Snakes and ladders

I feel like I am back to square one, that all the progress of the last twelve months has been lost. The perfect storm of covid-19 was followed by May and it's constant "this time last year" moments. I knew it would happen, I knew I would weep for hours on end and long for Tall, but that feeling of being lost was heightened by being alone both physically and socially. May became June and the memories continued, but this year there was no birthday card, no present to open and there were no friends to help me raise a glass of bubbly on our wedding anniversary. 

The snakes haven't just been the expected ones, there are also all the ones related to covid-19, no volunteering, no groups, no support. There was a particularly unexpected one because I signed up to an online course. One area of support was meant to help me gain the confidence to get back to work and help me with the process. My link worker had been calling me weekly to find out how I was doing and he suggested I find a course to study online to keep myself busy, so I did. It was only after I had signed up that he told me that the course meant I had to exit the programme. I think it was that snake that did the most damage.

I spent a year climbing ladders, going down snakes, but generally feeling I was making progress. Now I feel like I am back to square one, I have no purpose, no reason to "live" and so I merely exist. My anxiety of leaving the house or using the phone is back and I find myself in a deep depression. 

Without Tall life is empty.

The terrible 'T's

The global pandemic and the measures to contain it have caused mental health issues in a lot of people. There will be many people who are grieving without having been given the chance to say goodbye, living with a guilt that their loved one was without family at the end. I can only imagine how awful that must be.

For me it has meant the terrible two 'T's, trapped and terrified. I feel trapped alone in the house. There are no phone calls, no family dropping by to wave through the window. All the connections I made outside have been lost, and the support services have abandoned me. I feel very alone. Everyone I know has somebody, a physical being to hug, someone to talk to or argue with, someone to interact with.

I tried getting out the house, tried walking a bit further to shop. My anxiety was off the scale. So many people outside, so many cars. The constant crossing the road to avoid those who had no intention of keeping their distance was mentally exhausting and by the time I got home I was in tears, terrified of the outside world. I am trying to be kind to myself, but it is hard. I hate myself for going backwards, I worked at getting myself to a place where I could travel to Australia, but all that has gone.

The anxiety inevitably leads to grief, the grief that I don't have Tall to hold my hand through these difficult times. Yesterday was the anniversary of his funeral, and I thought about him all day. I want to be strong for him, I want to be all the things he wished for me, but at the moment all I want is to be with him.

I have tried.

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.

A new year.

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 spider web.

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. 

Selfies

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. 

Taken last May

 

Only a week to go.

A week tomorrow I set off on my adventure and the excitement has turned to anxiety. I knew it would happen, I thought I could handle it though, but today I feel paralysed and terrified.

This morning I have woken up anxious about almost every aspect of the trip. Worried and sad about leaving Toni for so long. I know she is going to suffer with terrible separation anxiety and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm worried about leaving my daughter here alone, it's a lot of responsibility when you aren't used to the routine Toni expects. 

Then there is the growing crisis with Covid-19, what if I catch it on the way to Australia? I'm not particularly worried about my own long term health, chances are that I would recover, more the responsibility of spreading it without realising. All I can do is follow recommended practice and keep washing my hands. 

I am worried about the homesickness which I know I will at some points feel. I haven't ever been on a holiday without feeling "I just want to be at home" at some point. This time I have no Tall to share it with. No anchor to hold me from drifting into a morose state. I just hope my wonderful hosts don't take it personally, it certainly won't be anything to do with them. 

I won't let it beat me. Despite the crippling paralysis that it brings, I am going to push through the anxiety, hope we don't have another storm (today is the fourth weekend in a row with a storm warning), and I will make sure that next Sunday I am on that plane. 

My Shrek moment.

