Suddenly some....Expectations

I have been out and about for a few months now and I am constantly surprised my this particular aspect.... Expectations... what is that? On the one hand if you jump into bed on the first date they tell you they don't want a one night stand, on the other if you don't and we have a pleasant evening say good night with a kiss only, they start going on about managing expectations.

OK well, there are several things we can say here, firstly, you care so much about me that you want to make sure I'm not hurt?? ...somehow I don't think so. Secondly, they are my expectations and have F all to do with you... I can think what I like and I promise you, at this stage I'm not even thinking about a relationship I'm making friends and working out whether I like you. I'm not thinking about the luggage you've collected over the years, I certainly not thinking about trapping you but I don't think that would go down too well either. I think it's more about a get out clause. These guys are scared,  don't want to commit, worried that they might have feelings or just don't want to take responsibility. They think that cos I'm over 50 I want to tie a man down and put a ring on it.

Quite frankly guys don't flatter yourselves,  I got into bed with you because you were attractive and I wanted to, not because I'm desperate. If it was or first date it was probably because you just have the body and not the brain. 

Well surprise guys you are not the only ones who don't want to commit,  we can have fun just as much as you can and sometimes that's exactly what we want.  This is not 1970 or 1990 or for that matter 2005, now women of a certain age are gold dust and you should look out for us because a lot of us are:

• Financially independent
• We have no one at home
• We don't want anything from you
• Experienced sexually 
• Not afraid to do our ask you to do it
• We are fun and know how to have fun

We've had our kids and they are all grown up, we have good jobs, give us some credit we are not 19 anymore and really do understand the situation.

Expectations are for relationships.... we don't have one yet, I may like you we may have sex together and it may grow into a relationship but, at this point don't talk to us about Expectations.

Suddenly some...... Social Groups

I was talking to a lawyer a couple of days again and he was telling me about a new demographic that he was tracing, something he had notice in his practice. I met this guy in the course of my work and he didn't know my background when he was telling me this, although I did tell him afterwards. A group of mostly women who are educated, middle-class, and married over 25 years ago and gave up work when they had children (as was the norm). These women have not worked for 20 odd years and have looked after their family, have been used to a high living standard and now for whatever reason find themselves facing separation and divorce. They have not paid into any pensions - thinking that their husbands pension would be enough for both, their earning potential is limited and now must face the fact that they have to find a job good enough to support themselves and to build up some sort of buffer big enough to support them in retirement or rely on their children and the state. Adding to the fact that they must take a big drop in their living standards. My friend described them as the new intelligent poor.

Divorce seems to be a standard part of society and most people think that once you've been married over 20 years or even 15 you've made it and you are happily married. Maybe this come from the fact that our parents generation or older only got divorced in extreme circumstances, I remember my Mum saying to me 'I don't care how unreasonable he is, I promised to love, cherish, obey and care for him' and my Dad could be very unreasonable. I didn't understand her atitude but I certainly respected her for her determination and staying power. These days we talk about personal ambition and needs and are somehow selfish and less likely to compromise in relationships, also it's normal for women to have careers and good jobs instead of being stay at home Mums.

When my husband and I decided that I should give up a very well paid job in the city and become a full time mum, even though at that time it was becoming a rarity because living was becoming more expensive and most couples needed the second income to survive. We, luckily, had no such worries and as 20 years ago men just didn't become stay at home dads, I gave up work to look after 2 daughters. At this time, of course, we didn't even think of divorce, why should we, both our parents were 'happily', both our mothers didn't work and we assumed our live would be the same.

The World has moved on, it's no longer the 1960's, the World has also become smaller and more transparent and regardless what anyone tells me I now believe that apart from the very lucky we will not see marriages lasting 50 years anymore. We will have a husband/wife for the first part of our adult life for children, a second for growing old, life expectation has changed and is now a lot longer, the pressure of working life and the expectations we have for ourselves and the stresses of today's society are too great to sustain life-long marriages.

I have been caught in the middle of this change and have become a victim of dedication to my family and therefore a member of this new social group. Don't get me wrong, I am not bitter and I don't hate my ex-husband, in fact I hope he is happy in his new life. On my part I am sad about the end of our marriage and didn't expect to be facing this challenge at 50. I'll get there. 

Suddenly Some... Poetry

Inner Peace

I love poetry, it makes me feel inside, I can feel all the things which usually you can't show and they feel so real. This love moved up on me slowly and took me by surprise, in fact I hated them when I was younger thinking them a waste of time. Maybe I've grown up, I enjoy them more than music, they reach deeper. I must admit I go for deep emotional poems whether happy or sad.

Reading a poem can change your day calming you or giving you inspiration to continue, helping you through the difficult times or infusing you with joy. 

Reading poetry is not the preserve of the intellectual or well educated it's not elitist and one thing it will never do is become part of the commercialized, fast moving online social networks, never a meme. The reason is they are intensely private, everyone sees something different in the words written on a page. You can plug poetry or poem into a search engine to find a poem, I usually find that the poems on the internet whether by famous or completely unknown author are polluted by with pictures giving you the sense of what the person who posted it thought about it. If I want to find a poem the only place to go is the library, or a book shop, words on a plain background.

OK, I've just read through that and it sound a little pretentious! So I'm just going to give you a couple of favourites:

My all time favourite poem and inspirational, I can read it quietly but find that I love reading it out loud gives it extra power:

If - Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 

But somehow not this version and I'm not even going to mention what UK television did to it during the football.

I also speak German and of course the same applies to any other language in the world, however German has the reputation of being a hard language not only to learn but also emotionally. In defense I give you Xavier Naidoo, the singer and front man of Söhne Mannheim.

Not only is the music haunting but, the lyrics are beautiful, deep and tragic. A declaration of love and caring and protection in a hopeless situation. Whatever my emotional state - and it has been a roller caster recently I do and also will regard this as my favourite song and one of the best poems of our time.

Suddenly Some..... Diaries

Writing a mood journal

Ever thought about writing a Diary? I have never been able to do it for more than a couple of days. Don't you admire people like Churchill, William Pepys and Anne Frank not to mention this people who manage to update their blogs everyday. I love the idea but am never able somehow to find the time. Well times are changing and I decided I really must make an effort to record what's happening, especially the emotion side of my life. Reading went to work is so dreary five days a week, inner feelings and reactions are more interesting, maybe that was my mistake I was trying to write the wrong kind of diary.

As a part of my personal journey I decided to keep  a well being journal…. and as passed experience has shown me I am rubbish at keeping one I decided to use a phone app. and see how that works.

The first App. I tried was imoodjournal, a very simple idea you select how you feel and record your feelings using #hash tags and take a photo of yourself.It then maps you're hash tags and sorts them relating to whether they are positive or negative and I must say I'm still using it, I'm not sure whether I can see the benefit of the photos which are flipped so they are reversed, maybe I have to use it longer so I can see the difference. Sorting hash tags is definitely working I can see what makes me feel good and more importantly what makes me feel bad and am already working on changing those parts of my life. I will certainly continue using imoodjournal. 

The other App was rubbish I won't even bother naming it as I'm sure for some people it's great, it was too time consuming and complicated and that wasn't the aim of the exercise and I have already deleted it from my phone.