To try and give us some capacity to cope with the current isolation situation, we have come home to my parents’ farm in the NSW Riverina.
The house isn’t really big enough to fit us all, but the space outside definitely is.
The lead up to the isolation living was tricky.
Schools going to holidays a week early.
Work changing from office working to working from home.
Our wedding anniversary.
And then Easter.
And now school has resumed – not in the classroom but through ‘remote learning’ – and I have four students learning four different curriculums.
With an internet service which is good when its good, but when it decides to drop out, or the power goes out, or if its cloudy, or sunny or the day ends in Y … it does not work.
Which means its struggling having 4 kids connected trying to do school work and me, work. Let’s not even try if my parents want to use their own internet service …
The thing with it all is, that coming home has been amazing.
I am definitely feeling #blessed and #grateful that I have not been confined to my own four walls and small backyard for the holidays.
I would have gone insane.
Because the greatest thing about coming up here has been the space and the activities and being able to spend time with members of my family.
The kids have also learned so much – new skills and about themselves.
I’ve been able to rekindle old skills.
Being able to be busy with farm activities has given us all something to do. And it has been great. Really, really great.
But coming home has also dredged up so much emotion. And I don’t even know if its being home as much as it is everything that is going on in the world and in our lives.
It’s still hard coming home without Pete. So many memories and so much of our lives revolved around sheep and the Riverina.
The kids have had tears over how different it still is to be here without him. How much he would have loved being exiled up here for a month. The things they have done here that he hasn’t seen them do, like ride motorbikes, and drive tractors and muster sheep.
While we have been here, not all of the people in the house have been well, which has added a layer of complexity to it all. Juggling the emotional demands of kids and parents and my own.
And I don’t like not seeing people.
Being 80km out of town means a trip to the supermarket takes on such an added delight when I see people I know.
People I haven’t seen in months and months … some who I haven’t seen since Pete died … who I want to talk to, who want to talk to me, who I see and get so excited to see but we have to step back from one another rather than hug.
I learned back around New Year’s that I really don’t like being alone. And granted I’m not alone with the kids, but I really like my friends. I like to be around them. I’m pretty sure I draw a lot of my energy from them.
So not being around them for so long is hard.
Plus, all of this has made me realise how much I enjoyed Pete’s company. How much I miss having someone to hug. To be with me at the end of a hard day. To talk through all the hard bits.
And that’s also kind of annoying me.
That I’m not coping with it all well.
That’s because, according to a lot of people, I set my standards too high (mostly for myself).
And clearly I have set the standard of coping with grief and working from home and
remote learning and dealing with stuff and all of the things, too high.
I’m not even sure if annoying is the right word? Maybe frustrating? I don’t know.
But I’m constantly side swiped by the fact I don’t feel like I’m coping.
And then everyone else tells me I’m coping amazingly well.
But it doesn’t feel like it to me.
Because I kind of get frustrated with myself that I don’t get things done, that I don’t feel like I’m giving anything enough time, that I anger too quickly, that I don’t spend enough time with the kids, that I spend too much time on social media trying to escape my reality, that I’m not achieving enough work in my work days, that I just want to curl up in a ball and shut everything out, that I should be walking, that I shouldn’t eat so much cheese and bickies, that I should find more fulfillment from just getting through the day, that I should have my head around the fact Pete isn’t here so I should stop wishing for what he gave me back, that I should accept myself for who I am, that I shouldn’t want a wine as much as I do, that I should be happier that its just me and the kids because they are amazing, that I should be able to deal with this and not rely so heavily on other people… The list in my head is long and extensive…
And then just when I think the juggle of it all might get too hard.
Or that I can juggle it, and it will be ok …
I got a letter saying Pete’s estate has finally been settled.
There had been some wrangling around some of the final things. And that’s now been completed. The letter from the solicitor simply said: “now that’s in order, it is considered completed”.
For whatever reason, the finality of that hit me like a truck.
It’s the acknowledging that Pete’s death is now ‘completed’ – all the paperwork is done, and we can move on.
And for some time, friends and I have been discussing the need for the emoji keyboard to have a *big sigh emoji*
Today needed just that.
A *big sigh emoji*
And then I'll look at all the photos I took today and realise that in between the yelling and the frustrations there were moments of joy and happiness and reality that the kids really are good, and funny, and great company.
So I'll give myself a wine, a cry and a kick up the backside, and start again tomorrow.
Because tomorrow is a new day.
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