Thanks for all the fish....

The time has come for me to step down from writing here at WV.

I am honoured to have been a part of this wonderful resource and to have felt the love of so many who have connected with me through this medium. 

It is hard to let go - this platform has been one of the most important ways I have walked myself through this grief.  I have shared my ups and downs with you and you, in turn, have let me know I am not alone.

I remember how I felt when I first started writing - I had been pouring my pain into my own blog when Michele asked me to write here.  WV was to be a different way of writing as I was no longer writing Letters to my Husband, but I was writing about myself, my life, my now.

Ultimately, that change in writing style has seen me more closely examine my own feelings and name them for what they were: desolation, depression, desperation, despair.

But in recognising how I felt each week, I have been able to track those feelings over time.

There are times when I still feel the dark, mawing pit seething in front of me, trying to draw me down into its cavernous bowels ..... but now, more often than not, I am noticing other feelings that outweigh them.

Last week I wrote about the happiness that has come to be part of my life.
I have raised my eyes from my feet and have seen that my life is not over: that I have to live because I didn't die.

I have felt the love of my husband continue after his death and this love has given me the confidence to make a better life for my children and I.  ....and that's what I have been doing.

..... and ever so slowly, this new life is taking shape.

It's not the shape I wanted my life to be, but it is new and different and a tiny bit magnificent.

So it is time for me to say So Long- and thanks for all the fish (because you all should know by now what a massive geek I am and I would just have to use a HHGTTG quote somewhere in here).


....and so it falls on me to introduce my replacement here on WV. 

Please welcome Stephanie to the fold and shower her with the kindness and understanding that you have given me.....

Stephanie was widowed in February of 2013 after her husband of nearly 14 years, Mike, had a heart attack in his sleep at age 59. Only 44 at the time, she has spent the past year obsessively writing about her husband, her grief, and the difficult task of recreating her future. Stephanie is originally from the Washington, DC area but moved to Hollywood after college to work as a special FX artist. She met her husband, who was a stuntman, there in 1999. They moved to Hawaii in 2001, where for four years, they ran a martial arts/yoga school. They closed the school when Mike got the job as stunt coordinator for the TV show "Lost". Stephanie worked as the personal assistant to a physicist for several years, and then - now, ever so gratefully - spent a couple of years in quiet retirement with Mike before he died. She feels it is the exact right time for her to start connecting with other widows, and sharing stories of grief and personal transformation. Her first post will be on May 1, which was the day she and Mike first got engaged in 1999.

Happy

There is a lot going in my life right now that I can't share here.  It's too personal.  But it's good.

What I can tell you is that I am happy.

I never thought I would ever meet this mystical beast ever again, but here it is, showing up in my day and making me smile for no good reason.

Not the legendary, mythical HAPPY that we all hear about in fairytales.

But the happy that comes from lifting your eyes from the floor and seeing that life is really not so bad.
OK even.

I have chosen to believe that my one-sided conversations with Greg are really two sided and that he is letting me know what he thinks and feels about things. 

Case in point ....
I had an attack of the "uglies" the other day.  Not that I am a particularly vain person, but the last time I allowed myself to be vulnerable to another human (other than Greg) was when I was 22 years old and 22 years younger than I am now.
Growing up, I had two grandmothers who were determined that vanity was not a sin I would ever have and so they both managed to convince me that I was a "solid" girl who was plain.  I don't hold it against them - that was the thinking back then.  But I wished I'd listened to my mother who told me what a beauty I was.
Anyhooo  - there I was, having an attack of the uglies last Friday night when I decided to look in a cupboard that contained yet more of Greg's "stuff".  ... and I found a motherload of his old photos.
 He had photos from the night we met (I looked shy and a bit lost) and he had photos from our early dating life that I had never seen.  I looked young and fresh and positvely beautiful.  Certainly not "solid" or "plain".
...and he had a couple of photos of me (and he) all dolled up at a friend's wedding that were positively smokin' hot!

 ...and just like that, the "uglies" went away and I knew that my boy had shown me what he saw when he looked at me.

So yeah - happy.
It doesn't come in with a fanfare and a show of light.
It sneaks up on you and surprises you when you think it has gone for ever...

The little things

....  that annoy me (and drive me to drink).

Hello Mr Baileys...

Warning - disorganised tiredness and general whining follows.....

