Here's Cheers!

There are a lot of things that seriously suck about being unattached. Because men are brilliant. I don't understand them, but they're great. (Edit: I feel I need to say this up front, because this is NOT a man-hating rant, nor is it intended to be a litany of woes. This blip, for the most part, is of things that make me smile to remember and reflect on the simple pleasure in knowing that this is no longer my life).

On this, the most over-commercialised day of the year, I take the opportunity to appreciate the positives. It's a chance to look back on how my life might have been, had I still been in the relationships I've had over the past 20-odd years. Because if I was with them today, I would likely be utterly miserable. Or in gaol for murder.

Here are just a few highlights* from my Things I Really Don't Miss List (and those of you who know me well will have no trouble identifying who did what!):
-practicing assembling a collapsible military kayak, in silence, in the dark, within 20 minutes
-not being allowed to have a credit card (ECHELON! ECHELON! ECHELON!(
-being discouraged from reading
-a bedroll of highly illegal weaponry under the bed
-not being allowed to leave the house at night by myself
- after a full day at work, spending my free time writing reports/articles/thesis papers for my partner to submit as their own work (when they've spent the day sailing/socialising etc)
-hours of deeply, deeply pretentious conversation about jazz
-dealing with a belligerent 6 foot tall drunk on a daily basis
-coming home and finding the number of parasites dependants had increased, all of whom were to be supported for unspecified lengths of time on my salary (in one memorable case being a fire eater/stilt walker artiste called Hemlock who dressed in silver foil pants and sequined vest)
-having a feeling of tension coiling tighter and tighter, the closer I got to home at the end of the day, dreading having to walk through the door
-and the ultimate indignity - knowing there were Star Trek dvds around the house (gee I did a dance of triumph the day I binned those!!).

And every year the happy memory of throwing those dvds in the rubbish is enough incentive to go out and have a drink with friends to celebrate just how great my life is!#

I have a fridge magnet that sums it up perfectly: It is better to have loved and lost, than to be with a psychopath for the rest of your life.

___________
* I'm leaving out quite a few highlights, plus the usual lying, mind games, rampant narcissism, cheating, forgetting to put the toilet seat down, hogging the remote control kind of stuff.
# Yes, my blip is over-processed. It's deliberate.