I have tried to keep myself busy, to occupy my troubled mind. I spent last week making a bird table from an old wooden pallet, using tools that Tall claimed were his. In truth he was faster and possibly more skilled, but as the only machines we were allowed to use at school were the ovens and sewing machines, it is hardly surprising.
During the time that I waited for the glue and filler to dry the dark clouds descended once more. Thoughts of what Tall would have said heightened my sense of loss. I tried knitting, but I couldn't sit and concentrate.
I bought a second rainwater butt and installed it without Tall. I cussed the fact I hadn't checked the size and had to drill a different hole lower down and buy a different pipe to fit on the 'T' piece from the first.
I know I should be proud of what I have achieved, yet all I feel is empty. The current pandemic has me trapped within my four walls alone, the steps forward I had taken have been dashed away. There's no volunteering, no groups to attend. The reality of watching people talking on TV about getting back to normal once it is all over leave me recalling that my normal is exactly what I have now.
As you will all know, the last couple of weeks have not been easy for me. I will never know how much of my anxiety and depression was due to grief and how much of it was due to the pandemic, I suppose that having to be locked away alone was only ever going to heighten my sense of loss.
The grief is still with me, bubbling away at the back of my mind, but I realised that now the anniversary is over that I am setting out on a different year, a year of seconds. It will be interesting to see how I feel on our second wedding anniversary and my second birthday without Tall. The situation in the UK as regards the pandemic is still not good, so although the government in England has eased some restrictions, I'm going to try and stick to Scotland's advice and stay at home. The anxiety is here to stay for now.
So for now I will stay at home and watch comedy, make cake and try and work out where I am going.
The whole world seems to be trapped in the cobwebs of covid-19. People everywhere are caught up, unable to escape, unable to move. Even if their lives aren't touched by the virus directly, the effects of lockdowns and not being able to connect physically with family outside the home causes them mental harm. So although individual circumstances vary greatly, I am, in essence, not alone.
Right now the cobweb of grief is adding to my troubles, struggling with the empty chair, the mixture of memories of just how ill Tall had become and how brave he was, of how I should have saved him, even though it wasn't possible.
I have been trying to find at least one positive thing every day and posting a photo on Instagram. They're not award winning photos, just a snapshot of something that makes me happy, even if it is only for the minute it takes to post it.
Selfish, self-absorbed, self-interested. I wonder if by the time you have finished reading you will agree that I am all of them, think I am only partly guilty or disagree completely.
I am still sad that my much anticipated trip to Australia didn't go to plan. A friend asked me via email if it had helped with the grieving process for Tall, in some ways yes, but there was so much more I should have done. I know I should have been braver, more adventurous. It feels like unfinished business, as if there is something I should have done, but didn't. May be one day, when the world feels more settled, I will get back to finish my trip. I should think myself lucky I got there at all, but I feel cheated by the current pandemic.
The memory of Tall currently fills my waking moments and my dreams. I am trying via Instagram to find something every day this month that is positive. There has been a history of Mays being less than perfect. Illness and hospitals seem to block out the good ones and I need to try and alter that. I should be celebrating my daughter's birthday and that of Toni my faithful companion, not wallowing in sadness and grief and yet I am struggling.
My anxiety is really bad at the moment. I take Toni for a walk, but the noise of the cars passing makes me want to curl up in a ball. It sounds as if they are all revving their engines and driving ridiculously fast. I wonder where exactly they are all going and whether they even need to be out. Other people walking about, clearly not members of the same household, make me angry. Imagine how I felt at the conversation I have just heard. A mother walking with her two children, one about two the other four. I overheard her talking to her four year old, she said they would go home, have something to eat and then visit nanny for a couple of hours. I wanted to scream "how come you aren't obeying the rules? What makes you so different from the rest of us?" Like so many I long to hug my grandchildren. To play with them and be part of their lives once more.
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| Taken last May |