Somedays I think being a widow has taught me patience, but there are other days when I realise my fuse is very short and I have no time for pedants and things that make my life harder.

I question why, instead of helping to simplify my life, so many different things are trying to take another piece of me that I just don't have to give.

Why can't my son's school accept my e-mailed "OK, please bill me" as an acceptance of a fee?  Why does it require a signature for $3.50?  Why does it send me five invoices totallying about $20 instead of one single invoice?

Or why the Department of Transport is only open during office hours making it hard for me to get my driver's license renewal photo.

Or why my boss is insisting I set personal goals as a way of modelling to my students that we all have goals:  if I have been taught anything from being suddenly widowed, it is that living day to day and rolling with the punches is the only way to cope with life. (I have made up a goal that I will fluff my way  through and they will know I am faking it.   It will suck but my boss will be appeased.)

I wonder if these petty little things would still get to me if I had Greg here..... letting me talk things over or letting me deal with the bills and the school issues and doing one of the other eleventy million jobs that I have on my plate right now
... hmmmm ....... plate ... that reminds me that I must go and cook my children dinner.  But maybe I can have a little wine with my whine while I make it.....

Am I just turning into a cranky person, or does anyone else have days like this?

Lesser Losses

When the children were small, I convinced Greg that we should get some pets so that the children could learn about life cycles early in life.  They would experience the love and  loss of a pet and understand that everything that lives must die.

So Greg captured some pullets from themany of chooks at the farm back in 2006.
These were hardy farm birds whose toughness was only matched by their wiliness in egg-laying.

Then we rescued a couple of extra chicks from a school hatching program who proved to be eggselent layers.  They formed our egg-laying flock who have been Queens of the yard for the past seven years.

Today, the second of those less-hardy younger hens was found dead in her pen.

The children found her and  cried, and to my surprise ... prayed. 
Their grief was so much more real than I could have expected given the losses they have already endured.

and I cried . ...... and swore.

Maybe its irrational, but I cried and swore that instead of being the soft-entry to the knowledge of life and death for our children that I had planned, so many beloved family members died in stark, brutal, heart-breaking ways before any of our pets.

My previously fit, healthy Father-in-law died from cancer in 2007.

My Mother-in-law died in 2009, also of cancer.  ..... and a broken heart.

Exactly one year to the day after his mother left us, Greg died.

Then my very elderly Nan died (not unexpectedly) in 2011.

So while today  I mourn the loss of a much-loved family pet*, it has brought back those memories of a time when the idea that any of our family could possibly die before a short-lived pet was unthinkable.

The irony.  Oh, the irony of it all.




* - I am not saying the loss of a pet is equal to that of a human. I love animals, but I love people more.

Four years

Four years since you left me.
 Suddenly.
Violently.
Bereft.

Nobody could possibly begin to understand the soul connection we had. 
Anam Cara.
We two were so closely linked.

...and yes, I know we are still connected.

I have learnt to recognise the signs you send me.
I know you are near.
I know you miss nothing.

I am lucky that intuition comes naturally to me.
You always said that I could "feel" whether people were good or bad. 
I can't explain it. 
I just "know" things.
Like what you were about to say, or what you were thinking.
Or how my soul knew yours as soon as it saw you, standing there in the backyard of a friend's house.
Or how I knew that we would marry from that first kiss.

Or how I had a premonition of your death, right before your death.

 I have  realised that you have never left me, that you hear me, that you are actively leading me forward.
... to a new life.
...to the people I needed to meet.
...towards the light.
... Towards hope.

...and my love for you is stronger than ever.
XA

The death march part 4: signs

Angel Danbo by the immensely talented and all-round nice guy Aaron Aldrich

Here I am in the final week of the death march.  March 1 is racing towards me like a freight train. 
To be honest, it can't come soon enough so I can put it behind me and then maybe my subconscious won't feel the need to see 2am come in each day.

But 2am has seen me think about all the signs I have received .... some of them, even before March 1, 2010.  I am not going to list them here, but I will say that there have been so many, many specific instances of contact that I can not ignore them.
...and on talking to others, it seems I am not the only one who knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they are here with us.

