I am sunbathing on the roof of my new flat, 10 Simpson Street, previous home of Hache. It's really rather lovely, and although I've mostly been making sure to fill up my evenings with plans, it's nice not to have to do anything much today. Well, nice and scary. It's been over six months since breaking up with Fish, I've realised now. It's got a lot better, like everyone says it does. Moving in with friends helped, plus meant that I got to stay friends with the Durham lot, which is nice. The problem is, I'm not really sure what to do now. Single, 28 nearly 29, in a now much better paid job that sadly I don't really enjoy,.,My two best friends are getting married this year, which has mostly been very nice, however probably adds to my general sense that I stepped off the usual track at a rather unfortunate time. Happily, I'm not wishing to get married or instantly have children or anything, but I am just a bit worried about the future. Which does no good, of course. In fact it's actively detrimental unless I have some plans to put in place. Other than maybe wanting to become and agent and at some point wanting to live somewhere with more green, I don't really. And maybe to manage to write a book, though that would entail a) having some ideas b) making time to actually write them and c) why does there always have to  be a c), I  wonder? I don't have one, so there. 

A submission came to our non-fiction team a few weeks ago, called 'Surviving Your Twenties'. The book explained that actually, far from being 'the best years of your life' they are rather tricky to navigate at times, maybe especially so if you haven't settled down in the accepted fashion. It feels as though decisions that you make will have Repercussions, heavy lead like things that you'll look back on in your 60s and shake your head with regret at. Luckily my memory is pretty crap, so maybe that will help. I'm fairly sure that this is pretty normal. I also think it hits women at this age rather than men. Maybe being married with kids would help - I do think that anything where you feel you are serving a higher purpose than looking after your own needs and that limits the time you have to think about yourself  is helpful in dealing with this odd sense of malaise, while I'm surrounded by everything women fought for over the years. Obviously, it's also important to look out for yourself (I know this as I wasn't very good at it for quite some time) but I think that the simple truth is that a life lived only for your own pleasures just isn't that satisfying after a while. If you enjoy your job and feel you're doing worthwhile things then that would work - sadly, since Little, Brown reduce publishing to a strange, soulless, earnest machine, my job satisfaction is correspondingly less. Still, I bought a lovely author the other day, so went to a proper publishing lunch with an absolutely adorable agent, who I fairly sure will turn into an absolute monster if the books don't do well. It's strange, that being much more under my responsibility than it used to be - don't think I'm a fan and do rather miss M&B's space, which meant that if the profit margin was looking a bit low you could just whack out a republi\shed anthology called 'Brutal-but-sexy-Billionaires' and sell a comfortable 5000 copies. 

He didn't make me feel good, and I stumbled out of our relationship feeling older, tireder and generally stupider. Now, a lot of the time, I'm just sad. It's horrible, this sadness, though on the plus side it's much less desperate than before - definitely better out of the relationship, I just wish he'd bugger off to Australia so I could graciously wish him well from a distance and not have to see  him looking happy and watch myself still trying to look attractive to him even though, and this really is true, I don't want to be back with him. I just want to win. I'm very bad at accepting that sometimes things don't work out and it isn't because either person was 'wrong' (though obviously it was him) (you see). The mean side of me would like him on the floor, wailing at his own stupidity. The thing is, he got close to doing that a bit after he broke up with the new girl because he 'missed me too much.' He was drunk and a mess and everything I thought I wanted him to be but actually it made me really sad. So I told him I forgave him about Lindsey and still loved him but knew we were better apart. I always used to do that - say it was ok because at that moment it would be, only to have several furious conversations with myself later on after he took me at my word. And even as he sat there telling me he was a mess and no one cared, I realised he was still completely focussed on himself. He had been an absolutely shit boyfriend for months, totally absorbed with shutting me out of his new life and even more so with not having to feel like he was expected to do anything and now he was totally focused on his own sadness - I realised there still wasn't any space for me in his head at all. This was good as I realised once again how deeply glad I was that we finally broke up. but sadly means that in some twisted way I still hadn't won. I wanted him realising how stupid he'd been to lose ME, not mourning his own emotions and lack of close friends. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just not that nice. I have amazing parents who bought me up feeling (without ever really realising it) that I was really special (in a good way, not in the having a different school bus kind of way). One of the harder things about both breaking up with someone and beginning a new job is that you start to realise that maybe you're not. On the other hand, most of the people who have fulfilling lives have a core of solidity - an I Am. Maybe the trick is worrying less about being 'special' and more about who you are and actually want to be. You live in the best, most honest way you can without driving everyone around you (or yourself) bonkers. Maybe I'll call that a mannafesto. God I'm hilarious. 

Also, gchat with my friend Adam the other day:

Adam: 'guess who's coming to dinner?' 

Me: 'Who? Ooh - the girl from last night? did it go well then?'

Adam: 'Me!' 

Me: 'oh'

Adam: 'And no. I made her cry a little.' 

Dates can always be worse. :)