When I grow up...

Are you a grown up? I think I am, finally. I've had the accoutrements of being a grown up for many years: a husband, mortgage, career, child, stretch marks, a dislike of most of the Top 40 etc. But in my head I wasn't a grown up. I was always a bit frightened of what people thought about me and constantly sought approval. I often didn't dare do things.

This weekend I found out that I'm not like that any more. On Friday night I went to my high school reunion which involved meeting up with a whole load of people who I knew 20 years ago but who I was always a bit wary of because they were cool and popular and I wasn't. And do you know what? I was totally confident and able to talk to them. In fact, I have to say that I've weathered a lot better than all of the men and I'm looking pretty fit these days. I never felt hesitant or silly once all night. I never used to be like that. In fact, for many years towards the end of my marriage I used to get really uptight and tearful when meeting with close friends because I simply wasn't happy. Socialising with people I hadn't seen in two decades would have been inconceivable.

On Saturday I went to a family party and I spoke really easily to everyone there. Until recently I would have felt old and awkward talking to the under 20s and naive and awkward talking to the over 40s. Those in the middle? I'd just be awkward. But, I had a lovely evening and spoke to nearly everyone.

In the morning I read this article in The Times Style magazine where Emilia Fox was talking about after having a very difficult year she is now far more confident and the final words really chimed with me:

I’m wondering what the secret is — divorce? Therapy? Getting older? — when she hits it on the head. “Put simply, after all this, I care less about what people think of me these days. I think that’s the trick.”

And I think that's the trick I've learnt too. If people like me, good. If they don't, it's their loss.

Tonight I've been a true grown up: over the past week I stood my ground with my ex about not having a contentious divorce but instead taking the decent and non-corrosive option and having a consensual divorce. And do you know what? He not only agreed but we sat down and agreed every term of our separation agreement without any rancour or disagreement. In fact, it was a very good humoured process.

I think I'm going to steal the Times' words to sum up how I feel tonight: it’s odd how the shock of my marriage break down has made me much surer of myself. Maybe getting divorced, rather than getting married, is the ultimate in growing up.

New Year's Solutions

Welcome to Divorce Day. No, I'm not getting divorced but this is the day that, traditionally, family lawyers do their best business as failing relationships sputter to a halt over Christmas and then refugees from domestic heartache seek divorce advice on the first working Monday of the new year. Certainly, this time last year felt like Divorce Day for me as I returned to work after the Christmas break and everyone cheerily said to me: 'Good Christmas?'. Well, no. I got dumped on New Year's Eve and cried constantly for four days. However I was in such a state that I couldn't admit to many people what had happened and just dumbly nodded, afraid that words would bring the waterworks on.

A year later I'm happy. I'm not feeling any negative emotions about this time of year and I can look back with a level gaze and see that I'm better off for being alone. However, it is time to look full-square at my life and find some New Year Solutions. Everyone knows that New Year's Resolutions tend not to last (although I did once give up chocolate for a year), so I'm looking to find Solutions to things that need attention.

The first is my size. I recognise I'm overweight and I resolutely refuse to follow traditional diets for a number of reasons. Firstly, I had extremely disordered eating throughout my early twenties and was severely underweight. The photos of me from that period make scary viewing. Secondly, I know that dieting makes you fatter in the long run. Therefore, I'm going to try Paul McKenna's system. His Golden Rules are:

1. When you are hungry, eat.
2. Eat what you want.
3. Eat consciously.
4. When you are full, stop eating.

I'm not dieting but before I even watched the programme tonight it struck me how I bolt food quickly in front of the TV. I'm going to eat at the table, with the TV and laptop off, and enjoy what I eat. I'm going to savour it. And I'm not going to empty my plate: I'm going to try to learn when I feel full.

Second solution: my life. I'm going to continue what I started last year: getting out and about and being with friends. This makes me a lot happier. I'm going to get out with my son more too: we went for a countryside walk the other day just the two of us and had a great time.