As many of you know, before I was a teacher, I was a scientist.
I have a PhD and a string of other qualifications. 
I am trained to be skeptical of anything that can't be backed up with hard data.
 ..... but at the same time, I am trained to entertain novel ideas and I am trained to understand that just because something can't be measured with current technology, it doesn't mean it isn't happening. 
But then again, I have always had a Bayesian weight-of-evidence view of science over and empirical one.

....and for me, for my own personal beliefs, the weight of evidence is overwhelming.  It may not be overwhelming enough to withstand peer review and publication, but then I don't really care how others view the eternal .

So as I sit here, writing the last of the death march posts, I remind myself of my own, hard-won knowledge that he never left me and is part of my life everday.

The death march part 3: birthday week

  Zen garden by the immensely talented and all-round nice guy, Aaron Aldrich.

So - only one more week (and a few days) until March 1.
Only three more days until his birthday.

Still the nightmares about the accident.  

Still that vivid mental image of how his arm looked in his work shirt contrasted with the smashed watch and phone that were given back to me.

Still the crying at odd times.

Still stressed about work....

... but

still .... Fine. 
 
I know I am teetering on the edge of "fine"  and "f#cked-up" though.

I know it won't take much to make me lose my balance and go tumbling down the rabbit hole.

I am hoping that there isn't that One Single Straw that floats onto my back to break me into small pieces.


But so far ......

Still fine.

Just.

The Death March Part 2

 Starstruck by the immensely talented and all-round nice guy, Aaron Aldrich.

So I am still feeling mostly .... fine.

A few extra tears have crept in though.  Not those snot drenched sobs that come from my guts and leave me heaving and shaking, but the silent, delicate raindrops that leak from the corner of my eye as I remember all he was and all I have lost.

I seem to dwell more on the mechanics of how he died at this time of year.

It still kills me that I kissed him goodbye at 7am, just like I did every single day ..... and never saw him again.
Ever.

It still kills me inside to know that there was nobody there but his workmate (who died shortly afterwards) as his life and consciousness drained away with all that blood.

It still kills me that I didn't insist on spending time alone with his body before the funeral.
He was so badly hurt that everyone from the policemen who attended the scene to the mortuary assistant were all adamant that I could NOT see him.  At all.  Not even his hand.

It kills me that I had to tell my very small children that their beloved Daddy had died.  I can still remember them looking at me like I must have been playing some sort of mean trick.

It still kills me that instead of feeling the love that I know was being poured on me, I felt hundreds of pairs of eyes boring into my skull as I entered the church at his funeral.

It kills me that I never looked up from the carpet to see the packed church and all the people who loved him.  I saw only my children, my family, my best friends, the ministers (there were three of them) and the screen that failed to capture his essence in pictures.

But despite all my regrets, he remains dead.
I don't get a do-over, nor do I want one.

....and that's where I am in this part of the death march.....

The death march

 (Danbo photo - source unknown)

Well here I find myself in February again - his birthday coming up and then March 1 looms large at the end of this month.
But....
This year, so far, I am feeling ..... fine.

I don't expect that this will last the whole month.
It could just take one single let-down or piece of bad news and I am bound to lose it.
But so far ...... fine.

Fine.

Just the letters in this word seemed so foreign to me just 1 year ago.  ....and almost 4 years ago, I couldn't even imagine that I would me sitting here, feeling .... fine.

I will keep you posted as we travel through this month ..... but as of right now?


Not exactly good.
Not exactly bad.
Not exactly desperate.
Not exactly OK.
Not exactly happy.
Not exactly miserable.

but....
Fine.

The holidays are over....

Australian children have just come back from their 6-week summer holidays.
So have their teachers....

The first year after Greg died, I dreaded the Christmas holidays.  All those long weeks of just me and the kids.  NO trips away (every holiday doubles in price during the holidays as we all know).  No will to do more than walk the tracks to the beach near our home and photograph things. ... and always the uncertainty of what work I could come back to.

I'm not sure that the second year was any better.

By the third year, I had some coping strategies - meet up with friends.  Go to the parties you want to go to and skip the ones you don't.  ...and I had a job to go to.

This year was the first summer holiday where I felt completely relaxed and OK in my own skin.  I relaxed.  I dreamed.  I looked forward to doing things ....
Maybe this is me, getting used to not having Greg here.
Maybe this is me, feeling comfortable in my (now) permanent job that I would return to.
Maybe this is me, feeling excited about catching up with friends.
one in particular.......

