While we got through Father's Day last weekend seemingly all intact, the reality is, that on Monday morning, we all woke up with an emotional hangover.
I suspect an alcoholic one would have been easier to deal with - bottle of full strength, full sugar Coke, some greasy food and a couple of Panadol - then things would have been all good in terms of functionality.
Instead, the emotional hangover was like a weight on our house and everyone just seemed drained, and tired, and emotional and unwilling to really want to get up and moving and face the day on Monday.
It's only Wednesday, but it seems like this week is just going to be one of those weeks that is just going to be a bit of a hard slog.
I think it’s because of the build up to Sunday and the focus on getting through it - it took a lot of energy and it sapped a lot of energy.
Monday morning was tough - some kids got to school. Some yelled and screamed and were sent back to bed. Some didn't get out of bed at all. I got to work … but I'm not entirely sure I was at my most productive and at lunchtime, called time on the day when I had a teary phone call from home from a child who just needed a cuddle.
I was meant to be at a meeting on Monday night, but completely struck out on babysitters as everyone else was juggling their own lives and kids illnesses, and when I suggested the kids might be able to stay at home alone, they completely lost their proverbial biscuits.
I sent the secretary print outs with another committee member and then proceeded to tuck one child into bed at 7pm, two at 7.30pm and by 8pm, the eldest and I were tucked up in bed with hot drinks discussing which Headpsace download we would be listening to.
On Tuesday, we had some work training at which the presenter was using some good analogies about effective communication and conflict resolution but all I kept hearing was him linking it back to happiness and good relationships and long lives and how we should all want to reduce stress and anxiety because that's what shortens your life.
I had to call the presenter out on it because Pete was all of the things the presenter said would lead to a long and happy and stress free-life and he didn't get to 'be old and reflect on the dash between 19?? and 20?? of your lifetime..."'
I do think the training was good and that fellow staff members would have taken a lot away, I'm just particularly sensitive to that sort of information being delivered to me at the minute.
And now I'm in Melbourne for a work meeting.
Oblivious to where the meeting venue was or where the accommodation booked on my behalf was, it only dawned on me too late that the meeting venue and my room are either side of St Vincent's Hospital - the hospital in which Pete received all his auto immune treatments, where he spent four of the last six weeks of last year and where he spent three days for treatment in January two weeks before he died.
Tomorrow, I will walk past the hospital and walk into a building I had passed dozens and dozens of times to catch the tram out of the front of while Pete was having treatment at the hospital.
And after the meeting, will catch the tram at that same stop, and head home to the kids who are currently billeted out to friends.
But for now, to deal with the emotional hangover that is seemingly continuing, I have found wine.
I'm pretty sure my current employer doesn't cover it as part of work expenses.
I don't care. I would pay for it twice over as I deal with having to walk down the street I had traipsed as a married woman who just had an unwell husband so many times last year.
Grief - the gift that just keeps on freaking giving.
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