Pendulum

I'm swinging back and forth between intense anger and intense grief.  Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock....BOOM!  The emotions are big and yes, intense. It's not even really a rollercoaster, it's a pendulum, one extreme to the other.   There's a photo of the three of us taken last Christmas pinned to the fridge with a magnet.  Wednesday was an angry day so I turned it over. I didn't want to see him grinning at me every time I went to get milk for my tea.  

Anger was triggered by a rainbow. Yes, a friggin' rainbow. I was walking to school for Oliver's year one Christmas concert and as I got there saw it. A lovely beautiful rainbow appearing to end at school.  F off Mark. You should be here to see this, not sending me a rainbow. I wanted to scream.  But once again reset my face, put on the smile, joined the queue of excited parents and made small talk about how nervous we all were that our child wouldn't say their lines.   It was wonderful, I was grinning from ear to ear under my mask and clapped and gave him a double thumbs up from the both of us.  I shouldn't have to, but I did.  Because that's how life is now, a long litany of 'shouldn't have to's and trying to be two parents in one.  

No wonder I'm exhausted, 

I've hardly slept since Saturday. Every time I close my eyes I see myself putting his ashes in the ground. It's horrific. I'm wondering if I'm suffering PTSD, Maybe it's just to be expected.  Either way I'm doing everything I can for myself, I'm on the tablets, I'm having counseling, I'm "being kind to myself" whatever the hell that means. 

I'm celebrating my little wins, I ordered a new front door yesterday! My first proper, important grown up decision made alone.  Considering two weeks ago I was agonising over what mattress to buy Oliver, I'm pretty darn impressed with myself.  We will gloss over the two hours I spent yesterday panicking I'd made the wrong choice.....that's what being kind to myself looks like for me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Checking in with myself

 My counsellor is on holiday this week and I'm away next week, so I'll be missing 3 sessions. She advised me to take some time to check in with myself and see how I am doing, as I usually would with her.  Because I find that if i just think it, the thoughts stay in my head, I'll write them down here.  That approach forces me to be honest with the people who care enough to read this, as if you ask me directly I am likely to say "I'm OK".  It has been an up and down couple of weeks. Well, when isn't it? Life has been ticking along as it does, we are mostly into our groove now, Oliver and I.  It's the school holidays and we are enjoying spending time together.   Considering in the early weeks the weekends felt long and daunting, this is great news.  We have had a couple of events that hilighted Mark's absence. Our 15th wedding anniversary passed by quietly, because I made sure it did. I took Oliver out for the day and kept busy. I braced myself for a...
Read more

What would I say to her?

A Facebook memory came up today, a picture of me at Christmas 14 years ago.  My first thought - wow she looks young was s quickly followed by the realisation that the picture pre dates the toughest decade of my life.  ' She ' isn't ' me '. She is untouched by grief and loss. She hasn't felt betrayal or abandonment. She is a newly wed with no idea that she will bury her baby and her husband before middle age.   I wondered what I would say to her if I could go back and visit her?  Would I tell her of the unspeakable grief she had ahead of her? No.  I would let her keep her innocence as long as she could.   I think I would tell her to believe in herself more because she is a warrior.  That life is short so seize every opportunity.  To make plans but hold them lightly because life so rarely goes to plan.  Talk to God more, lean on Him because He knows she's really going to need Him. To care less about what other people think of her. B...
Read more

On identity and belonging

 I've been feeling a little unsettled. Adrift. Unanchored? A planner without a plan....well, I have a loose one.  This week I left work in the NHS after 15 years, 14 of them at the same trust.  The same amount of time I was married.  As I removed my name plate from my clinic room door for the last time, I sat and looked at it for a while thinking about the fact that I don't identify as Mrs Townend any more.  I will never again say the words "Hello I'm Sarah Townend, one of the lead optometrists here"....and I feel relief about that, because that isn't who I am.  But who am I then? I don't feel I belong with the Townends. I don't feel a part of that family now. When we visit them I don't feel relaxed like I'm with family, I feel reserved and closed off,  I'm wearing a mask for them.  I don't feel like a Mrs, because I'm not a wife.   That may surprise some, I know a lot of widows still consider themselves married to their late spouse...
Read more