I'm not sure what it is but I am so much calmer and happier than I was 4 short years ago.

Things that have changed

I am sitting here, marvelling at how far I’ve come since March 1, 2010; I am a different person with the same heart.

I can now look back and remember the sharp, stabbing grief of that day.  The insanity. 

 

The weeks and months directly  afterward where I alternated between shrieking pain and dense fog; I rocked and cried or I floated behind a thin wall, a sense of being elsewhere and detached.

The forced smile at work and the tears as I left the gate each day.
The craziness  at home.  My children  .. my poor children.
The first BirthdaysFathersDayChristmasNewYear  without him.   All the firsts.  I distinctly remember the first day I brought my children back to school afterwards and broke down at the gate, and the angel of a friend who saw me and walked me in.  She knew. 

That first, aching anniversary of his death.

The depression of the seemingly endless blackhole that stretched in front of me.
The hideous instability caused by my old boss who made it harder for me than it needed to be (because he is a petty, stupid man).
The desperation that I never spoke of.  To anyone.

The feeling that I was repeating history: I would repeat my grandmother’s and my great-grandmother’s long, lonely widowhood for decades to come.


The hopelessness.  The feeling of Just Not Bothering to do more than exist for the sake of my children; there were days that their presence stood (unknowingly) between me and oblivion.  I couldn’t hurt them, so I continued on.

The reaching out to others in the widower community.  The voice that would weave across an ocean and give me ways to distract myself from misery. The women and men who wrote about their experiences and I realised that I was not alone in this pain.

Then a chink of light with a friend offering me work at a new school.  This move has changed my life for the better.  I now have a permanent job as my new boss is made of clever and awesome and fought to keep me.

And then... and then ....  the confidence to once again try dating.  For real. 
....and the meeting of a person whose mind is like my own.  Whose situation is like my own and whose heart is like my own.  Healing slowly, together.

The realisation that my life is not over and that I can see a new future. A future built on hard-won battles and scars of resilience.  A future that acknowledges the injuries of the past and weaves them into its beautiful tapestry.

I have come so far since March 1, 2010.

Hello 2014

A new year.
Bringing hopes and dreams for a year brighter than the last.

I remember the first new year after Greg died. 
I did not want it to happen.
I hated the passage of time.
I did not want to welcome a year in which Greg had never lived.


Back in Ye Olden Days (ie - before we had children), we had a tradition of going up to a house near a lake just outside the city to celebrate the new year with our dearest friends.
The house was owned by my friend's parents and was used solely as a holiday house.
A party house.
A place where we would gather.
With plentiful food and booze and motorbikes and books .... and the boys would ride off into the hills and my girlfriends and I would chat and read and chat and drink and chat and play pool and chat and dance and welcome the boys home and light firecrackers and roman candles and generally yahoo the night away.

Since the people who owned the house were (are) amongst our best friends, we were always lucky enough to score the second bedroom with its comfy (private) bed and en-suite whilst the others all crowded together in the large downstairs area.  ...and we kept celebrating the new year once inside our romantic room IYKWIM.

Then we all seemed to have children within a few months of each other and our New Years celebrations morphed into family gatherings during daylight hours.  But still we gathered and celebrated together.

But that first year without him was spent alone.
Through choice.
I know my friends just wanted to support me, but I had to spend that time alone.
(with our children).
Sad.

That was four years ago.

While I still didn't get excited about New Year's celebrations like I used to, I felt a change in my attitude this year.

For a start, some really good things happened in 2013.
My job finally became permanent.
My friends and family remain loving and kind, as always.
I have formed new friendships which have become an important part of my life.
For the first time since Greg died, I actually  feel positive about this new year. 

In fact, I welcome it.

Hello 2014

May you bring us all Hope, Peace and Love.

I survived....

... Christmas, that is.

I won't lie to you, the week before Christmas, I was not feeling great.  The weight of another Christmas without Greg weighed heavily on my mind. 
I missed him.
I know I miss him every day, but last week I really missed him.

I missed sitting on the couch and snuggling, watching the lights on the tree flicker. 
I missed talking to him about everything. 
I missed his strong arms.
I missed his safe embrace.
I missed seeing the kids play with him.
I even missed seeing him stuck under a piece of machinery, tinkering away for hours on end.

