What a difference a year makes

What a difference a year makes. This time last year I was desperately unhappy and couldn't really pin down as to why this would be because outwardly things were pretty good in my life. 


Recently one of my work colleagues described how some of her employees were feeling after flipping out at work in Christchurch.


It's a feeling that something is just wrong and they can't explain why. Not surprising when you are living in a city where the ground is likely to move underneath you at any time. Where your house might be damaged and you have an interminable wait for repairs, or it has extra ventilation and is impossible to keep warm. Where everywhere you look there are signs of damage that will take years to put right even if your own home is more or less ok. Or you might have to move out of your house and you don't know where to go and what to do next


I sat in an office on Friday close to the Christchurch Airport wondering if each rattle of the windows or roar of  jet engine winding up was an more earthly rattle. A little on edge all that time and counting down the hours until I was due to fly out. So I understand and when she explained how these people were feeling it seemed to encapsulate just how I had been feeling for such a long time.


 A sense of impending doom. Something was wrong and when I did find out why I felt that way it seemed that the end of the world had come.


Of course it hadn't, though it seemed that way at the time. Today I am much happier, happier than  I can remember being for many years. Because it isn't the end of the world when a relationship ends when your partner decides that the grass is greener over the fence. 


Despite how I felt at the time, that the world had passed me by and I had wasted a chunk of my life on someone who then proceeded to look elsewhere, that I would never know love in my life again, my world is a far better place today.


The emotional trauma of the last part of 2011 has left me a much stronger and rounded as a person that is reflected in my work as well as my personal life and especially in my relationships with people.


Although I wouldn't wish a  relationship breakdown to my worst enemy there are upsides if you emerge from the darkside, not least the new good woman in my life.