“Next Steps.”…

Got up at 9 yesterday. Finally getting into some kind of ‘normal’ sleeping pattern. Next steps were meeting at a local cafe at 10am. I honestly had no clue what to expect. I guess I kind of imagined a group of people all sat in a circle like an AA meeting! “Hello my name is **** and I’m grieving”. How ignorant I am.

Nothing of the sort. They just meet up more for company than anything it seems. Of course, being new I explained my situation to a few but not all and there was no pressure to do so. So I had a coffee and a bacon roll while I tried to shake my new found social awkwardness. One lady was particularly lovely and sat by me to explain what the group is about and what they get up to. There’s a whatsapp group and they hold quiz nights on Zoom. We carried on talking when everyone left as we are both sure we have seen each other before. Turns out she used to own an electronics company and given my work history, it’s highly likely our paths crossed. We just couldn’t nail it down. We were chatting til gone 1!

So a lot to process… Not only did I have anxiety about stopping the Wednesday Cruse drop in meetings, but physically meeting a GROUP of strangers really put me on edge. Can’t get used to that. I have always liked meeting new people in the past.

While talking to Mrs Electronics, I teared up a couple of times. Just for a mo. Once we were done, I went back to the car and flumped in the drivers seat and just burst into tears. Sat for a few minutes crying before I could get it together to drive. It had just hit me… Again… How young My Lady was when she passed away. How young WE were. All these lovely people have had, I guess, an average of around 20-30 years before they lost their partner. I got 13 years. Don’t get me wrong. I’m incredibly grateful for that and I don’t have any resentment towards anyone about this. I’m just so jealous. I’d give anything to have had 40 years with My Lady. All being well, (MmHmm…) we could have had another 40-50 years together. I have never seen myself growing old with anyone before My Lady. Together, we regularly imagined stories and scenarios about our wrinkly old age. My Lady would have been a beautiful ‘old’ Lady. Every year that went by, she just… Matured so beautifully if that’s the word.

So yet again I’m wallowing in self pity, randomly bursting into tears when I got home. Not the painful but not despairing cry I had got used to, which is for the most part controllable when I make the effort. This was back to the first month. Mental. I had convinced myself that I would not end up back there both as a result of my newfound strength and self belief but also the drugs. I realise now that in the last month or two, despite everything, I have kept it together mostly. It was really shit. Back to wringing my hands like a rabid lunatic, rocking back and forth, screaming and crying at the same time. It couldn’t last as fortunately the brain will simply not allow you to continue like that for too long. Thank the Goddess. “All cried out.”? That’s a thing, trust me. I just end up staring into space, eyes red, swollen,sore and dry.

As yesterday progressed, I started getting a pain in my left ear. That’s gone now but I have a constant ringing in my ears now and my left ear has half the volume. Great… Yet another health issue to get checked out. I know I said the the kids, “We all need an MOT” but this is getting silly. If we were rich I’d just get all three of us booked into a private medical centre and get every damn test and scan available. I pretty much sat in silence for most of the rest of the day. I realised I had had music on non stop all the time I was awake. The silence was deafening. Nice though. I had a lie down on the sofa for a bit. I literally never sit on the sofa any more. My Lady and I used to spend almost every night snuggled on the sofa watching ‘Crappy TV’… For years… Left to my own devices, I have never watched a lot of TV. I didn’t care what we watched, I wasn’t there for the TV. Even if we weren’t snuggling, just being sat next to her… I was home.

My Princeling just came home. With the cycling he is doing, plus the socialising too, he seems to be a a lot less stressed out. So we watched a movie together for the first time in I don’t know how long. It was lovely. Not as bad as previously, but the empty space on the sofa was constantly in the back of my mind. Once he was home, I turned my phone off. The emotions today have made me very insular (interesting, given I’m blogging about it!) and all I wanted to do was hide in my self pity bubble. I’d poked a few people during the day, but people have lives etc. I felt a bit needy which annoyed me. Poke… [please talk to me] ‘Well fine, I’m hiding then.’ Like a petulant teenager. I still want to hide today. I keep turning the phone off and on as My Princeling is out cycling again. I’d rather have it off but I’d stress so much if there was an emergency and he couldn’t contact me. This whole vibe is really frustrating. It’s all very well being the storm, but I always knew the ultimate test would be keeping it up. I don’t expect miracles either. I know there will be times where I can barely function through the grief and I already proved I can be the storm too. Two opposites, as far apart as is possible. Meh…

More later…

There was something relieving about having my phone turned off. For the first time, it felt ok to be on my own, in fact it’s what I wanted. Originally because of self pity but I wanted to be alone with that if that makes any sense at all. I guess if I can’t be contacted, I can’t be triggered… Maybe… As you see, it’s rather messed up.!