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Malone wonders if she can learn how to check mate

I’m holding excess baggage, and not a holdall on a flight somewhere sunny. A blummin heavy load of relationship rubbish from my last one. (You know the one where I was dumped 7 months pregnant). Jesus when will I stop mentioning that!- See I just can’t let it go!

Sometimes my baggage takes me to the point where I’m concentrating so much on thinking about how to prepare for the end of the relationship that I cant actually enjoy the relationship. I’m all ready for the ending but totally unprepared for the actual good stuff. I’m worried I don’t know how to do this relationship business. I’ve watched my parents for 35 years; I thought I knew it all. I’ve read all the books. I’m scared. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to be pleasant to someone everyday! How to keep quiet when something is playing on my mind. How to not comment when something gets on my tits. Or at least say it without it sounding like an attack.

its like the Chess i played with my dad when I was little, he used to always win. So I learnt really well how to defend. I could defend my king against attack for hours. But win? I have no idea as I have no experience of what moves are required. If I did win it was probably by accident or I just wore out my opponent. I think I won a few times, probably on a Sunday afternoon when dad was hungover, or maybe he let me… finally! I really enjoyed playing though, I loved it, I loved the challenge, I loved the interaction, and having to think way ahead. I’m good at that. Too good. I think of all the bad things that can go wrong. In a game of chess that’s a really good skill, in life it prevents me enjoying things and push good things away. I worry I don’t know how to do this. I read books, talk to other people and I know I’m not alone, a lot of us feel like this. I try looking at people I know in sucessful relationships, I try work out what the key thing is that they all do. I ask, what is it that makes them successful? You know what I think it is? Just bloody getting on with it. Not listening to that voice that nags at me to question everyblummin thing. Am I so insecure? I thought I wasn’t! Until I’m in a relationship…Relationships just seem to show up all the cracks, the weaknesses, no wonder they require so much commitment. Committing to the development of oneself as a person, never mind anything else.

My boyfriend tells me its just a blip and I like him even more for this. He seems patient with my blethering. I read him this column out of respect, after all its in a magazine his mates read. He says I should write whatever I want to write, that it is beautiful that I can express myself so well, and that everyone should be more honest with expressing themselves. Oh damn. I like him even more. I’m never going to be able to dump him now. That’s just typical of him. The b*stard.