Quick update before decides to die on us again. Longer chapter this time, hope that will make some people very happy :)

27 December 2006

I have spent my first Christmas on Cyprus. And it was a good one. George invited me to spend the holidays with him and his family, an invitation which I happily accepted, because Christmas just isn't a time to be by yourself. George's parents are both deceased, so the holidays are always spent at the house of his oldest sister, Tina. She's married to Stelios, and they have two little girls. Eleni is 10 and Kaiti is 4. Then there's his second sister, Katia. She's divorced and has one son, Kostas. And then there's Lena, who lives in Athens and always flies over for the holidays. She's not married and doesn't have any children. George is the youngest sibling, and always have to endure endless teasing from his sisters, which is very entertaining for the rest of us to watch.

Christmas was just as Christmas ought to be spent. It was all focussed on spending lots of time together, and it made me feel very warm and loved. I really enjoyed spending time with George's family. His sisters are such lovely women and they made me feel right at home.

On Christmas Eve we all went to church. Of course I'm not Greek Orthodox, but that didn't matter at all. The Greek church is open to everyone, and they're very inviting. It was a wonderful and new way for me to spend Christmas Eve, and I loved every minute of it.

Christmas day was spent in and around Tina's house, just eating, talking, and playing games. Here the children don't get their presents until 6 January, so we'll all have to come back to Tina's house for that. Sadly Lena won't be able to stay until then. She'll fly back to Athens after New Year's because of work commitments.

George really seemed to like having me around all these days. We all slept at Tina's house, because it would seem such a waste of time to drive home again in the middle of the night, only to return the next morning. On the one hand I liked the domesticity of it all, but it scared me as well. I'm not ready for any kind of commitment, and I really hope that George isn't getting his hopes up. I don't want to hurt his feelings, but for now I really want things to stay exactly the way they are.

I do suppose that you could call what we have a relationship, but I fear that he takes it a lot more seriously than I do. Sometimes I really hate the way I feel, and I really wish that the rational part of my brain could just take over altogether. But they're my feelings, and I can't switch them off, no matter how hard I try. George is so good to me, and I know that at the moment he is the right person for me to be with. Of course I wish I could be back home, there's nothing I want more. But I can't, and that's something I still haven't really digested properly. I so wish I could be with Harry. Rejecting him for fear of a bit of water cooler gossip seems so insignificant right now. It was stupid of me. But perhaps, in retrospective, it's better that it ended before it even begun. I can't imagine how difficult our parting would have been otherwise…

And this is exactly what I shouldn't be doing. I shouldn't ponder the possibilities of how my life would've been if things had worked out with Harry. In fact I shouldn't be thinking about him at all. I know I'll never see him again, and that's something I have to start facing. I can never go back, and I need to keep telling myself that, no matter how painful that is. I need to stop looking at the past, and focus on the future, because right now that's all I have left.

This will be my one and only resolution for the new year.

TBC