I was sad.
Really sad.
Should-have-been-medicated sad.

But then on Sunday, I received an e-mail from my friend that made me feel less alone.

On Monday, we went to stay the night with one of my oldest friends and her family.  She is the friend that introduced Greg and I, 20 years ago.  Greg was best man at their wedding.  We drove to their resort-like house on the hill on the other side of the city and we swam in their pool and drank champagne while all of the children played.  I walked through the bushland at their house and smelt the eucalyptus. We laughed and cried and it felt so wonderful to be there.

On Tuesday, I got a phone call from my friend who lives too far away from me.  I haven't known him long, but it feels like we've known each other far longer.  He is a widower with a school-aged child: we understand each other. Talking to him put me on a high for the rest of the day ..... to the point that when I took the children to church for the Christmas Eve service, I actually sang every carol.  I sang the harmonies and the descants.  I sang for the love of singing, if not from the love of the song itself.  This is HUGE. This is the first time I have sung inside a church for the past 3 years and 9 months and 24 days.....

Christmas Day itself was so much better than I could have imagined last week.  Of course I missed Greg like crazy, but for the first time since he died, I felt some of that old Christmas joy float in on the breeze.  My children showered me with love and my darling parents came bearing food and gifts.
It was hot here (Australian Christmases usually are), but we feasted on cold meats and salads, enjoyed Mum's plum pudding and ended the day with a swim ....
.....and if you know me, you know that swimming is my path to instant happiness.  I don't want to sound trite, but some of the most peaceful and surreal experiences I have ever had have been when I was floating on my back, staring up at the sky, remembering how much he loved me.

....and so I find myself on Boxing Day feeling the best I have since Greg died.
Last week, I couldn't envision any way that I would feel this calm, peaceful and even happy.

Again, love has saved the day. 

Love never dies.

Surviving Christmas

 I am finding it hard to find any Christmas spirit this year.

I have no idea if I have bought the children presents that they will enjoy... just a couple of small gifts to keep up the pretense of Santa.
 
I have not sent a Christmas card in years ... they remind me too much of all those funeral "thank you" cards that sat on my dining room table and mocked me for months after Greg's death before I threw the lot of them in the bin and decided I just wasn't going to do it and if anyone was offended, tough luck.

I am no longer a Christian, so there is no religious element to lift my spirits.
I don't sing carols anymore: I used to enjoy singing so much.  They are now meaningless to me. 
I sit through Christmas services at the church where I was married and where we had Greg's funeral service. I go for my children. That they still have any faith is incredible to me when mine has gone.
I love the minister as he is a truly lovely man, but the words he speaks don't reach my ears.  My heart is closed to the words that used to fill me with joy.
I smile at the people who look at me, wondering why my mouth does not open to sing and why I remain seated instead of taking communion.
None of it feels real to me anymore.
None of it has any meaning.
None of it gives me hope or joy or peace.

(Side note -  if  religion gives you peace, that's great!  It just doesn't do it for me).

But I have found something else that smoothes a balm onto my jangled nerves.
Another source of comfort when it is all I can do not to try to scratch my skin off so that I feel something.
A way of making things bearable when they are definitely not OK.

....and it comes in the form of other widows and widowers who don't try to make everything joyful or happy or peaceful.
Who know what it is like to choose life and light every morning when there are days that you can only see the darkness.
Who laugh at how absurd it is that we have both found ourselves here (How the hell did we get here? Really? here?  He's dead?  dead!   How did that even happen? How is this even possible?).

Each and every widow who looks around and wonders how the hell they arrived here and reaches out to another person wondering the same thing  makes this season bearable.
They don't knit Christmas decorations and coat the house in tinsel and fake goodwill and love to all humans...
... they actually mean that love.


I hate that you guys have to be here with me, but I thank you for being here.
You are definitely making a difference.
Thank you.

....and breathe ....

Today was school break-up day.  Party Day.  Unofficial last day of the school year (except for tomorrow which is clean and scrub every single thing in the classroom day).
I have been counting down to this day for the past month. 
My class are tired.
I am exhausted (and for those non-teachers who scoff, don't until you've done it.  I used to work in a "normal" job as a research scientist and I thought deadlines were annoying.  It's like that but with the entire emotional health of everyone you work with thrown in as well).


