I passed.

Saturday afternoon. My Princeling has been at his friends overnight. Last nights zoom was dead. Only my friend in New York was on. We spent a couple of hours chatting one on one, then I went to bed.

I awoke just after ten this morning. It made a nice change to actually be up in the morning. I decided to take advantage of it and enjoy the quiet of an empty house, so here I am on the sofa bashing out this drivel again. At least it’s not because I’m hugely depressed. I’m still depressed, just not as a deeply as in recent times. The thought occurred to me yesterday that I haven’t properly cried for quite some time. I don’t know how long for though. It feels like weeks, now I think of it.

It’s the Queen’s Jubilee bank holiday weekend. Extra time off for all. I’m not anti or pro Royal, but I’ll certainly take the time off. It’s been dry and warm for the last few days so I hoovered the grass. It was so long I had to do it twice. Even now, whenever I’m cutting the grass, I’m always thinking about how My Lady loved watching me do it while sipping from a Long Island Ice Tea in the summer. I had planned to attack the weeds too but I didn’t have enough motivation to go that far. It’ll need doing this week though.

I’ve been doing the usual chores all weekend. Still, every moment doing housework, I’m constantly thinking about the gaping hole My Lady has left in our home/life. I wonder if that will ever stop? Housework isn’t exactly fun anyway, but with the added memory triggers, I find it bordering on traumatic at times. Especially in the summer. It’s not as if there’s anyone to appreciate it now though. My Princeling has no appreciation of these things whatsoever and creates a mess wherever he goes. Ninety nine percent of my housework is clearing up after him. Sometimes I can’t help resenting it. Regardless of having just turned eighteen, he is still just a kid though. How do I get it through his head that he can’t just leave EVERYTHING lying around? I don’t want to be overbearing and bang on about it either.

I had my review for the completion of my probationary period in my new job. I passed with flying colours it seems too. “I can tell that you give it everything every day.” The fact I’m punctual always helps too. I hate being late for anything. There no excuse for it, barring emergencies of course. It’s just rude. You’re telling the person you are late for that your time is more important than theirs. Regardless of whether you feel like it is or not, you just don’t do that. Aside from being bad manners, it’s stressful. So anyway, work are happy with me and even gave me a small pay rise into the bargain. Not enough to give up my second job, but it’s recognition if nothing else. Not that I want to give up my vaccination work of course. To this day I would love to do this work for a living. Maybe one day I could do something with my healthcare qualification’s and skills. It would be a shame to waste them.

Fast forward and it’s now Thursday. I’m super tired today. I stayed up to watch Robb and JMac jamming. I also got a little drunk. A lot of us were up and watching the show. It was almost like a Friday night.

The last few days and weeks have flown by. It’s Sunday. I’m currently sat in my vaccination pod at the Ding centre. The above was written some time ago. I’ve been so busy with work and music projects, this blog has dropped down my priority list. I’m not sure how I feel about it now. I’ve been writing here for over two years now. Over 105 thousand words so far. I doubt I’ve written that much in the last ten years. Originally created as part of my therapy, the intention was the be able to express my grief publicly, but with my closest not being able to read it. This is why this is an anonymous blog. Obviously none of the names are real.

It’s fast approaching midsummers day now. My Lady and I were hand-fasted on midsummer’s day 2008. My granddaughters birthday is the day after and I’ll actually be going to see her this time. I’ve not been a particularly good father/grandfather on and off over the years. For shame. Everything that’s happened in the last three or four years has taught me how important it is to cherish your loved ones while you have the time. You don’t know how long you will have. (Believe me). I’ve been trying to make more effort with everyone. As ridiculous as it sounds, this is not a simple thing for me. I have to train my brain to think about this on a regular basis. I’ve got so used to not checking in with people, some have stopped keeping in touch, understandably.

To this end, I drove to the other Mouth to see my youngest daughter yesterday. We have hardly seen each other for years. When I split from Ms Poison, she went out of her way to stop me seeing the children I had with her. To the point that I would take a hundred mile round trip only for Ms Poison to either be out or pretend they were out so I couldn’t see them. In the end, going down there was utterly pointless so I gave up, sadly.

Of course their mother just HAD try and poison their minds about me. I found out that she told my son that the only reason I stopped coming was that he was too much of a handful. I was disgusted. The poor boy has carried that around in his mind for years and I didn’t even know.

It’s now Sunday and I’m back at the vaccination centre. Low numbers again. I’m teamed up with a guy I’ve worked with many times. We get on really well. It’s made the day go a lot quicker and more pleasantly.

Today is Father’s Day. My Princeling was a little annoyed at my working today as he wanted to treat me, bless him. Normally all I’d want to do when I get home from a vaccination shift is eat and go to bed. Now he is eighteen, we are going to the local pub for a drink and he is buying.

The Canadian Grand Prix is today and even in the dry, it’s usually a good race and it’s likely to be a wet race. Qualifying was wet. I’d have to stay up late to watch it though. I don’t think I could cope with another late night. When I’m really tired, I make errors at work. I missed entering an NHS number for a patient today. I was so angry with myself. It was all fine in the end as I found the missing patient and my colleagues were lovely about it.

While taking a walk in my break, one of the shops were playing one of My Lady’s favourite songs. Not what I needed at all. Cue minor trigger. Still, after all this time, I struggle to cope with the triggers when I’m tired. It makes sense of course, but it pisses me off, especially when I’m at the vaccination centre. One of the reasons I’m good at my job is that I have a smiley happy face/personality, regardless of whether I’m faking it or not. The good old reliable “I’m fine.” mask has served me well over the last two years. Even when I’m feeling griefy I can still put the mask on most of the time.

Monday: I played guitar for a while last night. My fingers weren’t behaving at all. Even the old songs I know inside out were poorly played. It was too late to watch the Grand Prix so I went to bed. It’s sunny and warm today so hopefully I’ll get some garden work done after work. I need to chase my mental health team today. There’s only so much playing guitar and gardening I can do to keep my sanity in check.

My soul is tired. Very very tired…

I miss My Lady so much…