After my rant here yesterday I felt much better. I often wonder in the days that follow whether I should delete those posts that were a flash in the pan, a very quick moment of anger or sadness soon forgotten. I have mostly decided to let them stay. Yesterday was actually important in that it reminded me of how awful life with Tall's illnesses could be sometimes. Even if I should never have felt the way I did, the fact is that I did. The paralysing panic that I felt so many mornings, evenings and nights, the panic only relenting once I was on my way to see how he was for myself. Of course I should have been more trusting of the medical staff, but unfortunately events the very first time Tall was admitted coloured my reactions for every other admission. That very first time Tall was in horrendous pain, he had asked for paracetamol and five hours later when I arrived for visiting he still hadn't had any. The line was drawn and I never trusted the system again. 

Today I miss Tall because we are in the middle of a storm. A fence panel has already been lost and the forecast is that the winds will be here for another ten hours, who knows what else might go. I miss having a second pair of hands and a second opinion. As I type it I realise that the Tall I miss is the Tall that was fit and healthy. The Tall from before 2017, the one that put decking down with me, the one who could cut the hedges and take part in life. I'm sad that Tall had to go through two years of not being the man he wanted to be. The frustration he felt would make him angry and he was often sad, although he wouldn't admit it, he always wanted be be seen as the optimist. As time passes I am able to see the multiple layers of my grief for what they are. As Shrek would say "Ogres are like onions. Onions have layers and ogres have layers." Grief is like an onion too.

Emotional deja vu.

Late afternoon yesterday I got a message from my son Tigger asking if I was up to anything over the weekend (he wants something). I said no to which he replied, can I have a bed as I' doing something with my mates Saturday. So I said yes, and went upstairs to move my (empty) suitcase. 

He drove up straight from work, buying Chinese food on the way. We spent a pleasant evening enjoying our food and watching a box set he recommended (he isn't a great talker when it comes to his mom.) I do try making conversation, but I don't like sounding like a cross-examiner so my questions tend to be short and open ended. 

After a few episodes my bed was calling, so off I went and I was soon asleep. That was until 12:50 when my son sent me a message saying "I'm just popping out to help someone." Now I would like to draw the jury's attention to the phrase "popping out". When I woke at 7:30 this morning he wasn't back. The second I saw the door open and an empty bed I became a anxious, tearful wreck. I know that as a policeman Tigger faces danger every day. I know that I could one day get a call to say he is injured or even dead. Yet, even though I an at peace with that, him being "missing" from my house brought out feelings I don't want to feel.

I was taken back to all those worried evenings, and terrified mornings, when Tall was in hospital and couldn't text, too ill to let me know he was still alive. I would call the ward, but the phone was never answered. I would spend hours terrified until eventually Tall would manage to answer me in a brief moment of lucidity. I never, ever want to feel like that again. 

I know it is a problem in my head, but I don't know how to solve it. I managed to talk myself down this morning, my son is a grown man and not my responsibility, but it has still left me feeling fragile. I realise I cannot cope with anyone being here whose actions might cause me worry. My brain flies to what ifs the second I cannot contact them, or they are secretive about what they are doing or where they have been. An ex-husband who betrayed me plays a part in my anxiety, but in truth I recall feeling the anxiety on rare occasions before that. Is it my father leaving, even though I have no memories of him ever being in my life? 

No matter what the cause, until I find a cure, I don't think I can have someone living with me. I cannot cope with the uncertainty when they are late or go off without telling me where. I am a control freak.

Unaccustomed traveller

I'm the Good Cheer Pixie and I am NOT a frequent flyer. The fact is that until I met Tall I didn't have a passport, I had never been on an aeroplane. Over the first five years we flew five times. Once Tall was told he was ill we flew no more.

It is over ten years since I last flew with Tall by my side and now I am about to plan the biggest journey of my life, a flight to Australia. I have to confess I am "scared" of so many things. I was scared of getting to Heathrow Airport until I found out I can travel from Birmingham and only have to wait an extra hour at Dubai to get the connecting flight, I am scared of getting lost at the stopover airport and missing that connecting flight though. 

