Friday April 20

Yet again, always evolving, learning, growing, I have moved on! Finishing my book has given me a new lease of life, energizing me from the inside out, and all thanks to me! I can’t rely on others to manufacture my reality, Stuart has proven that. No – it has to come from that warm loving glow within. And it has! I’ve said to myself – thank you Dimity! Thanks for being so you. And now, like my mythical heroine, I’m poised at the beginning of a great new adventure, as an author, and public speaker, reaching out to the world, sharing the love.

Let me recap – there have been a few loose threads that needed urgently tying up. For example, my boss John persisted in believing that he and I had… a relationship. True, when I was at my lowest, I did turn to John for friendship, but I made it completely clear that there were boundaries, that any intimacy between us was of a fleeting foolish nature, and that once I had repaid my financial obligations towards him, that we’d be back to a purely professional arrangement. This didn’t seem to be getting through to John. His hands would grasp at me at the oddest moments, clammy and inept. So I suggested he took a job in the South Island. Down in Dunedin, a very go-ahead city, and close to Invercargill, where he could look after his mother. Or… that I’d find it hard to keep certain embarrassing things out of his annual performance review. Success! He’s gone. We’re now looking for a temporary replacement until the board can appoint someone more appropriately qualified.

But the problems continued closer to home with Bonnie. Oh she was just unbelievable! Trying to push her way into the limelight of my book publicity with outrageous claims that she’d written half the damn thing! Now I know Bonnie is a victim of her hormones and that she’d burned down my house when her PMT got her uptight, so I can only guess what her menstrual cycle was doing to the poor bitch to make her so delusional. But it's always been there with Bon, a festering jealousy about living large like I do, about being my own fabulous person, making big changes, being up to date, wearing nice clothes, being svelte and attractive, having nice hair, sweeping away the old and embracing the new…

So I made Bonnie aware, in the nicest way, of how she risked personal ruin should she pursue her mad plan to gain unwarranted recognition at my expense, that frankly, it would be hell, that she’d be mincemeat. She came to her senses and is now sensibly towing the line again and doing nice things for me like flower displays, somewhat dated, but pretty in a modest kind of way. And I said to myself again, Dimity? Are you effective, or what?

But the thing that has most been nagging at me, and needing urgent attention, is this… baby… of Amber’s. I realized having spoken sharply to her the other day that it really was not the most sensible tactic – all I met with was sullen resistance. So I devised another much more compelling reason for her to reconsider just how devastating going ahead with this pregnancy would be. I took her out to lunch at a nice restaurant on Ponsonby Rd, and treated her like an adult, which she’s not. I praised her dancing, but in fact I loathe all that narcissistic wobbling-about. I spoke in convincing grown-up language. And I gave her a plane ticket to New York, as far away from my boy as possible, while planting in her so-called mind the tragic reality of how hard her life would be with a child. Well, with this particular child. I would make sure of that.

And you know what? Amber indicated that she would take my advice and seek intervention. I was so proud of her. I almost started to like her. But then I thought about it and stopped being so silly. Until that baby was gone from her womb, she was still a menace.

That’s when it happened. Arthur Short, perpetual victim and nincompoop, took it upon himself to… well, to delete me. I was simply going about my business in a harmless fashion, moving the rubbish bin from my drive, when he drove his rustbucket straight towards me. On the street, at speed, with no intension of slowing down. I leapt for my life! Never have I been so scared. His Rover roared past and smashed into a parked car. He was left unconscious, bleeding before his frightened daughters, a spectacle of impotence, inadequacy and rage. Stuart ran to help him, and kept him breathing until the ambulance arrived. I was left shaken in the gutter with skin torn from my hands and knees, wondering what on earth could have inspired such lunacy. How have I ever hurt him?

But there we have it. And Stuart? He’s gone. Off to Western Samoa to work with the health services there, doing medical operations on outlying islands, determined as he is to devote himself to the needy. Caroline is partly to blame for this witless development, but I don’t mind. Caroline had come to us at a time when we really did need her, and she needed us. She’s not to blame for Stuart’s bizarre guilt about being in the top income bracket. But perhaps this is a good thing. We do need time apart. We love each other, but it seems that we just can’t live with each other. And I’m so busy now! I’m juggling my two careers, but when the book is really selling, after my international publicity tour, I’ll devote my time to writing and speaking and touring and really helping people. You see, from being so respected in the field of Human Resources, I have all this wisdom! I’ve heard so many stories! And people really need to hear my advice. Besides, my publisher says I’ve invented a whole new genre…! It’s very exciting! Just think, would any of this have happened if I’d continued to live out in ghastly Kumeu?

Go well. And book is selling at $39.99. Easily affordable. Impossible to put down.

XXXX Dimity.