...I'm seeing J tomorrow (fingers crossed!) So deciding that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach I'm about to go and bake a belated chocolate birthday cake! OK so it's from a mix but he won't need to know that! Wish me luck... :-)

Afternoon all!

Yesterday evening bombing down the motorway back to London, I realised that a year ago, at the end of last Easter, I was also bombing home down a motorway. What made me remember was the sunset, it was identical. But what struck me was that pretty much nothing else in my life is the same since that journey a year ago. I have a new house, job, city, car, boy, friends etc. OK I have had to deal with a lot of rubbish too, stress, losing people I love, relationship angst etc. But when I got home and read the very first post I wrote on here, almost exactly a year ago, the over-riding feeling was that on balance, life is better.

So - my challenge to you all!

Go back to your blog and find a post on or near to 25 March 2007. If you haven't been blogging that long then just go back to your first post. Think about how things have changed since then. Yes some changes will be for the better, and there may be some you regret. However I want you to focus on the positive and list three things that are better in your life now than they were back then.

I'll set the ball rolling...

1) Moving to London has meant a better job with better pay and all that entails - credit card cleared off and a trip to Sydney just some of the highlights.

2) At the end of last year I had a row with some of my old 'friends'. At the time it seemed a disaster but now looking back it was for the best because ever since then my life has been a lot less stressed without them in it!

3) Now I've turned 25 I think I've had a bit of a quarter-life revelation. Dare I say it I've started to grow up? I have a greater clarity of what I want from life and I think making the move south has given me the confidence to go out and get it.

Of course there's plenty more I could say but for now I think it's your turn...

My car's been broken into, grrr! Good news nothing was taken (I wish I could have seen the wannabe thief's face when he realised I keep nothing of any value in there), bad news is I was meant to be going home for Easter but now I am sitting here waiting for AutoGlass to turn up! Dammit, I was looking forward to my mum's home cooking!

In other news... It would appear J and I have reconciled. I say 'appear' because we all know what happened last time - he said things were fine then the next morning I got that email. So, I am keeping this news to myself (apart from all you lovelies reading this) until after the Easter break and I have seen him again and I am sure that we are 'on'.

I would give you the story of how it happened but this part of me that's saying 'don't count your chickens' is telling me to keep it quiet, at least for now. Suffice to say that it was at the point he told me that he'd even spoken to his friend T about how he's missed me this week, that I started to let myself feel that yes, he might mean it this time. But at this precise moment, I am still on my guard. Let's see what happens.

In the meantime, I wish you all a restful and happy Easter break

...After dinner!

J's just called to say he's not sure about things and that he doesn't think I have the extra thing that makes him want to be in a relationship with me as opposed to just friends.

He said this last night on the phone and I went round and we talked for hours about everything, him being worried about the job, we even talked about what I put in my post the other day about how I'd been feeling vulnerable. We ended up saying that now we'd got it all out in the open we'd start afresh with a clean slate. We were going to go out for dinner tonight.

However he has just called me to say that he is not really sure after all. That the excitement that was there to begin with has gone and that there's nothing there to replace it. I tried to say that once everything settled down with the job etc that other feelings come to replace it but he said from past experience if they weren't there now they'd never come.

I said why were you saying the things you did last night then, you said I should be optimistic. He said that that was the thing, that when he's with me he has a great time and we get on well but then when we're apart he starts to doubt things.

So there we go.

I'm staying late at work tonight - I have 400 words left to write for my next essay (I'm doing a masters) and there's no chance I can get it done at home as it's like Piccadilly Circus back there!

Have just spoken to J - he had two second interviews for a new job today - however they are both on the South coast. He sounded so enthusiastic about them; he has an interview with another company in London on Thursday but I don't think he really likes the sound of the firm (or the idea of staying in the City). From my point of view, it's hard to believe that he is now definitely almost maybe moving out of London. He's told the South coast firms he can start on Monday 31 March. Well I know when we first started dating it was always a 'maybe' but it seemed so far in the future! It's looking pretty definite now though...

J came back from his holiday today. I met him at his flat and he was shattered; 13 hours to get back from switzerland is no mean feat! So we spent a couple of hours together then I headed back home because I have work tomorrow and I am shattered too.

Friends will have read my private posts about my 'concerns' over the last few days. Some seemed important, some less so. And having seen him tonight, I wondered not for the first time, what the hell has made me, a 25 year old woman, so terribly and sadly insecure that even when I have met a guy as wonderful as J, I start finding problems where there are none, and picking holes where there are no loose threads. I think the answer is that the first guy I ever fell for used to cheat on me and spin me a load of lies to cover it, and me being naive and young, fell for it all. But then I felt so stupid and foolish when I realised what he'd done. Subconsciously I decided not to let a guy hurt me like that again. What did this mean in everyday life? Well since then I have always been on the defensive; questioning, checking up, not believing them, analysing every little thing.

Whether it is right or not, J is the first man I have met since then who I feel I don't have to test. Every question I ask him he gives me a straight answer, not sugar coating it but just giving me the truth. Every time I have asked him to do certain things for me (perhaps as a secret test of trustworthiness), he has done it. Basically he has passed every test. He has broken down the barriers that I put up around my heart. Tonight I realised that the time has come for me to stop playing these games and handing out these tests. Somewhere along the last few months I think I have grown up. I have got here an incredible man who I think would be able to enrich my life in ways that have never happened before. So I am going to take the bold and scary decision to open my heart to every vulnerability and see where it takes me. As of tonight the games have stopped. I could never explain this to him, but if I could write him a note I would end it with these words:

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

W.B. Yeats

Who'll be lucky number 100?!

In other news... J has gone for a week's skiing holiday with a load of friends. Just wondering how often is fair to expect contact?? I guess this week will be a good litmus test to see if/how much we miss each other? Oh and he saw his parents on Thursday and told them "all about" me, so I guess the next step will be meeting them! Aaaarghhhh

Have a good Monday all....