Well, this week has been a bit of a mixed bag! I’ve had some really fun and lovely outings- including the Ed Sheeran concert- with people who make me feel great. I have also had a nasty head cold (not covid – I tested twice!) and needed to stay home from work for a couple of days. It has actually been kind of nice (other than the sickness) to have time at home and just sit on the couch, but it has also highlighted how a lot of my life now is just going through the motions.

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about how disconnected you feel from the rest of the world when you’re in this grief bubble. Being home from work and not feeling particularly healthy has probably amplified that, but it’s a disconcerting thing. It almost feels as though I’m on the outside looking in and watching my life. I know how I am supposed to feel, and I can get an approximation of that, but nothing really actually feels like it used to, and when I do feel things they kind of don’t stick!?

There is a kind of apathy involved in just about every part of my life, and I really hate that feeling. It seems like the lows are much closer and the highs are much harder to work for and none of it actually feels real. It’s almost like when you are dreaming; you know it’s a dream so you just float along with whatever is happening… but this isn’t a dream and I won’t wake up to something better. This apathy seems to be a thing that comes and goes – or my awareness of it comes and goes. Sometimes I can go along for ages and it’s kind of just in the background, and then other times it’s right there at the front and I can’t get rid of it.

I think that having this feeling of not really feeling has been why Ive tried to keep so busy doing a million things too. I want to feel things! I don’t want to just be going through the motions and playing the ‘fake it til you make it’ game, but I don’t know what else to do really. I don’t much like myself when I just sit and wallow, and while I know I have to honour and acknowledge the grief and the sadness of Claytie being gone, I really don’t want to be a sad and miserable person forever. I know that’s not what Claytie would want either!

I will always miss Claytie and wish that my life was the one I chose rather than the one I now find myself living. I am doing my best to find things that bring me joy and make me laugh, that are comforting and fun and fulfilling, but at the moment there is still a gap between knowing what I should be feeling and actually feeling it.