Writing about my grief seems to be a double edged sword.
It’s largely cathartic – it helps me get things out of my brain, this blog is like a time capsule of how I’m trundling along and tripping over and getting up again as part of it.
I read back over old posts and – apart from roll my eyes at some typos I have missed – I can mostly look at the early ones and think “oh I remember that day, that was a shit day …” and “it doesn’t feel like it, but it is better than back then.”
But then, I read them and think its all just so woefully sad, slightly self indulgent, and as someone pointed out to me recently, potentially just invites people to talk to me more about what I’m going through when in many cases, I put what it’s like out in the ether to NOT have to talk about the intricacies of it all the time.
I haven’t written for a while for a few reasons – mostly because I think if I actually put down into writing the complete mess of my life and internal workings of my brain that more than a few people who read it might actually try and have me committed.
Also, I am entirely sick and tired of it all, so I’m pretty sure other people are, too.
The going away on holiday and having 10 days on my own was good and needed to happen – but honestly, everything since … shit show.
There’s been highlights – amazing highlights. Pieces of days or even strings of days that have been great.
On the whole we are still functional.
But I fear, barely.
Navigating the fall out of being away from the kids for 10 days has been hard. As has going back to school. Back to sport. Back to lockdown. Back out of lockdown. Negotiating with teenagers who are angry at the world for taking their dad away. Empathising with children who are acutely feeling the loss of their Dad when around other people’s Dads. Trying to pick the correct path on discipline and responsibility alone. Watching children thrive and achieve and simultaneously self-combust with a broken heart or emotions that are just too hard to handle. Feeling fulfilled with being able to do the things. Feeling completely empty because I have filled up every single other person’s ‘love cup’ but there is no one filling up mine. Having such appalling arguments with children the others leave the house, or the neighbours text to see if they can help because they can hear it. Having children just walk up to me and hug me and burst into tears because their greatest fear is me not being ok and they can see that I’m not ok.
And I get through all of that and then I have someone tell me – it’s just single parenting. It’s just parenting. It’s just teenagers. You look happy enough.
Which, in my head, is code for ‘stop whingeing and get over yourself’.
I've written and re-written posts and deleted them.
Drafted posts and almost hit post and changed my mind.
Because it just seems … blergh
And repetitive.
So bloody frustratingly fucking repetitive.
Because there is a lot of hard. And if all I ever did was tell everyone how hard it was all the time – apart from being entirely boring – it definitely wouldn’t serve me any good.
If all I did was look at and focus on the hard then it would be utterly depressing.
Like, actually depressing.
But by trying not to, I might also be setting myself up for people to think that it isn’t as hard as what it actually is.
I don’t want to be depressed or sad all the time. It’s why I try and find the positives – even fun amongst the shitshow – to show and remind ourselves we are still us.
Somewhere in the midst of all of this hard – we are still us. We lost a massive fucking part of our world – but we still have to do the living. And I need to remind myself of that.
I am pretty solidly reminded every.single.day that I am on my own dealing with all of this.
And I deal with it – I get up every.single.day and do what I have to do to make sure we still function … and some days we have average, ordinary, amazing, awful, fun things involved.
I argue with kids and apologise. I still run them to all their activities. I still desperately try and make sure they are all fed nutritional meals. I still try and make sure they are not disadvantaged because they only have one parent. I try and meet all their emotional needs. I laugh with them. We have fun together. I set boundaries. I give them leniency. I try and help them navigate their grief. I completely fail at trying to showing them how to do maths (what the Hell is a 'friend of 10??').
I am desperately trying to be the best bloody single parent I can be.
But I fucking hate it.
And I rage against the unfairness of it internally (OK, lots of times outwardly … I do have some super patient friends who nod and smile empathetically at me … and pour me wine and hug me… thank God for them!!).
There are so many days I feel like I am utterly failing.
But I have gone to bed. And I have got up the next day and tried again. Sometimes successfully. Others not.
But I haven’t ever not gotten up. Even if it is a shitshow before I get out of bed.
And yet, I still have people suggesting I do more. Or do it differently.
More for me, mostly.
Others say that what I am trying to do is unsustainable so I need to change what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.
Someone suggested writing down how I’m navigating all of this just invited comments, maybe I should stop?