All the things that we organised together, the sharing of the responsibility, the packing and checking and double checking, that all falls on my shoulders. I am researching what I can, I have applied for my visa and looked at a hotel for when I arrive, it would be unreasonable of me to expect my hosts to drive to collect me at the ungodly hour I arrive, I don't have a clue how long customs will take. But, then I worry about getting to the hotel, will I be ripped off by the taxi driver who will know instantly I'm a foreigner, or am I being unfair judging all taxi drivers the same way? I am trying my hardest to be logical and calm, I am actually really excited at the prospect of visiting Australia, even if it is a teeny weeny part of it. The fact is, I know if I can do this, I can do anything, go anywhere (well obviously there are places I wouldn't go as a lone female).  

I worry that my hosts will get fed up of my endless silly questions about what to do before / during /after the flight, (they are far more experienced but as yet haven't emailed them a list of my silly questions).  Tall would have just known. I'm not sure whether he was:

           a) the font of all knowledge

           b) a good internet researcher

           c) blessed with the gift of the gab.

I just know he seemed to know EVERYTHING. How I miss that bravado and confidence. 

My answer to it all is lists. Endless lists of what I need to do, what I need to pack, a carefully orchestrated timetable with contingency plans. Well that's my plan, I just haven't started it yet!!

Abandoned

That is exactly how I feel. Abandoned by Tall. Abandoned by friends. Abandoned by the world. I could live with the friends abandoning me if I had Tall, but he isn't here to give me his words of wisdom. How I miss those words. I wonder what I have said or done to offend people. What did I do to drive them away?

My grief magnifies my insecurities like a magnifying glass with sunlight, causing sudden flare-ups of anxiety. The chain reaction of anxiety and grief, the one causing the other, until I manage to get a grip on one of them once more.  

 All I can do is get up each morning and hope that things will be different.

Say what you mean or mean what you say.

There are times when I doubt my own communication skills, I think we all do sometimes. A phrase that in my head sounds reasonable and inoffensive when read or heard by another suddenly becomes a point of argument. So it was on Friday. I said something to my youngest that was over heard by my daughter that has been staying, who was upstairs "packing" ready to leave. Said daughter came downstairs, said something angrily and then stomped back upstairs, not even giving me a chance to answer her accusations. In that moment I needed Tall so very badly. I needed someone to tell me I had done nothing wrong, instead of telling me to stop shouting at her for being rude. Like a wounded animal I lashed out in mental pain, my grief raw, red in tooth and claw. I sat on the sofa and sobbed. I rocked backwards and forwards, trying to get some relief from the moment I was in, a moment when all I wanted was to be with Tall, no matter where he is. 

My youngest went and spoke to her and explained what we had been saying. That her perceived "whispering" was probably due to me walking around the room. The truth is that if she hadn't been eavesdropping she wouldn't have misunderstood. She calmed down and I pretended everything was alright. It was only once I got home from dropping her off at the coach station that I allowed the grief loose once more. 

Today I wonder if what I have said to others might be misunderstood. Am I simply being over sensitive / paranoid / over thinking? I am always so careful to read and re-read my emails, my FB statuses and text messages, checking that the words cannot be misunderstood or cause offense, yet I still fall flat on my face. Is it me or is it others? Who knows. So to all those I might have upset unintentionally, or offended, something I would never do intentionally, I apologise. Like my school reports would often say about my handwriting "must try harder."
 

December 8th

As I sit here, feeling anxious, I wonder what I can do to change things. Yesterday I abandoned my trolley of shopping at the checkouts because the till I was already at told me I had to go to another as he was closing. I had been there before it was announced and the queues for the two tills still open stretched up the aisles. I couldn't face it, I just wanted to come home. Things are really bad mentally at the moment.

Billy is playing hide and seek with the X-moose. 


I found six of them in the attic yesterday, one for each child and one for a very dear friend who died December 2002.


