Thanks so much @genie and @michelle for your birthday wishes! I had a lovely day with my housemates and a couple of friends. Lots of good eating and heartfelt wishes! I find birthdays in the social media age a bit overwhelming so I turned off my notifications which was good cos it also meant I did not ruminate about my ex contacting me too much. She did – a really nice, quite substantive message. I resisted the urge to type a paragraph back and just thanked her. I felt how I expected after seeing it… momentarily good but also sad about how I what it may have been like spending it with her, if we were still together – in an alternate universe.

The good thing is that, despite the sadness, I didn’t really feel the need to suggest meeting up this time as like you say, I know it’s not the right relationship for me. I’ll celebrate this as progress! I also met up with a friend for dinner soon after I saw it so I didn’t dwell too much. Chatting to my friend about it was really nice – about a year ago she split up with her partner of 15 years, so had some good advice and was reassuring about my progress. We talked about the importance of self kindness on hard days and making the most of the good ones. Again, a fulfilling conversation I am not sure I’d have had without this experience.

Now just need to focus on being kind to myself, continuing to build up my existing friendships and making new connections. Overall, I am feeling positive about this. Thank you again for your kindness and advice! You really, really have and do help me, and one day when I am a bit further on in the process I hope I can do the same

@Michelle I will definitely share more about travel in another post soon. Your traveling lifestyle sounds wonderful!