So wrong

So this is it. Xmas on my own. I survived the breast cancer surgery and will hear at the beginning of January what further treatment is needed. Still a little sore and somewhat wobbly on my feet, but generally in better shape than perhaps predicted – physically that is.

Mentally I’m a bit of a mess. I decided months ago that I needed to be on my own at Xmas, that I wouldn’t be good company for anyone – and now that the time has come, I’ve just got to get through it. A painful reminder that all that has happened this year has been wrong. So wrong.

GadgetMan just had backache last Xmas but was dead six weeks later. So wrong.

I have had to go through diagnosis and surgery without him. So wrong.

Now Xmas on my own. So wrong.

We never made a great thing about it. We were both non-believers. We just quietly enjoyed the time with family (either his or mine). It felt safe, secure, comfortable, right. This year it’s all so wrong. There’s nothing more I can say.

New Friends And A New Enemy

I have felt unable to write for some weeks. Too much has happened and I have needed time to get my head around the enormity of it.

I thought that I had been making “good progress” through my journey into widowhood. Having made the decision to live this new, lonely life, I had started to push my boundaries slightly. I completed the upholstery evening class that I had joined with the aim of not only getting me out of the house one evening a week, but also to learn a new skill. I applied for a local job – and was rejected. I was OK with this. The job would have been reasonable and the rejection didn’t make me feel like a failure. More importantly I had managed to put my “story” in writing. Trying to persuade someone else that I had emerged sufficiently from the black tunnel of sudden widowhood was difficult, but at least I tried.

Another Gaping Hole

It’s been a busy few weeks. At least, I’m trying to persuade myself that it has been. The builders (“NewBoys”) completed the steps and the porch, pretty much as planned; functional, although not a thing of beauty. It now needs painting. The weather is against me, as is my fear of heights. I have conceded defeat and am getting some help.

I’ve tried desperately to function a little better during this time, be more productive. 

Turning Back The Clocks

Yesterday morning, Sunday 28^th October 2012, at 0200, the clocks went back to Greenwich Mean Time. It happens every year. The BBC told us that “most people enjoy an extra hour in bed”. Well, I didn’t. Sleeping is still an issue – so I stayed up an extra hour into the new day (more crap TV), in the hope that I would manage to fall asleep relatively quickly and not wake until daylight (arriving, of course, an hour earlier than the day before). And with the help of an extra shot of whisky, I achieved this goal.

Going round the house and resetting all the clocks, electronic programmers etc. was never a problem. I always did it before. I just wasn’t ready for the emotional reaction this year.

New Bricks

 In a bid to stress myself even further – as if grief and everything that goes with it was not enough – I have allowed the house to be turned into a building site once again.

After the anger and disappointment caused by my final dealings with Blob The Builder, his replacements, “NewBoys”, have arrived and started work – on schedule. They are pleasant and courteous, happy when I offer cups of tea and have shown a remarkable amount of tolerance to my questions.

The Setting Sun

I seem to have got into the habit recently of thinking “one year ago ….”. It’s something that started a few weeks ago and appears to be triggered quite suddenly by dates and events. It’s also making me rather morose. This is not a habit I want to get into, but getting out of it is proving worse than tricky. I suppose it’s natural that my memories will flood back when least expected – along with a whack of grief that thumps me in the chest and floors me again for hours – or days.

One year ago, we had our only holiday of 2011. Our last ever holiday together. We put the camping gear in the back of our lovely van (bought specifically for this purpose) and drove off. Carefree. Happy. Together. Four days in the West Country, on a campsite that was busier than expected, due to the exceptionally good weather.

Three Young Lives

My last post mentioned that I had had a horrible niggling feeling all through the recent bank holiday weekend. Something just felt badly wrong – worse than usual. Suddenly remembering what “it” was sent me spiralling down even further into the pit.

For twenty years GadgetMan and I had cats at home. Rescue cats. Six years ago, some time after the loss of our first pair, we took on two six month old male cats from the same litter. Brothers. Twins. They were, however, very different in size and temperament.

“H-one” was large and totally soppy. He preferred to stay at home or at least within the immediately neighbouring gardens. He was very intelligent, appeared to understand about thirty words (some of them in two languages) and always came running enthusiastically when I whistled for him. He died young, at the age of three, following an aortic thromboembolism. GadgetMan and I were very upset, but decided not to “replace” him at the time, as his brother “M-two” was a far more independent character, who enjoyed coming and going as he pleased – and did not appear to need the company of a fellow feline. We were, however, deeply affected by the loss of H-one for many, many months.

M-two was small, the runt of the litter, and not the brightest of cats. He was,