Dear John

while reading facebook tonight I came across this rather well written dear John letter.... It made me grin.

Dear John,

I think it's best to be honest about our feelings, don't you?

I would be lying if I said our relationship started off great, and that it's only starting to deteriorate now. It was never meant to be, let's face it. You basically pushed yourself onto me that night in November 2008, and no matter what I did or said you just kept on hanging around. It was pretty awkward. I tried to ignore it for a while, thinking you would turn out to be fairly harmless, but the situation really is getting worse and worse. It's past the point of awkward, and it's becoming damaging. I tried to break up with you last year, but you just wouldn't stop coming back. You even brought that guy Banks with you - and you always knew how much I didn't trust him! Look John, It's been three and a half years, and I want something more from my life. I think we're better off apart.

I know, I know... You keep telling me that you want to look after me, that you care about me. You want me to have a prosperous, healthy future. But John, actions speak louder than words. If you really loved me, you wouldn't be doing half the things you do. If you want me to be happy, and have a future of golden opportunities, you need to stop trying to sell my stuff, and trying to get me to buy it back from you. You need to stop making it hard for me to live on a decent income. You need to let me be well educated without charging me through the nose, so that I can make informed decisions for myself. You need to allow me to make my own decisions about my own future.

Also, my friends and family don't like you - I know that's harsh, but you've been pretty harsh to them actually. It's really embarrassing when we go out and my mates who are struggling to find work at the moment ask me why you're being stink to them. For someone who grew up in a state house, you have very little empathy for others in similar situations. You also have this really weird double persona that makes my friends distrust you - you act like you're everyone's best mate, but then you make out like you know better than everyone else and make really dumb decisions that put everyone at risk. Just because you won on the currency trading markets back in the '80s, doesn't mean you have a great mind for business. And you have got to stop promoting gambling. Some of my friends have gambling problems, and you're only making it worse by increasing pokie machines. I know you're really nice to your own friends, but if you want to be with me then you need to be nice to my friends too.

Oh - and don't think that I don't know where you've been when you come home late from "meetings". Like that time you went to America in 2009 - you acted all innocent, hanging out with David Letterman (I don't think I've ever been so embarrassed by anyone by the way), but I know you were actually there trying it on with those glamourous bankers. Those foreign corporate hussies will flirt with you, but they don't really like you - they just know how to play you while you fall over yourself trying to make yourself attractive to them. I know when I'm being fooled, but you clearly don't.

It's not me, it's you. I've tried reasoning with you, but you just don't listen. I want your bags packed and out of here by the time I get back.

Yours (no longer),

end of fertility

I have been thinking about my gynae appointment next week and how if we book a surgery date I will have an exact end to my fertility, I will know exactly when my last period will be, its a bit strange really. normally the end of fertility is sometime around menopause and no one can pinpoint that exactly unless you are using blood tests to map hormone levels, yet I will know exactly when I wont be able to have children anymore.

In someways its exciting, no need to worry about taking the pill, using condoms etc, but the idea of surgery is scary, and the recovery time is daunting, I have never had non emergency surgery.

so this time next Tuesday I will know what we are doing, will know if the plan is for surgery or not, I am not hugely sad about not having a uterus anymore, I don't see it as a defining factor in my view of my own gender (others may disagree), and I have finished having children, maybe its because so many woman in my family have had this surgery, so it doesn't seem to have much stigma attached to it.

D