 

Six months

It was around this time last year that Tall realised he wasn't ever going to get any better health wise, in fact he was only going to get worse. The cold weather was bringing on very severe bouts of COPD and some days he could hardly breathe. He knew he had to start getting his affairs in order, and we started to discuss what would happen to me when he was gone. 

Tall was optimistic about my future. He had so much faith in my ability to cope and would often say how as a strong person I would cope without him. He made plans for me. He would tell me that I needed to continue with the buying and selling, that there were people who would help me. He would tell me I needed to find love again, he couldn't bear the thought of me being alone, he said I had so much to give to someone and that they would be lucky to have me. In his head before he died he had my future mapped out and that gave him comfort, I'm glad that he died in peace.

Tall couldn't have known that the people he was convinced would help me would disappoint and betray him. We couldn't predict how I would be feeling six months on from his death, still lost without a guiding hand. Overly anxious about leaving Toni for more than a few hours at a time, trapped. 

I read something recently that struck a chord, "now is the time to find out who you are." I went from unwanted daughter (who caused the marriage break-up) to wife and mom, to single mom of five, to soulmate and still mom to five, four, three, two, one, zero. By the time the last one had moved out I was soulmate and carer. Now I am a widow, but I am also me. But who am I? I am still mom and also anneanne (Turkish for grandmother), but those roles are infrequent, which isn't a bad thing, it means my offspring are making their own way in the world. So after six months of being the widow it is time I started to try and find out who the Good Cheer Pixie is deep down.  She wants to be something that is impossible of course, Tall's sidekick, so it could be a long road of discovery. I hope that people are willing to offer me helpful advice along the way.

Damsel in distress

This blog is a place to rant and rave, a place to vent. If anything I say offends or upsets, I can only apologise in advance, it isn't my intention to hurt anyone's feelings. 

After years of feminist rhetoric I am supposed to say "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle", but the fact is that right now I need a man. If the truth be told I actually need someone, anyone or anything that can help me with the practicalities around the house. I can paint a wall, and at a push a door, but skirting boards are beyond me. The hallway has patches that need filling (thanks Tall) but I don't do ladders above a certain height, and definitely not ladders on stairs. The tap in the kitchen is dripping, but I don't know what washer I need, and I'm too scared to take it apart to try and find out. The list goes on. Helpful people say "get a man in", (everyone assumes it is a handyman), without thinking how difficult it might be for a lone female to invite a strange man into the house. 

Then there is the mattress. Our mattress needs its seasonal flip. I just about managed to top-to-tail it in June, but the flip isn't something I can do alone. "Get your kids to help you." Well I could, if they actually lived closer / were physically able to and I wasn't embarrassed by the state of the mattress. You see Tall was a stubborn man and refused to sleep on a waterproof protector. He was also ill. His low immune system left him vulnerable to stomach bugs, so along with his lymphocytic colitis, a side effect of his first SCT, there were times when he was caught short in his sleep. I did what I could to spot clean the small areas where the normal protector fell short, but the mattress was still marked. Sometimes despite him thinking his fistula had stopped bleeding, it would start again in the night. Tall's low platelets left him pouring sometimes, but they weren't low enough for the hospital to bother doing anything. Again I spot cleaned, but blood is a tricky foe. "Get a new mattress!!" Well I will one day, but for now I am comforted by being able to sleep on the bed Tall died in. I like to see the dip where he lay, and sometimes I lie in the hollow just so I can feel close to him. Yes one day I will buy a new mattress, but not today. 

I am a damsel in distress on many levels.

What have I been doing?

What a good question. 

I look around me and the house is a mess. I look in the fridge and there's nothing to eat, I haven't been food shopping in over a week. To be quite frank, I don't know what I have been doing.