But, as always, I pulled myself together to make today awesome for my class .... and I got talking to a wonderful Grandmother who has helped out in our classroom this year.

We all call her "Bumma" and I am sad to say that I don't know her real name, just the nickname her Grandson gave her when he was little.

Turns out that Bumma is a widow too.

An older widow, that's for sure, but she KNOWS and talking to her was just what I needed today. 
We talked about how it is so good to keep busy and feel like your have a reason to wake up and get moving each day.
We talked about how much we miss them ALL the time and especially during the holidays.
We talked about it not getting easier, but that we have just learned to live next to the grief.

...and it felt so good to have that conversation.

I have one more day of school before we break for Summer holidays ... and my flagging energy has been restored by a little lady whos real name I still don't konw.

Thank you Bumma!

The lost art of flirting

... well lost to me anyway.


The last time I did "flirting" (without knowing that the flirtee was already very interested - ie Greg), I was in possession of a rather hot 22 year old body, flawless skin and a geeky naivete that was somehow attractive (who knew?).
In other words, the most flirting I did was glancing in the direction of someone I fancied .... and smiling. After that it wasn't me who was trying to do the impressing.

Now?  Well I *think* I am doing it, but I honestly have no idea whether I am or not.


 I am finding flirting very tricky.

What do modern flirters do?

Apparently taking the piss out of someone (gently) over dodgy taste in tv shows is NOT considered flirting anymore. 
That's my whole schtick now. 
I do the witty come backs. 
I do the friendly sarcasm. (Watching every season of Gilmore Girls can do that to anyone).
 Because funny is sexy .... right? 

Bueller?

I don't do mani-pedis and I don't do games.
I don't go for a hot body anymore; I go for a cool brain.
I go for intelligent conversation and a good sense of humour.
I go for kindness and compassion.
I go for someone who can make me smile and who is good at cuddling on the lounge and watching dodgy tv shows.
(I think I just described Dara Ó Briain -funny and cuddly.  Also, he's already married so that is another thing I don't do: married men). 

This flirting thing is tricky.




Looking at the good news though ... did anyone notice I just wrote an Entire Post on flirting?  
A year ago, the thought of flirting was equivalent to stabbing myself in the eye, repeatedly.  With a knitting needle.  
Must mean I am starting to get my act together!

Missing out

Last week one of the parents of a child I teach had a bit of a tantrum after school one day*.  It seems her daughter missed out on having an iceblock with the rest of the class because she had been away the previous day.

In her seething mother-rage, she shouted at me "It's not FAIR that Cathy misses out on an iceblock.  The rest of the class had one and she DESERVES one too".

I was a bit gobsmacked.

I stood there wanting to say to this deranged woman that it was an ICEBLOCK that cost (me) 50cents.  She missed out because she was away that particular day and she'd just have to build a bridge and get over it: sometimes you miss out on things in life.

Instead I apologised and organised another iceblock for that child.  The mother then said "you can't imagine what its like!  She has a food intolerance and misses out on so many things already".

...and that was when I wanted to shout at her.

I wanted to shout that my kids miss out on things every day!  That she (happily married mother of two) could not imagine her kids doing without a father.  Doing without any male influence in their lives.  Doing without two incomes and family holidays.  Doing without a second parent who could take some of the slack and give them some of that much-needed one-on-one time that I am always falling behind with.  


Doing without ..... yeah - we know what it feels like.  (Clarifier - In a very First-World Problem way .... in the wider scheme of things, we do OK on quality of life front with all the fresh food, clean running water and all).

but.....

I have never ONCE pulled the "not fair" card when it comes to my own children (one of them ironically, has mild food intolerances) .  I have never done the ranty-mama-bear thing about them missing out on something because their father is dead. 
I might have thought it, but I have never said it.
Because I know that they also have so much love.

So next time I am faced with a parent trying to make every part of their child's life perfect, I will stick to my guns and point out that NOBODY has a 'perfect life'. Somewhere along the line, everybody has to learn to do without something.

... even if it is only an iceblock.

It might just  build their resilience in case they ever have to cope with a REAL life challenge (like losing a parent).




* details changed slightly as I can't share the actual incident.  You get the idea though.....

Too busy

I have report cards due in the next few weeks. 
Work is hectic as we finish up assessing where the kids are at. 
Home is stressful as my own kids finish off assessments that their teacher need to assess (but DON'T get me started on teachers who allow assessments to be done at home in primary school and just how many parent's are earning their kids' grades).

