JADB

Now I would hesitate to refer to myself as a professional when it comes to watershed moments, never having been paid for them, you see, but I certainly would have no issue referring to myself as an experienced amateur…

In the the last year much has happened to me, and only some of that had been good. Okay, to be honest; some absolutely awesome events had happened to me, along with some truly horrendous ones.

If nothing else, I have learnt a great deal about me; the person I used to be and the person I have since become.

I’ve learnt that I’m generally kind and gentle; I’ve learnt that children and animals seem inclined, to put it mildly, to be kindly disposed to me; I’ve learnt that I have drive and determination second to none. I have learnt that, when I put my mind to it, I can accomplish some utterly astounding feats; personally and professionally both.

I have also learnt that I still do not handle betrayal well at all. Of all the occurrences in my life, this one seems to gnaw at me, at my very being, most relentlessly.

Yet… Yet. I have also learnt that I have a much bigger heart than I had ever thought myself as capable of having.

Sadly, nearly all of these realisations have come at great cost; the cost of some heart-ache during moments of great self-doubt.

Yet none of these are what I would have considered real “Watershed Moments”. Critical turning points. I mean, make no mistake, all of them were part of the healing process, and in retrospect I embrace them all; they are all part of the history of the person writing this; all part of the experience that formed him and are all part of his strength…

No, the real watershed moment was the realisation I experienced when I managed to identify the source of the melancholy I had felt the whole morning.

You see, today is the birthday of a person who, until late last year, was the most important in my life; I used to go out of my way to make this day special. I know soppy, romantic, stupid… Call it what you like. That does not change the reality of it in any way at all.

The doleful feeling was my subconscious nagging at me for not having done anything special for today…

Once I had realised it, of course, the cloud mostly lifted. But more importantly, another cloud, one that had been lingering for even longer, also started lifting.

Before today I had been very anxious at the thought that I might never be able to fully trust again; never be able to give a girl a chance to fully come into my life and into my heart again. That the romantic in me had been killed off in a moment of brutal callousness.

I, now, no longer have that fear… The romantic in me is still here, very much still alive. He has merely been lying low, waiting for the right girl to come kicking down the doors to his hideout…