Just wanted to reach out to my PC friends for support in the week ahead. My relationship with my partner is finally properly ending and within the next few days I'll be alone for the first time ever as an adult, really. I accept that the relationship is over, but there is massive loss and sadness. I'm also having a lot of judgemental thoughts about myself and how poorly I functioned in the relationship, and am feeling really hopeless about the future. My aim now is to handle the ending with as much self-respect (and control!) and grace and gentleness as I can, so we can keep the considerable good feelings there still are between us.

T is being fab. It was my birthday yesterday and we had a special happy session the day before. She gave me a card and a lovely blanket I'd asked for as well as a more grown up present. She told me a story of spending her one morning off going with her little daughter to four different shops to find the 'perfect' blanket, and her daughter choosing a present too. I love that I can literally wrap T's love around me , and it's been especially comforting as I've been really ill this weekend and have had to spend it in bed. It felt really important that it was so different from the disastrous birthday I had with her a year ago. I feel like we can properly draw a line under that now in a way we couldn't before...

She has stayed in contact today although she doesn't work on Sundays. When I asked her, she told me about her previous partner who left her after 5 years, and that she's glad now. It helps to hear that, because she now has a lovely husband and daughter, and in the past I've felt very jealous, seeing it as her having what I have lost. It feels very different, knowing that this is what she gained following a similarly huge loss. I'm going to try to cling to the hope in her story, and probably cling to her too.

Do please send any spare love my way in the hard weeks ahead. Thank you my friends