13 November 2012

And the sugar that dripped from the violin's bow made the children go crazy

Ahh, lovely day.

Was woken at an ungodly hour by Shortstuff, who was far too lively for someone who'd been up in the night after a nightmare.

Removed him from our bed because John was still valiantly trying to sleep. Made porridge. Didn't have a hangover.

John and I had a gloriously lazy morning after dropping Sherlock at school, coffee, picked up my bike, more coffee, until John went off to see Dr E. So, to fill the time while he was gone, I decided to bake a brown sugar choccy cake with chocolate treacle icing. Which turned out very well - but the icing was way too much to fit on the cake! John helped me dispose of some of it though ;)

Sherlock thoroughly enjoyed having a slice after school - we ran to the school, because a. I need more exercise and b. it meant we could cool down by walking home. Neat.

So, the other day, Anon asked: "Do you have any advice on how to mentally physically and emotionally prepare for a new relationship having left one that was far from good?"



That's a really hard question. I've thought about it a lot - and when I thought I might have an answer, I had to have a bit of a re-think.

I guess, first of all, you have to forgive yourself. Quite a lot. Which I don't do very easily.

I think the first thing is to repeatedly remind yourself that whoever you go out with next is not the person who treated you badly. They won't react the same way, they won't do the same things. It's not easy, and it takes a long time to try to convince yourself - I don't know how long, I'm still doing it.

You need to be ready. I don't think there's any way to know if you are, until you meet someone who you think you might like to be in a relationship with. I didn't think I was, but when John came along...I was. Well, sort of.

It was definitely a lot easier for me once John knew about Bry. I mean, telling him wasn't easy. And I can't imagine that situation ever will be... but once he knew, I did feel better.

Ah, see, I don't know if I can really answer this at all.

Last night, at the tennis - which I was really looking forward to watching John enjoy - I realised that, as John got more...passionate, about it, and Federer looked like he might lose, I was scared. And, you know, we've been together a while. I've watched him watch tennis before. But...I suppose I got very used to things like that being 'my fault', and...I don't know, it took quite a few deep breaths to remind myself that it wasn't John I was scared of. It was my past experiences. And they weren't going to be repeated.

So, yeah, I think...you have to be patient with yourself, and forgive yourself a lot. And if someone comes along who you like, then they have to do all those things too. And if they don't, then they're not the right one.

Above everything, respect yourself, and treat yourself like you'd treat others. And it isn't easy. But you can do it.

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for taking the time to thing about it for me.

Greg Lestrade said...

I'm sorry I don't have the answers. I wish I did.

Greg Lestrade said...

...now everyone is very quiet and I'm getting nervous. It's not like you lot.

pandabob said...

hows the evening Greg?

Greg Lestrade said...

Good, thanks :) Guitar on my knee, boyfriend by my side, Masterchef on the telly ;)

You?

pandabob said...

no comment!

glad you're having a good one :-)

REReader said...

...Not sure what is okay to say?

I'm glad you've found yourself able to move on.

I think there's probably no way for the intellect to just erase emotional memory, but that over time new experiences will, I don't know, measure themselves against the old and wear themselves down? I hope that makes sense. And that I said it okay.


Really really chocolatey cake is definitely to be thoroughly enjoyed! (Can you send some over here? :))

Greg Lestrade said...

ANonyBob - oh dear...

RR - No, me neither. I think...new memories, new ways of reacting, they sort of overwrite the old ones, given time. You learn new habits, just like you learnt the old ones.

I can put up the recipe for the cake, but sadly not send any (partly because it's more than half gone.)

REReader said...

Yes, exactly.

And yes, please--if you have a chance, I think I would like that cake recipe. :)

pandabob said...

the cake recipe would be good, it sounds lovely :-)

Greg Lestrade said...

I'll do it tomorrow - remind me! There won't be any cake left to remind me...

pandabob said...

can we enlist Sherlock to remind you he's much more persistent than any of us ;-)

What's on after masterchef or is it guitar time then?

