Read Chapter 13 “The Workshops”
The Change Is Coming
12.02.2019
This week the spring made a very much welcome return to London. After days of heavy greyness, even half an hour of the sunny sky makes such a huge difference. I love spring, and this refreshing morning smell the spring carries with her. It always gets my senses all perked up.
At the weekend I started cleaning up the house. All the unwanted and unused stuff is going to be sold. All the money made from all the sales goes to my renovation budget.
I started with my closet. Everything I haven’t been wearing for two years goes; everything that I hate in my closet goes.
The following weekend I have my first car boot sale. I can’t wait to lift myself from that cold and dark place I somehow ended up in. I’ve also started putting Jim’s high-end stuff on eBay; and that includes all of his expensive designer’s clothes, his two bikes (yes, he needed two bikes but never used them), skiing and snowboarding gear. Whatever is going to get me to my £10000, I will sell it.
My brother is coming over on Friday to measure the upstairs and see what building materials I’ll need to buy. He seemed pretty excited about the project. He always liked doing stuff with his hands and was always good at this. The new addition to the house means that I’ll have to move my bedroom downstairs, leaving level one for the girls’ bedrooms and level two for the two studios I will be renting out.
Since I need time and space to figure out what I want to do with my life, the rental income will give me some space to do that. I’ve also decided that once Jim’s shit is gone from our garage, I’m going to turn it into a shared co-working space for freelancers who work look for a cosy studio space that isn’t a coffee shop.
I can’t wait for the ball to start rolling. I’m so tired of feeling helpless.
After two days of solid cleaning and trying out clothes, I put aside four boxes of unwanted clothing that I will never wear again in my life. I should surely label it: “What was I thinking?” While looking at Jim’s half of the closet, I can surely say it will be more than four boxes. I have no idea why he still hasn’t picked up his shit. It’s my house, and his crap is invading and polluting my space.
The cleaning made me feel like I’m finally taking back control of my life.
One of the teachers from the girls’ school suggested that I look up Marisa Peer. Her hypnotherapy helped her sister move on from a very nasty divorce. I guess it’s worth a try. In fact, from the whole school community, one teacher seems to be the only person who truly wants to know how I’m doing. Every time she sees me, she offers help. Everyone else, including my girlfriends, the women I’ve shared the past five years with, don’t want to be around me that much. Only now I’m able to see what is hiding behind all those masks of fake kindness and it’s surely not pretty.
I know that in this new reality, I cannot afford to have coffee with the gang every morning, but being pushed aside this way is heartbreaking. I may not have much money, but I’m still the same me.
Since I told Christina to fuck off and leave my girls alone, she hasn’t approached them again (I’m certain that she is working on a plan to make them like her). However, as a punishment for my “emotionally overcharged outburst of an ex-wife” (his words, not mine), Jim cancelled the weekend with the girls. I can’t say they were disappointed. Instead, they had fun tidying up their bedrooms and getting rid of all the things they don’t wear or use anymore. I promised that they could keep all the money for whatever they sold at the car boot sale. Since we are busy for the next two weekends, I have no idea when Jim will see the girls again. So far we’ve been managing pretty well without him around. He can do whatever he wants with his new family and leave us alone.
PS. Since I’m on a roll, I’ve also decided to add up all of the debts to see how much money I need monthly to start slowly paying it all off.
PS.2 I need to go dancing. I badly need to go dancing.