Familiarity

This week has been one of the hardest of my life so far. On Monday, my husband moved out and after spending a whole day working, I helped him from 7pm-1.30am to move all his things. This in itself was an incredible rollercoaster of emotions, resulting in lots of wine with a friend and no sleep until 6am (being up again at 9am). In fact, this week has largely been about not much sleep, having had only 1hr between 6am and 7am this morning too. Really, I should be in bed right now I suppose and I'll go, once I've written this post.

Over the last few days, I have formed many posts in my head - on a variety of thoughts. However with everything that's been going on, sitting down and writing my thoughts onto paper (or computer screen), hasn't been at the top of my list of things to do. I decided that once I've had a week or so of the current situation, I'll write about how it feels now my husband has moved out, but those feelings are so up and down at the moment I'm not sure I could put it into words anyway.

So the point of this particular post was familiarity and how it effects your feelings I suppose. You know when you know someone really well, and you're used to their company, you understand how they think and their reactions to certain things... you're familiar with them. With this comes a comfortableness and of course a certain amount of feelings. Something I have noticed over the last few weeks, is that familiarity can actually cause a huge amount of confussion. The thing I am dealing with at the moment, is does familiarity effect the way you feel about people, can it make you think you have feelings, or possibly even love, when maybe its nothing more than that familiar feeling. How do you know? How can you tell whether its love or if its just something familiar, something reliable, someone you know and understand.

Right now I guess I'm a little bit scared of the future and what it might bring. The thought of starting a relationship from the beginning again (even though I have no intention of doing so any time soon - its something I will need to consider one day), getting to know someone again, it honestly terrifies me. Don't get me wrong, there are some lovely parts to the first few weeks of a relationship - the romance, the passion, being swept away in the moment. First kisses, first hugs, butterfly flutters in your stomach. All those things I miss from starting a relationship. But having to get to know someone, let them know you, explain how you work, what makes you tick, what you like and what you don't - all that makes me feel a little bit sick.

And sometimes, when I'm low, I wonder if it would be better to have someone than no one, to tolerate an average relationship, rather than nothing at all. Because what if every relationship ends up that way in the long run, what if that's what relationships are, that there is no happily ever after? In which case why go through all the looking again and the learning and the understanding.

Familiarity with a person, makes you believe you have feelings for them. How do you know if they are real or not? We throw around the word love so much but how can we tell when its love and how can we tell when its actually just being with someone who understands you and who life feels easy with, even if just for that moment. When you still experience the butterflies in your stomach, the anticipation of a kiss, the sudden urge to just be held... when you realise that you don't want them to leave, when you miss them when they're gone...

Is that love? Is that just feelings from the past emerging again? Or is it nothing more than familiarity, clouding your judgement and making you think its something more than what it is.

I don't know the answer to this. I honestly don't. I'd like to think I know myself well enough to know real feelings from something you're just wanting to cling on to - but who can be sure?

Familiarity does breed contempt, but it also breeds a lot of confusion.