Things from the past.

You know how sometimes a smell or song takes you right back to a particular moment?

One whiff of a certain scent or even the first few lines of a song, whisk you straight back to that time, good or bad. Not only are the memories instantly there, all the emotions are bought back too. It's usually the prominent feelings that come flooding to the surface, and all of a sudden you are confronting, in this case, rejection, hurt and sadness.

I'm blissfully happy with my life and the path that it has taken, and have absolutely no regrets about anything. I have the best husband in the world and 2 beautiful, healthy children - I am truly blessed.

Some reminders just take me back to my year of self discovery and my first foray into the big world.

Fun times and bad times were had, but its tough to remember the good times when your heart was squashed at the end.

I guess everyone needs a good heart break story, and he was mine.

I was 19 and in love. I met him on my first trip to Canada, fell crazily in love, then came home and saved up to go back for a year. I was a naive teenager who pinned all their hopes and dreams on a fun-loving Canadian guy that was only wanting a good time. He was great to me, well except for the fact that he was also sleeping with a crazy chick who wanted me to die. She would have been quite happy to do it too.

When I found out I was devastated, absolutely shattered. I then spent the next few months, throwing dignity out the window, trying to win him back. I really should have been slapped right there (Nicole, why didn't you???) and told to get over it, but he was my addiction and me being slightly competitive, was not going to accept "loosing" to a scary, crazy girl.

In the end I left to go back to Australia, but we still kept in touch.

Now for the last few years, probably 5 or so, I have been constantly having dreams about him, not sexual at all, but all having the same running theme. I'm trying to get to him, but he keeps staying just out of reach. I really don't know why he is a recurring visitor to my dreams, I initially thought I needed closure, but it's something we've talked about since and he has apologised profusely. I know he feels so much guilt for everything that happened, and I'm not carrying any torches for him at all. So why the hell does he keep invading my slumber?

Funnily enough, his brother married an Aussie girl and so he has come to visit 4 times. Ironically Duane was away for his first 2 visits, the first time in Japan and the second in Tas. My darling husband, was not phased at all that my ex was coming to see me. He has only ever been welcoming and friendly, I doubt I would be so gracious if he invited an old flame around.

The anticipation of seeing him each time has had me in knots, not because I still have feelings for him, just facing the person that shunted you from naive to heart broken I guess is a little startling.

It's been annoying me for a while about the dreams. They have started up again more frequently and I think I know why. The crazy other woman contacted me on Facebook, and made me her friend. I know I could have just ignored, but curiosity got the better of me and I accepted, if only to suss out how crazy she really is. Well turns out, she actually seems quite normal now. Of course I'm just basing that on facebook status updates and not any psycho analysis.

When I see him, I know without a doubt that he was not the one for me. We had fun together, but nothing that could of been sustained. Thankfully all my naive dreams and wishes weren't
answered.

Duane, my soul mate, is my perfect partner.

ETA - I had a bit of a light bulb moment today. As I was driving the kids to playgroup, Steve Miller blaring in the car and plenty of time stuck in traffic, it all clicked. I get it now, I know why I have the ongoing confusion about my ex. It's becuase although he broke my heart, we remained quite good friends. Most people get to walk away from their heartbreaker, mentally filing them into their "worst people on the planet" list. I don't. He is a great guy and we are still friends, and I don't have those feelings of hatred for him. He's apologised, we've both gotten over it and we make an effort to keep in contact.

On 1 hand it would be nice to just think of his as the evil ex, but on the other I like that we are still friends. He is a great guy who treated me badly in once, but I'm ok with that now.

Gosh, I can't believe it's taken me this long to work that out.

My Mums a Net Nerd

When I went to Tas last month I took Mum down my old hard drive and set her up with the Internet. I did have ulterior motives though, it meant that I could still keep in the loop of things when I was away, but I did also think Mum would enjoy have a surf every now and then. I'd been trying to talk her into getting on the net for ages, but she has always been a little scared of all that fan-dangled technology. I mentioned to her once that I did all my banking on it and she nearly had a coronary. She must have been watching too much Today Tonight because she was so scared that my bank accounts were going to get wiped, because apparently that's what happens when you put any details on the WWW.

We normally talk everyday, but for the last few weeks all I get is the bloody engaged signal! Stupid dial up! When I do manage to get through to her in between her "Internet time", she says stuff like "Yes, I googled blah, blah blah" or "I've been looking around on the net". She did send me a text message yesterday to say that she had discovered the world of forums and even has a user name "Mega" What tha? It took me ages to get confidant enough to venture into them and here's my Mum a total newbie starting threads and posting like an old hat!

I am getting lots of e-mails from her though, complete with obligatory net talk like "Lol". Ok whole stole my Mum and cybered her?

For someone that was scared of catching virus's and trojans, she has certainly gotten over her fear!

Actually I did venture into chat rooms way back when they were just 128.35.1 200 (yes I do actually think that I remember the actual site number)

Nicole and I kidnapped a computer nerd and had him teach us how to hack into the computers at the library and into the chat rooms. It was just before we did our first trip to Canada and Nicole got chatting to a guy in Colorado. Long story short, we decided that we would make a quick trip from Canada down to visit him. Now remember we were barely 18 and totally naive to the dangers of the world. No way would you do it now!

So we flew into Colorado airport and was picked up Ross's Mum (no doubt so she could ascertain why these 2 18 year olds wanted to meet up with her son) We went back to their house and spent the next few nights there. I'm not sure who we expected to meet, but Ross was a very sweet 14 YEAR OLD!!!! How in the hell he managed to convince his parents that it would be a good idea to have 2 18 year old Australian's come stay I'll never know. Can you just imagine how much he would have talked that up at school (yes he was still at school!)

So anyway we spent a lovely Easter with him and his family, they took us sightseeing and skiing and took us to the place that 4 USA states meet.

Seriously though, how dangerous and stupid was that?

Never in a pink fit would I allow my child to do that now, I guess we just got lucky.