Dear all,
I came back from a week in the UK on Friday. I was in Lewes to train as End Of Life Doula with Living Well Dying Well. If you haven't heard of this organisation but are interested in what they do, it is worth checking out. Anyway, I decided that I would have the weekend to myself. This is something I don't normally do, I prefer keeping busy, but I felt so tired from being in other peoples' energies all the time and knew I needed some quiet time to let it all sink in and to recharge my batteries.
What happened, of course, was that I started thinking of Paul. I was standing in our bedroom this morning and was thinking of him.
In May of this year, he will be gone two years. It is difficult to believe that so much time has passed. In one sense, it feels like a lot longer. In another sense, it feels like very little time has passed.
I asked myself: Do I miss Paul? That's an interesting question because, on one hand, I feel of course I do whenever I think of him or of us together or about him but, on the other thing, I was stunned to feel that this doesn't happen with the same pain as it used to happen before. I can now think of him fondly but without the deep pain of having lost him. And when I sit on the couch or lie in our bed I don't suddenly think of him and wish he was beside me. It's only when I make myself think of him that I then feel oh yes, of course I would love him to be here with me.
I also became aware of how quickly everything happened. In 2009 we met and fell in love. In 2010 I moved to Ireland to be with him. On two occasions Paul broke up with me between 2011 and 2013. I won't go into the why and how here but let me just say that it was because he was a troubled man, suffering with depression and a lot of self-doubt and certainly a fear of belonging, whereas I was eager to be as close as possible, to have commitment and to get married as soon as possible. In early 2014 we got back together and he proposed to me in autumn. We got married in 2015 and started looking for a house. We found our dream home in early 2016 and were able to move in in June 2016. 2015 was the year when Paul retired. In 2016 I changed clinics so that I had more flexible working hours and wasn't working too far from home so we were able to spend a lot more time together than we had previously been able to in our new home. And then, just as we had settled in and were so happy with everything, his cancer spread. From moving into this house to Paul's death we had a little less than two years. From our wedding until his death a ittle less than three. We really had so little time.
And then the thought struck me as it sometimes does: I am still so young, only 37, and I have so much of my life ahead of me - and it is going to be without him. That is so very sad and sometimes, though not today, it frightens me a lot. During the Doula course we had to go through an imagination process where we had to reflect on what we would like to have when we die, what we would this situation to be like, whom we would want to be with us, etc. I found this very difficult to do because the person I would want to be with me when I die is Paul and I then realised that he will not be with me when I die. It's scary. There was a time, shortly after Paul's death, when I felt it would be so lovely if I could die myself and didn't have to continue life without him. But I don't think that anymore. I do want to life, but I sometimes just don't know how, I mean, I can't look into the future and feel positive about it because I have absolutely no idea what it is going to be like.
I think I will go for a short walk now. It is very cold and sunny here in Dublin.
Love and hugs to everyone,
Mel.
