old habits die hard...

Some habits take a while to stop. Well they do for me anyway. Especially ones that involve my psyche, guess it comes from having PTSD. My brain automatically goes to the programmed response - even though that response hasn't been required for quite a while now.

Last week a girlfriend text me asking us to a trivia fund raising night for the local scouts. My internal dialogue went something like this:

"M won't want to do this, he'll think its lame, stupid, dumb (any other adjective that is used to describe something someone considers a waste of time). I won't bother asking him. I'll just say no we are busy... hang on a minute Vicky - you don't know that M will think its lame etc. Ask him."

So I did. And he said yes, that sounds fun. I was gob smacked, until I reminded myself that this M. NOT R... and that I have to stop having expectations - good, bad or indifferent.

In the book I read fearless loving by Rhona Britten, she talks about exactly this. Letting go of expectations ... all of them. I was expecting a negative response, based on my previous experiences with R, when asked to go somewhere social. I almost didn't ask M if he wanted to go. I'm glad I pushed through the uncomfortableness of it, and asked.

We went. We caught up with my friend's husband before we went to the trivia night. It was a nice, calm, normal thing to do... (It seems I'm still getting used to what normal looks like) M can hold a conversation, I don't have to be on egg shells worrying about what he is going to say, do, behave, be...

I finally have what I have craved for such a long time. A partner. A person who interacts with me. A grown up. Someone I can be silly with, serious with, just be with...

I had such a lovely weekend. We didn't do anything tremendously exciting (the trivia night went on for an awfully long time....), watched some episodes of Rome together, had a sleep in, bacon and eggs breakfast, washed the dogs, had a water fight with the boys...  It was just ... nice. Calm. Normal.

I love nice. calm. Normal... I love it a lot.