Monday Blues

It's Monday morning. 16th February - my niece's birthday and she has come to visit for the weekend with her boyfriend. It's been fun to have them here although I am feeling slightly jaded from the effort of keeping up with them on the drinking front. The empty bottles stacked by the fridge in the kitchen tell me that we had a bottle of Champagne, 2 bottles of red wine and half a bottle of Port last night and that was after a visit to the pub where Bloody Marys were consumed. I mean, really. You would have thought at the age of 55 that I would have learnt by now... Never... Ever move on to Port at the end of the evening. What was I thinking? However, it was fun and it's lovely to have the house partially full of young people. I went to bed on Friday night to the sound of both of them singing Hamilton show tunes to each other.. It was really sweet and slightly unnerving at the same time! They've gone for a walk now and are off to discover the delights of The Hidden Hut so the house has been plunged into silence once again.

Uurgh!!!

It is in this silence I now sit pondering, not for the first time since Oli died, exactly what it is that I'm going to do. I feel that I am coming into a position where it is time to consider how I am actually going to spend my days.. what is it going to look like.. what am I going to do? I can't just do nothing for the rest of my life. I've spent nearly the last two years reeling from the shock and horror of Oli's diagnosis, caring for him and then grieving for him and now, whilst I am by no means over that stage yet, I do feel that it's time to do something... have some kind of structure and purpose or adventure, but I have no idea how to do that and what that will entail. I can't just be a grieving widow the rest of my life, sitting here gazing out of the window at the sea. I want to do something. Ideally, nothing to demanding, you know, I don't want to rule the world... or rule anything, actually. I don't feel the need to set the world alight or prove anything to myself.. I just want to feel like I've got a purpose. Bizarrely, I also worry about having Mary, my dog. I find myself wondering how I'm going to juggle a job and a dog and who is going to look after her when I have to go away rowing. Suddenly, the responsibility of solely owning a dog seems a lot larger than ever before... which then sends me into a spiral of worry about whether I'm worrying too much and maybe my life is getting so small that I'm obsessing over ridiculously stupid things... fuck.. is this what my world has become? It's Monday morning and I'm worrying about how to look after a dog I've had for seven years and whether my life will ever have purpose and meaning again?? I mean, Jesus... as if grieving for the love of your life isn't enough... now I have a tiny life with no meaning as well.. shoot me now. I'll soon loose the totally ability to talk to people because I will have absolutely nothing to say.. in fact, thinking of it, I've kind of lost that ability already. Without sounding like a cliché.. I really need to get out more before I become a complete dullard.

In other earth shattering news, I've decided that I am no longer going to post the fact that I've posted in this blog on social media. I write because it helps me. I find it cathartic and helps me process how I'm feeling. I also want to keep it as a diary of my journey through grief. Everything is so alien to me now - a life that I once knew inside out and back to front, where I felt safe and loved and happy is, all of a sudden, strange, scary and lonely. Everything is an effort and an uphill struggle. Things that were once joyous, now come frought with doubt and insecurity and I know I will look back on this time and think 'how the hell did I get through that stage of my life?' and this blog will serve as a reminder to how I did. It's for me and whilst I know that a lot of you enjoy reading it, which is lovely, I don't want to give the impression that I am somehow parading my life in front of you, shouting 'look at me! look at me!' I will continue to post on the blog and people are more than welcome to log in and read whenever they want although I am sure numbers will dwindle and people will forget this is here and move on... and that's absolutely fine. I used to keep a blog when Oli and I first moved to a derelict mill in 2009. I loved the blog and it got quite a following. I went to go and find it on the internet the other day but unfortunately, I think it's been deleted. It's a real shame, as it would have been lovely to read it again, especially now Oli is gone. If anyone is reading this and is an I.T. genius and knows if I can somehow dig it out of the rubbish bin of the internet, I'd love to get it back if I can. It had loads of photos on it too that I no longer have access to, so it would be great if it's possible.

Anyway, that's it for this Monday morning. Anxst, grief and regret are quite enough for this early on in the week. Let's see what the rest of the week can bring!