I am busy pretty much all of the time right now.

....and while I am not stressed (at this stage), I am also so busy that I have not had any time to just sit and miss him.

I feel distant from him, when I had been feeling like he was so connected to us that I could almost feel him next to me.  I had been just starting conversations with him when I was alone, feeling like it was not a one-sided thing.

....and I need to get that feeling back before I crash and burn later....

I need to remind myself that I was (am) loved by the most remarkable man. 
A man who I trusted with my heart and soul. 
A man whose love for me was bigger than anything I can imagine.

So on the weekend, I will make a time between marking report cards and cleaning the house where I can go outside, sit in the sunshine and just be with my memories of Greg.
Where I can feel his hand on my shoulder and his whisper in my ear and remind myself that I am still loved.

Does my bum look big in this?*

This post is going to sound like an underhanded grab for compliments ..... but bear with me, it does relate to being widowed and it does ask a genuine question....

I took this selfie this morning on the way to work.  We had a special breakfast in celebration of the Melbourne Cup  - the race that stops the nation.  (Trust me - it's a BIG DEAL here and the dress code is frocked-up with fascinator).

For those that know me well, I don't frock up too often so I donned the required garb (it was a toss-up between the flowers or kitty-ears headband) and decided that I looked atrocious but that kids are forgiving in what they think I look like and it was a bit of harmless fun, not to be missed.

So I tottered off to work feeling Quite Ridiculous but feeling in a fun mood. ..... much the same feeling as if I had donned a unicorn onesie for pj day or something.

But the thing is, I got So Many compliments today that I started to wonder if I actually didn't look quite as stupid as I thought I did.

Now you have to know that my standard dress uniform is a pair of jeans and a t-shirt paired with thongs (Oi! - that's flip-flops to you) or boots (all of them nice ones of course, not ripped, daggy ones).  .... one of the reasons I like my job is that I can wear neat casual clothes and get away with it.

So wearing a dress, jewelry head-dress and fancy shoes is not a normal day for me.

...and I got to thinking that without Greg to let me know he appreciated what I was wearing, I've tended to have a rather low opinion of the way I look.  Not a negative opinion .... I just assume that my relative attractiveness is not particularly important to anyone else and so long as *I* felt OK, then it was OK.  ...and not to imply that  I am really not a 1950s girl trying to please her man and only dressed up for Greg.  It's just not something I do for myself anymore.

So all the compliments got me thinking that maybe I should change the way I think about myself.  Maybe I shouldn't just assume that I am bland and unattractive and that I should back-myself more often because DAMN it felt good to be complimented.

Almost prompting me to ask "does my bum look big in this?"*

So my question for you this week is what do you do to remind yourself that your relative attractiveness  did not die along with your spouse?

*  - running joke between Greg and I.  It was how I would ask him if he thought I looked OK before we went out somewhere nice.

Inane distractions

Recently,  the cable through which my house receives both TV and internet had a major fault.  It lasted 4 days. 
...and I nearly lost my marbles.

Part of the reason was that I needed to log onto the work system to download the latest files for school, but part of the reason was that I have come to rely on the television to provide an inane, background distraction whenever my brain wandered in to places I'd rather it not revisit.

I told two friends about how much I had come to rely on the television to provide me with entertainment and distraction from being lonely and grieving. ....

Both friends are highly articulate women who are well read, interesting, and intelligent.

One of them knew exactly what I was talking about.  She agreed that TV could indeed provide a valuable distraction that was great for whenever you were both tired and emotional to take your mind elsewhere for a while and allow it to rest.

The other one suggested that I go read a book instead because TV is "just a crutch"....

Guess which one of my two friends is another widow.......

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Sometimes all that I need to go from feeling low to feeling OK is half an hour of watching Stephen Fry on QI or Doctor Who.  I need to distract the part of my brain that  deals with language and memory ... and with less effort than that required to read and comprehend  a chapter of a book.  (Having said that, I still read each day, but its not something that calms me down.  Rather, it is something I do when I am already calm.)

I can and do use other distractions frequently, but for me, the winner on an evening when I am feeling lonely and sad and angry that Greg had the hide to bloody well DIE on me is TV.

Am I alone in this?