What about relationships? Well, the ones I have with my son, my friends and my family are much better now than they've been for many years. I'm going to concentrate on that instead of thinking about what I don't have. Hey, and maybe this time next year I'll be ready for my own Divorce Day.

A Tale of Two Birthdays

Quoting Dickens when discussing a child's birthday is really too pseuds-corner to be true, but that's not going to stop me. Yesterday it was my son's sixth birthday party and to quote Dickens 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times'. He had a fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed every second, I, meanwhile, was prostrate with exhaustion and noise overload about five minutes in. However, I discovered something that surprised me: my ex can behave.

Rewind to last year. My son's fifth birthday party was a joint enterprise with a friend. We hired a steam train for the afternoon and chugged merrily up and down. The carriage was packed with excitable five-year-olds but the biggest child was my ex (or husband as he was then). He spent the entire afternoon with his portable radio headphones glued firmly in his ears listening to Leeds United getting thrashed. He was also morose, uncommunicative and downright rude. The scowl on his face was indescribable. Within days he was to announce that he was (a) having an affair (b) sodding off on holiday to Berlin with her instead of being home for our son's birthday and Reception class Nativity play and (c) it was all my fault. Hmmmmmnnn.

Fast-forward to this year. I had organised a party at a local bowling alley (the sort of activity he would have griped about last year). He arrived a few minutes late but almost immediately got involved in trying to stop six-year-olds dropping bowling balls on their own and their friends' feet. He then stood at the end on the bowling alley and helped the kids bowl for the whole afternoon. There was no scowling. There was no petulance. He congratulated me on how well the afternoon went. Heck, there might even have been a smile lurking below the beard. The biggest shock was discovering that my staff do this Friday clashes with his friends' wedding and he was willing to forgo the wedding so I could go out. If I were a cynical sort I'd say that he'd come to realise that I'm really not going to divorce him any time soon and so the only option left would be to kill me via giving me a major shock. I was fairly startled that he was doing something - gulp - altruistic. What the Dickens?: he's stopped acting like a dick.

But that's a Tale of Two Birthdays: last year was the worst of times, this year is starting to feel like the best of times. Roll on the staff do, I'm ready for a bit of mountaineering.

We're doomed, all doomed.

As my well-educated readers know the average person has fewer than two legs and if you are blessed with two legs you are above average (if you take a mean of all people a small proportion will have no legs, or one leg, or a stumpy bit and then when you add them in with the majority who have two legs you end up with the average human having 1.73 legs or something). So, clearly statistics are nonsense. Therefore, whenever you read that 1 in 3 British marriages end in divorce you have to question the statistical validity of that statement.

I can give you some useful advice on how to have a happy, lifelong marriage. Don't live on my street. Ever. My little terrace of 6 houses spells doom for marriage.

In number 5 lives J___. Her husband scarpered with another woman in 1967 and she still bleats on about it. We try to avoid her. In fact, on bin night I have to pay extreme attention to the manoeuvring of my wheelie bin, rendering me completely incapable of making eye-contact. Oddly, a minute after she starts talking to me I can usually hear my son crying inside and I have to rush in to see him. Even if he's 2 miles away at his Dad's.

I live in number 2 and, very conventionally, I split up with my husband after 7 years of marriage. He was immensely itchy.

Number 1 is owned by a lovely young couple called M___ and J____. They got married the week before Christmas 2007 and she'd moved out by March 2008. A three month marriage? Anyone would think I lived next door to Britney Spears. Ironically, they bought the house from T____ and C_____ after their marriage split up after 17 years.

This week I was talking to my other next-door neighbour, P___ who is married to M___. They bought the house a couple of years ago in a practically derelict state and have been doing loads of work on it. During our little conversation she told me that she and her daughter were shortly to be moving out after 22 years of marriage.

Clearly, the young couple with the baby in number 6 need to relocate. Fast.