Fish is getting married. (not to me). I feel strange. Someone else is going to be Mrs Fisher. And have blond, sunlight-hating, faintly autistic children. We’ll never build our own house in Australia. His mum probably likes her better. And I have a nice boyfriend, an Oli. Not sure if it’s going anywhere, but we’re trying, though I'm beginning to suspect we might both be a bit broken.

I feel annoyed because I thought Fish was the more messed up one, on balance, but the evidence would suggest otherwise. He’s moved on properly. Found proper love. They’ve been together about three years. We were together, on and off, about seven. I feel ok. Not looking forward to the inevitable build up. Nor the awkwardness of my friends who will all be going. But actually do feel ok. I suppose I should after so many years. It’s been about seven since we were together. The bit that hurts the most is that some of my memories with him are so intensely happy – and it makes me feel silly that I suppose his feelings for Helen (who’s annoyingly nice btw) must be so much more intense. All these years I thought it was both of us who were in this intense relationship and actually maybe it was just me.

Why it ended (as advised by the internet) 

He stopped loving me.

I felt angry all the time.

I felt he wasn’t there for me when my dad was ill.

It was always really hard because we were just so different.

It was hard to break up because also we had a lot of things in common.

He made fun of me a lot.

He made me feel stupid.

He was irritated by me and he showed that a lot.

I was angry that he wasn’t better at supporting me emotionally. I was angry that he didn’t get help for his depression. I wanted him to be a different kind of person. I think he wanted the same thing for me.

We stopped getting along in all the small things.

It felt like the balance between us tipped his way and I still don’t know how or why.

He picked away at my self-esteem.

I let him.

Ugh. Anyway. I am attempting to recover from a quite annoying cold/throat infection, as this week is full of many big conferences, and have thus skipped out on our big #HachetteShowcase (hell yes there's a hashtag, for publishing is down there with the masses and the kids on the street where they live (as long as its in Zone 1) don't you know?). It turns out Bob Geldoff was there, which does make me very sad to have missed it, but also I really do feel rubbish. Have cancelled my plans tonight (Shawarma with my friend Ben) and am just determined to have a voice back for the rest of the week and for our upcoming conference on Thursday, where I'm presenting various things that I haven't yet written and probably should. Wow, that was a long sentence, wasn't it? Today I've been reading one of my author's new books - it's not very good, I don't think, but it's hard to tell as it's a few down the series and she's also extremely funny, so I keep forgiving the lack of story owing to the occasional flying bobcat...

I have cooked today - once I failed to get on the train to the #HachetteShowcase, I instead bought everything healthy within range. I've made wild salmon in little foil packets with radish, spring garlic, shallot, satsuma juice (sounds odd, works v well), tarragon and lemon zest. Also roasted vegetables with mint, tarragon, lemon and rosemary, and made a mustardy sort of salad and some crispy salmon skin (nice, but too salty and needs an oil that isn't olive oil). Actually has really helped, even though there's still a lot of me that just wants to curl up in bed again. And I'm happy I've found this blog again, if deeply embarrassed by just how much of the ex there is in it. I wish I knew why it took me so long to feel better. Also, I'm now bare inches from being a childless 35yr old - as dreaded in a previous post - but happily am not bitter about it. A bit worried about inevitable ageing and death and the lack of state support, but not bitter, so that's something, I suppose.

My dad died, also, at the end of 2017. PSP isn't a very nice disease, so in a lot of ways I'm glad that he didn't have to suffer the end of it. In fact, I'm really glad, particularly for my mum. who would have lost years more of her life to caring full time for Dad. He was a really lovely man though, and although we'd spent a lot of time grieving him even while he was still with us, I find I get sudden waves of sadness, rather than a continual ache. On the plus side, my brother is getting married, which will be fun.