wrote that. No, I used to belong to a group of people who felt that their life was all but over. I believed that my whole role was looking after my son, teaching the kids at school and trying to avoid confrontations with my ex. I was never truly happy and I was the only person I knew who dreaded the bell on Friday because that meant a potential weekend of hassle and being shouted at in the kitchen. But I'm not that person any more. I have changed sides and I am now a thoroughly happy person. I used to be a member of the group who said 'no' to everything and now I say 'yes' a lot more. In the past few days I have signed up to seeing some bands on school nights and going on a hen-weekend in Barcelona. And, for the first time since my son was born, I can tell my ex that he's looking after our son without fear of endless fallout and recriminations. I'll simply hand him a list of dates and tell him that he has to look after him on those nights. Simple.

This summer has also been spent living like the other half. I've spent virtually three weeks abroad in France and Portugal with my parents and son. I've not been guarded and quiet like I always was before because I don't have to try to 'protect' my parents from knowing how bad my marriage was (although, to be fair, they knew perfectly well). However, I really learnt how the other half live at my Mum's hairdressers. Whilst I was there having my hair changed from the Red Panda look (grey roots, black middles, ginger ends) to glossy Auburn pony the 'phone rang. The assistant said that they needed an appointment for Princess M_______ and I thought 'ooh, it's a bit rude to call a high maintenance customer 'princess' in front of the rest of the clients' but it turns out that Princess M_____ is indeed a bona fide European royal type and she does frequent that salon. There's another group to which I don't usually belong: women who go to royally approved salons. I don't think I have half a life any more.