Gratitude.

It's sunday again, and after having a nice weekend with our Bulgarian friends Boni, I am sitting alone on the couch again.

My Principe is yet again in Italy for 5 days. The moment he had to leave our friends were still here, so the goodbye was not as intense as i'd like it to be, but ok.

I had some errands to run, like getting a new bike lock for Vittorio, and buy some cleaning stuff. Walking towards the bike shop, I texted Vittorio that beautiful days were just not that beautiful without him. 

After that, I went to Blokker to get the cleaning stuff. When I was walking around there, there was a dutch song playing on the radio that drew my attention. I never heard it before, but it was a woman singing that she loved it when here boyfriend left for a while because she loved missing him. 

I just googled it, and it's these lyrics:
http://www.songteksten.nl/songteksten/357948/claudia-de-breij/ik-mis-je-zo-graag.htm

"I love to miss you

it's ok when you go

because I love to miss you.

It's ok when you go,

because when you go,

I remember again how good it is

that you exist"

This song really turned my mood around again. Yes! That is the spirit. It's good that I miss him, because it makes me realise how good our relationship is and how happy he makes me.
I am grateful for everything he has brought into my life.
His positive energy, his can-do mentality, his neverending patience with my insecurity, the opportunity to travel a lot more, reading a lot more, enjoying a lot more.

Yesterday at brouwerij 't IJ he was running his fingers through my hair and carressing my neck and telling me every hour how beautiful I was and how much he loved me. How lucky he felt with me, how happy I make him. Ok he was tipsy, but I like to believe that this is when people speak the truth :-)

And now I'm sitting here on the couch, feeling nothing but extremely grateful to have found this amazing man. He is not only my lover, but also my best friend and my rock. 

It's funny, because when I go out now, of course I see goodlooking men. And I still get hit on quite often. But everytime I think: yeah, he's cute but he's not Vittorio. The packaging may look appealing but my man is the full package. The inside and outside is perfect for me. 

Gratitude. That is what I wanted to share today.

Are you there for me?

What is seperation anxiety?

It's an unrest, an overwhelming panic sometimes, that people experience everytime they have the feeling that the other is not or not enough there for them or when they think someone else is threatening their relationship. It has its roots very often already in childhood, where parents were too caring, protecting or pampering. This caused the children not to learn how to be emotionally independent and that it is perceived as something threatening. Or parents were not available or inconsistenly. Children then try to get the attention by acting anxious, clingly, pretending to be ill or incompetent; searching for a lot of physical proximity to get the attention of the parents. Loss experiences can also lead to separation anxiety attachment behavior: the premature death of father or mother, precarious or stressful life situations.

"I can't do this alone"
People with seperation anxiety often have a low self-esteem: they are convinced they can't make it alone, that they are lost without the other one. They are also convinced the other doesn't really value them, experiences them as weak and uninteresting, causing their fear to be abandoned to increase.

Never leave me
In love you have 2 types of anxious attached: those are scared of not getting enough love, attention and confirmation and those who are mainly scared of being left. The first don't fall in love easily - as they are insecure about their judging capacities and therefore of a life partner. They are looking for security, clarity and want it before they show their vulnerabilities.  The other has to make a great effort to convince them of their good intentions. Ironically, contrary to what they desire, they often find themselves to be "professional hunters": men or women who think the chase is better than the catch. Which naturally makes for what they wanted to avoid: open up to someone who then dumps them anyway.

The second group usually dives in fast - too fast. They feel butterflies in their stomach every 5 minutes - they are up for it immediately. They tend to get very personal very fast - showering the other party with attention and gifts. They won't let go of the other one anymore and will also insist on a future with two very soon.

The faces of separation anxiety
This anxiety has many facets. It's pretty much impossible to make a list of all appearances, but these are the most common:

• Is very admiring, confirming in the first contact and will devaluate herself
• Is dependant
• Chronically activated adhesive system causing them to feel often in a relationship like their needs are not being fulfilled.
• Looking for fusion, symbiosis in a relationship and for that reason are extremlely likely to adapt
• Have difficulties accepting differences in a relationship -they want the other person to be like themselves as much as possible
• Have difficulties ending a relationship, even if it's going really bad, just because they are scared of ending up alone.
• Often thinks the worst of situations
• Worries about relationships in general
• Often has the feeling of having no control over things
• Is often overwhelmed by the feeling of anxiety
• Provokes conflicts to get attention
• Can act very dominant to get controle over the relationship and the other
• Can be very attentive, loving and caring but also their they can be too intense.

Seperation anxiety is onfortunately without a remedy. It's a way of looking at yourself, the other and the relationship and experiencing this as "the truth", as how it is.

I did not write this article myself, I copied it from Rika Ponnet's blog (in dutch) because I recognise myself so deeply in the underlined things.

Unfortunately knowing this about myself doesn't mean I can turn it around. It's like the article says: in the moment itself it is my truth, how I perceive it to be. Give me time to cool down or calm me down by talking to me about it but don't tell me i'm imagining things or that it's not true. I won't believe you.

Thai Massages

On a good day, maybe I would be ok with it. Maybe.

But yesterday, I was really tired from the long trip, irritable from a short night and not a lot of sleep and I could not deal with it.

Let me explain:
I spent the weekend in Belgium to celebrate an old colleague's birthday and see some friends. For the first time, I would come back on Sunday by car. Saturday was Carnaval in my hometown, and my colleague wanted to go there to celebrate - so we did. It was so much fun, that I was only in bed at 4.30. The day after, I was up again at 9.

Around 16h, I started my journey by car to Amsterdam. It went pretty well - the road was easy but boring (all straight ahead). Some nice music on, sun on my head: I was happy. One hour later I was yawning like there was no tomorrow. I needed energy. Badly. So I stopped at the first gas station to get an energy drink and some bubblegum. After resting 10 min, I continued my trip. I arrived at Weesp around 18.45, took the train to Muiderpoort and then the tram home, Eventually I arrived at 20.05.

My lovely amore had prepared bruschetta's for us and some tapas for dinner. So sweet to have everything ready by the time I came home! He knew I was tired and probably starving. We catched up during dinner about our weekends and exchanged some kisses.

"I had a Thai massage"

- By who, when and why, I joked back.

"Yesterday, by Silvia" 

...

 My stomach started aching.

- Why?

"Because she told me she just got certified to give Thai Massages and I told her about my shoulder"

I can't recall the exact conversation, so I won't try to copy paste it here to avoid putting it wrong, It didn't last long because I got up from the table to cool off and unpack my bags in the meantime.

Vittorio came after me to talk about it. He gave me a guilty face and hit himself on the hand, but at that point I could not laugh at all. I shared with him so many times my insecurity about his ex, about their 10y history, everything they shared. And knowing my history, that I've been cheated on not once, but even twice and how bad it scarred me. It's not that I don't trust him, because I do. But I have every reason in the world not to trust an ex. And a massage? That's a pretty intimate thing to get from your ex.

I tried to explain to him why I'm not okay with this, but I'm not sure I was able to convey the message very well. To him it might seem like not a big deal at all.But to me, it feels like a form of disrespect towards me. If you know my past and how I feel about your ex - please consider what it will do to me if you tell me she gave you a massage.

"I had two options, to tell you or not and I chose to tell you"

This emphasises that he realised very well that I would not be happy to hear this at all.

I went to bed thinking about this and woke up thinking about it again.

On a good day, maybe I would be ok with it. Maybe. But not today.