It’s funny sometimes isnt it, how you start something thinking it will go one way and then it changes and evolves into something else. Initially this blog was going to be a way for me to tell funny stories about random dates and trying to figure out what comes next, and maybe this evolution was always going to be like this; but now this blog is absolutely my therapy. It helps me to clear out my head in so many ways- and trust me, I absolutely need it!

I have been journaling every night since about a week or so after Claytie died. Sometimes three pages, sometimes two paragraphs. But every single night before I try to sleep, I write to him and tell him about my day and what is going on. It feels a bit like the phone calls that used to happen when he was working away… it’s pretending that we still have that connection, that he’s not really gone. It’s hanging onto tiny bits of my old life to make it all not feel quite so bad!… it doesn’t really work, nothing can… but I’m ok with the idea. Mostly it helps and I go to sleep ok, but staying asleep is another thing! This is being written at 2am on a Friday morning. I am awake and my brain won’t shut off!

I’m not entirely sure who reads all of this stuff – it doesn’t really matter, I do it for me. It has become a weekly round up of the thoughts that go on in my head through the week. It makes me focus and think and challenge myself to keep moving. I put it out there so that others can maybe either relate to some stuff, or maybe understand how hard this all is. I’m quite happy to share it… welcome to my F***ed up world!! But there are some people in my circle that I haven’t specifically invited to read it, not because I don’t want them to know – we all know I like to talk! It’s more that I haven’t wanted for them to be hurt by my ‘moving on’ (god I hate that phrase!) They know I write it, I have told them bits and pieces, but it hasn’t been specific. In a lot of ways it would probably have been easier to give them the choice at the beginning, because potentially by trying to protect them I have managed the opposite.

One of the hardest things for me since Claytie died has been the relationship changes with so many other people in our world. There are some that distanced themselves very early in the piece, i have talked about it plenty of times.. and mostly I have come to terms with that. There are others who took a bit longer and that has been much harder. The slow moving away is harder in sooo many ways because you don’t see it coming, and there are other people that completely blindside you with their moves. I’m not the same person that I was, that’s really hard too, but I thought that the people who were left would be there without question.

I don’t do particularly well (I’m not sure anyone does) when I’m in a situation of being blamed or targeted without an explanation. I’m not sure how to address or fix something when I haven’t been told what the problem is… it would be so much easier in so many ways if people just said what was on their mind instead of just not talking at all. A fight would be easier than constantly second guessing and over analysing peoples motivation. With a fight at least you would know where to put your feelings at the end. Silence is passive aggressive and nasty!

I can’t control how others behave, only how I respond to it, and that is really hard too! I’m not always rational and calm, and my anxiety goes through the roof (hence the 2am musings). It hard knowing how to process and work out the right way to behave. How long do you let something go before you confront it head on? … and will saying something help or make it worse? Do you walk away and not fight for things that been huge in your world, or do you just let it all go and say it’s their loss!? That’s the situation I’m facing at the moment. It’s really hard, and this essay probably doesn’t help anything much!… but I do need to get it out somehow… it’s been taking up a whole lot of space and energy that I don’t really have.

…and just for the record, I am fine – or working my way toward that! This is just another one of those bumps in the road that happen.