REReader said...

can we enlist Sherlock to remind you

Ha! Excellent idea, Anony! (But I'll try to remember, too, since I'm the one that asked for it!)

Greg Lestrade said...

guitar time, yeah. Sherlock's watching something about quantum physics and 'the big rip'... and telling me to be quiet.

John's reading some poetry, I think, or looking for some. And looking thoughtful...which he does a lot after seeing Dr E. And I hope is good?

Greg Lestrade said...

Oh, and Happy Diwali, anyone who's celebrating. Lots of fireworks going off in London.

John H. D. Watson said...

Heh. I hope so too!

Greg Lestrade said...

Well, you know you can talk to me about anything...well, apart form tennis ;)

Sherlock said...

We have to find the speed of light from cheese on toast!

John H. D. Watson said...

That'd be nice. Not on the internet though. Maybe after we're in bed? No tennis, I promise.

John H. D. Watson said...

Sherlock...how?

Anonymous said...

The speed of light from cheese on toast?

And I need to get out the Diwali books. AAAAH!

pandabob said...

really Sherlock? that sounds interesting!

Greg Lestrade said...

Cheese on toast in bed? After all that icing earlier?? ;)

Sherlock said...

You have to make cheese on toast or get a BIG bar of chocolate and put it in the microwave to melt the cheese and then just do it a little bit and then measure the melty bits and see how far apart they are and then you know the wavelength and then look on the microwave for the frequency and then you know the speed of light!

Greg Lestrade said...

err...right. Obviously.

Maybe tomorrow? It's late...and you should go to bed soon. And John and I would like to have some quiet time to talk.

Small Hobbit said...

I think I'm confused (I know easily done) but exactly what is being melted in the microwave? I can't imagine any chocolate would last long enough to be experimented on.

John H. D. Watson said...

L - you knew what I meant!

Sherlock - sounds interesting, but definitely not tonight. Tomorrow should be fine, we can do it after school.

Greg Lestrade said...

Hang on, he's doing his teeth (under duress)...I'll ask.

Greg Lestrade said...

right...so you either put slices of cheese on toast, or get a big bar of chocolate. Then you take the turntable out of the microwave and just melt the cheese/chocolate a tiny bit - a few seconds of microwaving, until some spots go melty. Then measure between those spots.

Danger - I just love the way you roll your eyes ;)

REReader said...

Is there some specific way to factor in the frequency? That is a very, very ingenious experiment. I'll be interested to hear how close you get!

John H. D. Watson said...

I've been sitting here trying to come up with an emoticon for eye rolling, but none of them are really satisfactory. I'll have to give you a real life demo when you come back down...

Greg Lestrade said...

@_@ just makes you seem a bit..stoned? hypnotised? I suppose...
Down in a tick. Sherlock is being animated about cheese.

RR - I don't know what you mean by 'factor in'? Sherlock says you multiply them...does that help? What I know about physics you could write on the back of a Higgs-Boson....

REReader said...

Yes, it does help! (I was wondering if the math got complicated, but I think this makes sense to me. I take periodic stabs at physics, but my understanding remains fuzzy.)

REReader said...

Oh, and the blog post title? Hee!

Anonymous said...

The scary thing about being around kids doing science projects every year is I think I might have understood Sherlock's explanation the first time.

rsf O_o

Anonymous said...

Do you know DI Lestrade that you are a genius? and a very lovely genius at that.

Good luck with the rest of your moving forward with John and more so with the rest of moving forward with yourself. :-)

Greg Lestrade said...

Um, thank you. I can assure you I'm no genius. But it's very nice that you'd say so.

And thanks for the good luck, too. Much appreciated

REReader said...

Almost forgot--Reminder! Really really chocolatey chocolate cake recipe, please!

pandabob said...

You see RR this is why I wanted to enlist Sherlock ;-)

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