Another chance

This Sunday (15th) was our one year anniversary.
Who knew our relationship would make it to this milestone? And the best thing about reaching this point? We can start reminiscing!
So, here we go:
One year ago i wrote my first post. I was stuck in a job which just about paid the bills but ultimately made me miserable. I had no time and no energy to do anything but work and go out (to try and forget about work).
One year on, i'm completely broke, almost maxed out on borrowing power- but happy. Not only have i found an outlet for my thoughts here, but i have brought one of my other projects to stage one of it's life.
At this point, i still have no definite idea about how i am going to earn from now on. But i needed this space.
I'm even talking to people about collaborations! Me! Me who has always worked away on her own and thought that working with other people meant losing that all important control. I'm going to do a project with a friend who is a dancer, choreographer and writer. I'm also talking to a friend who is a DJ about making a film. Watch this space for further details.
It's bizarre. Even though i'm in the least stable position I've been in a long time i feel strangely assured that everything is going to be fine.
I also realised something massive about my emotional/relationship life. I have realised that everything i have done in this area in the last thirteen years has been a form of self-punishment. This seems incredible (how could i have been doing this for so long?)
Thirteen years ago i terminated a pregnancy to a totally unsuitable partner. I absolutely knew i could not have a child with that person. Not a shadow of a doubt, that would have been a disastrous move at that point in my life - just finished university, substituting my first part time teaching job by working in retail. He treated my pregnancy like an occupational hazard. There was no need for debate.
I ditched him, he was angry, it was ugly, but worst of all, i felt as though i had killed someone. Depending which way you look at it, maybe i had. My friends that didn't go to university were getting married and having children. I consequently embarked on a single-minded quest to pursue relationships with men who either could not or would not be with me in any real way.
This revelation, the common factor in my messy history has only come to me in the last month or so.
I want to say, not for anybody else's sake but my my own, that i forgive myself. I forgive myself for the decision i made in those circumstances. That impossible decision that lurks somewhere in women's minds if not directly then through our friends, our mothers, our sisters lives.
I'm not a bad person. The reason i have not manged a relationship in the last thirteen years is because i have forgotten how to be nice to myself. i do remember what it feels like to be loved and i acknowledge that it scares me. I love passionately but most of all i deserve and look forward to being loved in return.