People often suggest that if could ‘just... <insert any number of the following: walk, get up earlier, find someone to help, stop focusing on the bad, move on, meditate, find a unicorn …’
I have no idea if they are right. Maybe they are.
Ok … I’ve just realised this is degenerating into another rambling post about ’just’ still not being ok with the fact my husband is dead and I’m not only trying to juggle single parenting, but single parenting with an added 50,000 tonne weight of grief hung over us - crushing us - still.
I am not above reproach.
Trust me. I know. I can beat myself up more than anyone else could ever about getting stuff wrong and not doing it right and the could/should of it all...
I know much of what they suggest is correct.
Move more. Care about other people’s opinions less. There is no such thing as failing at widowing. Yes, there is such a thing as too much cheese.
I’ve heard it. Many times.
I know it.
The problem is – somewhat ridiculously but I am now at a point that I’ve realised this –that some of these things are the only reason I can get up.
That my innate fear of letting people down will force me to get up, shower, and get the kids to school because the world might end in my brain if I don’t… and they need me to.
That someone at work needs me to get a media release written or a post scheduled on social media gets me dressed and a face on and the idea that I have let my work suffer due to my personal life mortifies me.
That I haven’t prepared a weekly meal list and we have nothing for dinner and if I suggest we eat eggs/baked beans on toast again that it will be met with forlorn faces and whining forces me to the supermarket and forces me out of ‘this is too hard’ mental state to ‘oh that looks good, I'll cook that ….’
Sometimes, the things people are seemingly criticising me for, are actually the drivers for me to not fall deeper into the hole. To not get stuck in the mire that is my reality in that hour or that day.
I also know that there is an opinion that it’s been over 2 years now, surely I’m starting to get a handle on it and we can get over it a bit more, not cry so much.
And I’ve certainly written about my complete frustration that I, and we, are not.
But - to be honest, I am just so freaking weary from the battle – the battle of 2018 when shit was going wrong left, right and centre in our lives; of 2019 that began with Pete dying and the year of dealing with grief unlike I’ve ever known; of 2020 when we were still grieving but doing so in a pandemic which meant I had to work from home and remote school 4 kids for 2 of 4 terms; of 2021 where every time we seem to get on top of it all and start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we get smashed back down with another lockdown, or fall into a grief trap from a realisation that this year is the final year of primary school for a child and the complete devastation that comes with more change without their Dad.
And being so battle weary… it makes doing some of the simple things people suggest, hard.
I’ve tried.
I get up. I have a few days of doing the things. Of being on top of the things. And then something completely out of my control cocks it all up.
And so deflated and defeated, again, I hit the bottom of ‘this is too hard’.
And then I get up again the next morning.
I know the people who suggest the things are not misplaced in their suggestions. I know they don’t ever come from a bad place.
I’m sure from the outside it looks like all I’m doing is complaining and not getting on with my life, not doing things that would help, making it worse for myself by trying to do too much, or ridiculously trying to maintain a level of ‘before Pete died’ normalcy.
But as I had to remind someone recently – there’s a reason women used to be institutionalised when they became widows, or their children were cared for by relatives – it’s because it really and truly breaks a person that much.
So, I desperately need all the support and love that I get from people but despite their suggestions otherwise, but there isn't that one thing on this Earth that can help me.
Except maybe there is. I think what I need from all the people who keep making suggestions is just their acceptance of what I’m doing.
Acceptance that this IS enough. That I AM doing enough. That I can’t and shouldn’t need to do any more than what I’m doing for them to be ok with how I’m doing it.
That some days I’ll probably seem moody and bereft. And other times, I’ll be beaming. Some days I’ll freaking nail the day and get shit done. Other days I’ll look blankly at a computer screen and send one email.
What I really need is for people with the suggestions of what I could do, is just accept I’m here. I’m showing up. I’m doing my best. And if you average it out – I’m doing ok and getting what I need done, done.
* BTW I’ve also come to realise how super needy of people and people agreeing with me I am …
As I have always maintained – I will refuse to let this screw up the children. No matter how hard that is for me.
Telling me I need to put myself first is possibly the exact opposite of what I need.
If you really want to help, just step in beside me and back me and my choices in the battle that is my attempt to try and keep us all afloat.
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