Tag: alone

45. Is that all I miss?

Some days I find I’m nearly through to the other end before I’ve had time to think. I doubt that I’m alone in that feeling. It’s a little like that moment when you’re driving and you come to a point when you don’t entirely remember all the journey, and have to trust your driving even when you can’t recall it.

I’m finding that some of my days can be a bit like that. Not bad days, but filled with the usual things – dog walk; breakfast; go to work; home; eat; bit of crap on telly; bed – that I’m functioning perfectly well. But is that enough?

I have so many advantages – healthy, solvent and housed. I still have good friends, and a good laugh when I see them.

But there is a small voice that’s just started muttering. It’s quite and infrequent. But it can still be heard.

“Is this it?”

I don’t want to hear it. But it’s hard to shut it up without a burst of activity. And I’m tired. There seems to be a constant stream of things to do, and, unsurprisingly, only me to do them.

Is that all I miss? The presence of someone to help out? Fill in the gaps when I’m feeling weary? To let me have the occasional lie in when I don’t want to take the dog out or cook something for when I get home?

But then, watching a bit of hilarity before bedtime with the dog hogging most of the sofa I realise that it’s still better to have things that are missing, with the hope that one day I can find ways of filling them. Better than having those ‘gaps’ being filled by someone who doesn’t want to.

It’s hard being on your own sometimes. But it’s much harder when you’re with someone and you feel like you’re on your own. I must remember that now that things don’t hurt so much anymore. An early morning dog walk is a small price to pay. And she very much wants to help.

36. The hard thing is that we’re feeling the same pain.

Tuesday looms ahead – it’s Sunday today today – as another one of those massive changes that is happening this month. First my marriage, then the flat, and then it’ll be Tuesday.

Tuesday the daughter starts her travelling. Vietnam for a couple of months, a week or two in Thailand, and then on to the USA for another couple of months. I’ve been filling my head with thoughts of my future, but I’ve very clearly been avoiding thinking about her not being a daily part of it.

I’m proud of her, excited for her, scared, all the normal feelings I imagine most parents have when their kids finally set off on their first big life adventures. But my heart just about breaks with the pain of how I’m going to miss her. But it probably would no matter what else was going on, it’s just that my heart is a bit battered at the moment.

Himself and I took her for dinner together last night. She brought a friend, probably partly because of not really wanting to spend an evening of unknown emotional content and partly to fit yet another bit of socialising in to her alarming full schedule. It was a nice evening, chatting between all of us, laughing with the lively lovely girls and the stories of friends and silly antics. Moments of painful familiarity between me and him as he offered me a sip of his beer to see if I liked it instead of the wine. The awkwardness of a goodbye that we still don’t entirely know how to manage. But still, a pleasant evening.

But now, with daughter out of the house squeezing in a few more visits to friends before she flies away, I really feel how alone i’m going to be. Cat on the sofa beside me, dog on the floor by my feet, and no one else to share a cold lazy evening with. I know I’m not the only one. I know he must feel her absence already. Just as they are starting to get along better off she goes. That must hurt too. The hard thing is that we’re feeling the same pain, sharing the same hurt. But that’s the only thing we’re sharing. And that feels just as sad.

 

13. Reality is a real punch to the guts. 

We have a date for the move out, and, despite the fact that i’ve organised its possibility, some how that really hurts. It’s going to be a month sooner that I expected, and it’s reality is a real punch to the guts. I’ve just had conformation by email and he doesn’t even know yet. And I don’t know how I wan’t him to take the news.

I don’t seem to be taking it well at all. Reduced to tears, on my own. A proper low point.

So, how do we do this so it’s ok for me as well? Because, while I’m trying to be ok I’m really not, not right now. This wasn’t what I wanted. I’m scared and shaky and feel as if I don’t get a say.

I do. I won’t feel like this tomorrow, I’ll pick myself up, look on the bright side, and all the possibilities ahead. Blah blah fucking blah!

But once, just once, I want him to say how fucking brilliant I’m being!

5. An Evening Alone

We have a chalk board, well, in fact a whole wall, on which we leave notes. Things we’ve run out of, reminders, I’ve fed the dog signs. There’s been one on for a week or two saying BFI 8pm. When I came in from work today, about 4pm, there was an arrow pointing at this message.

So it appears that it was me and the dog tonight.

And I’m tired. Really – lay down on the sofa, under a blanket, speak to no one – tired. Sleep at night is currently a rather intermittent affair. Podcasts and audiobooks are being consumed at quite a rate. So lie on the sofa is exactly what I did. A good doze, a catch up on a backlog of things recorded (see How to watch telly )

It’s a strange feeling because I should be doing things, There’s a whole table full of pictures and mounts that need to be sorted. Stuff I have to read. And always house doings. But I feel the need to hibernate. I wish I could. Miss out winter and the festive nonsense and wake up when it’s all over. Now there’s a thought.

Because the weight of what is to come feels like a mighty snow drift. And I don’t want to just be left arrows pointing to things.