I have had quite a few good days recently. I survived the festive season. I returned to work. I have socialised. I have shopped for the occasional treat. I have even eaten some spinach rather than a takeaway. Not that a single of these days has passed without some tears, but I have been functioning well. But life currently feels like the Goliath of grief is sparring with the tiny David inside me that feels more intensely alive and determined to live well than ever before, and the big guy is winning today.
I slept badly after too much wine (although drinking it with a good friend was enjoyable) and had an impressively Freudian dream. Fortunately it was therapy day and we discussed it but the session was hard, hard work and involved many, many tissues. For some reason, I thought that spending two days' wages on a cashmere jumper (even if it was in the sales) was a good way to recover. Exhausted and bearing my expensive carrier bag, I came home and went into a manic fit of tidying and cleaning. Some of the tidying involved putting yet more upsetting objects from other rooms into his bedroom and closing the door. All of it involved sobbing. What is the point of buying something nice when there's nobody to show it to when you get home?
Now I'm sitting on the sofa, exhausted, although at least my carpets are free of cat hair. I am going back to work tomorrow. I am going to wear the new jumper and put on blusher. I am going to bloody well survive this and make my life count or at least enjoy it because anything else would be an insult to his effort to survive as long as possible. And there is a kernel inside this pain which wants to grow and thrive, even as I feel guilty for still breathing.
But this evening I just really, really, really miss him. I'm just tired of learning and growing and processing and mourning and doing all this work of grieving. I just wish he was damn well here. I've got things to show him and questions to ask and some good things have happened that I want to tell him about. And I don't know what to tell the tiny me-person inside my head and heart who is still stunned and doesn't really understand where the hell he has gone. Other than that we'll put on our cosy pyjamas and have an early night, and do it all again tomorrow.
