It has all gone. All those words.
I have got the playlist on but not what I wrote. What Now Widow?
I am oscillating between feeling sorrowful that they have disappeared and relieved to have a blank page even though they don’t really exist. A fresh start relies on a load of stuff having happened before it. A fresh start will always hold a whiff of the past.
So I have returned and I intended to have a read back of it all and a big restorative cry. Now that there will be less weeping at least I can see to type. Practically I am frustrated to go from a little work laptop to my big thing with the keys in the wrong place to where they have been for the past 8 hours- at least the delete is easily located.
Where did I leave off? Was I having a crisis? Probably. What I did have to do was get a job, otherwise there would be no nothing. So I did that. I tippity tap the day away. I do admin- it is not my natural habitat and I don’t want to stay in it; it must be done. The rest of the time I have been studying and having finished the first third of my Psychology with Counselling degree I can say that I still can’t confidently spell either of those words right on the first go. There are red squiggly lines under them as I type- surely the computer knows what I mean by now. I hid the blog. I was tired and I felt like once out there I could no longer trust that the text would raise no further questions. I say what I can say here and all the other stuff I keep for myself. I want to be read but retain some kind of mystery- there is no York Notes version available, no Q+A.
You can talk to me of course. You know that.
This year will be four years since Seb died. A moment and a lifetime. LP is now nine and she was five when he ended- now see how long ago it was? Nudging closer to half her life and beyond. It is only recently that I have been able to think about LP in those post toddler years- the most recent bits he was around for. Her babyhood seemed far enough back and the school years too near to recall without a thump in the guts. They talked to each other. Those two precious beings. He was thrilling in his presence, the plod of time with mum just the everyday. Now I am both things. The entertainment and the safety net.
I am back because I am not finished, grief is an everyday thing. I might be confident that it won’t consume me as it did before. I have got out of bed enough times for it to be a habit. I have done things that prove that I am living. I think only a few days in advance but I plan for many tomorrows. The hands that hold me up are still there, the family like an everlasting trust exercise. We are here.
If you are new to my writing you are joining something that is already well in progress and I have nothing to refer you back to. This is possibly for the best. I plan to get it all down in a book. I will tell you how it started and where I went. All the horrible things and then all the glorious things that are ongoing. Glorious things- life happenings that will happen to you when you can let them. They exist but I don’t think I’d have expected to be able to acknowledge them when the worst happened.
There were some things that I wrote that I’d like to see again, to prove to myself that I can do writing. I will keep writing and there will be someone to edit outside of me who can make sure it has meaning beyond my mind.
We still have the songs.
I didn’t know that there would be dancing once it was over, once it was ruined
I wonder when dinner will be ready? Will it be disappointing? I seem to go from being really good at making sure I am okay to eating nonsense and being able to count my five a day on one finger. I have hugely decluttered my space; that was another obsession that kept me going. I have spent the last couple of years finding safe things to be consumed by- things that give me other stuff to talk about. Being able to add to the conversation is key. More than death talk or how my body feels like rubbish. Here are my tips for controlling your environment to help you stop wanting to set it all on fire. Here is how I make sure there is more than beige in the freezer- the first step there is to do some shopping.
It occurs to me that we are all just doing this stuff and the things that stick should be the ones that set the spinning wheel turning, perhaps with boundaries to bounce off and keep going. You hit all the points and continue; you don’t drop off the surface. This is what I mean by the glorious things. We all need this stuff.
Remind me about that book won’t you? It will help.