I seem to spend my days sitting on the floor going through piles of things I should have sorted years ago. The dustbin is permanently half full and yet the cupboards, shelves and loft are still full. I find small mementos like a tram ticket from Blackpool and spend thirty minutes sobbing. Cards with Tall's handwriting, photographs meant for a passport and plane tickets. All very cathartic I'm sure, but I don't seem to be making any progress. Busy doing nothing, I only sit down to relax in the evening, when I realise I have left it too late to make a proper meal and find myself eating another sandwich.

The kitchen tap has started to drip, the panic grows with every "plop". The rain we have been getting has the gutter around the bay window overflowing, it clearly needs cleaning, the noise of the water on the window cill (sill) outside is like nails on a blackboard to my tattered nerves. The conservatory roof is leaking too, damaging the furniture I just put in there so that I could have an office space instead of a laptop on my lap. My anxiety increases with every new problem. 

Get someone to fix things? That would require me feeling safe. I know it it silly, but builders and the like make a mess. Even if it is just the packaging from the new part, they just leave it where it falls. I know it all sounds so silly. 

I am cross with myself for allowing things to get so bad. Just when I thought I was making progress, life has turned round and bitten me again. I know it is a cliche, but I need to win the lottery. Not a massive win, just enough to pay for the house to be altered and fixed the way I want it, while I rent somewhere else. Then enough to buy the new furniture to furnish it. Pipe dreams as I don't ever remember to buy a ticket. 

Bolt from the blue

Life didn't seem too bad last week, that is until Friday. 

On Wednesday I went to the running group and chatted to the same lady I has spoken to the week before. Certain members had obviously decided they wanted to make it more competitive, and overtook us, but we just looked at each other knowingly, once they had overtaken, they didn't actually make any ground on us.  

On Thursday I shouted at two teenagers who thought it was acceptable to kick my back gate, just because Toni was barking at them. I had heard them screaming and chatting outside the gate before they kicked it, and it was easy for me to go out of the front door and meet them as they came round the bend. 

Then on Friday the sadness hit. I clumsily reached out for help on FB, but the replies centered around my running, I hadn't even got the energy to reply to them. 

I thought my run on Saturday would lift my mood, but by the evening I was sobbing continuously. My sense of loneliness engulfing me.

I had hoped that after a good sleep I would feel better on Sunday, but I felt worse. The paralysing panic of being alone made it difficult to function, at even a basic level. As if to mirror my mood, torrential rain began at 4 in the morning and continued into the rest of the day. 

This morning I am about the same. I know I cannot let the panic that engulfed me take hold again today, but I feel physically ill. My whole body is heavy and my head "wooly" I'm struggling to string coherent thoughts together. I am in pain mentally and physically.

Big bad world.

At the risk of sounding a tad pathetic, I am currently struggling with the big, bad world outside my four walls. The whole political scene scares me, so much so that I have been putting my head in the sand. I feel so powerless and I certainly am not up to a "discussion" with those who think it is all going to be okay. 

It isn't just Brexit though. I find I struggle with lots of the things not in my comfort zone. I can shop for food and alcohol. I can shop online for a mattress, as I know which one to buy, Mike told me. I can just about manage to buy new shoes for myself. But, when it comes to less run of the mill purchases like a new laptop, I am paralysed.  Now, I hear you all say, "ask for advice in the shop." I can't, I am ashamed to say I don't trust what they might have to say. Generally speaking there is only one shop and that monopoly makes me nervous. It isn't like buying a car, half a dozen brands being sold independently, each salesman saying theirs is the best. A pile of brochures and a nice cuppa at home to weigh it all up. Trying to wade through specs online has my head in a spin and in the shop they are trying to sell you the one they have been told to push, the one that might possibly be an end off line or soon to be last year's model. I know when Mike was alive we would probably have been hoodwinked together, and that's the point, a mistake we both made was one we could cuss about and then laugh about. A mistake made alone is one that I know will become a stick to beat myself with. I still have quite a lot of work to do on my mental health.

So for now I will struggle on with my tired old one. The fan has gone and it has a habit of overheating, crashing as it's poor memory cannot cope. I have named it Lorna. :)