This week has been a busy one, and I’m bloody pretty tired if I am being honest! I was rostered to work 8 days straight (two left to go), and while they are all day shifts, it is still a whole lot at once. I have also had some lovely things on after work that have added to the busy and the tiredness. I should probably slow down and do less stuff, but at the moment I also don’t want to miss out on having adventures! I’m pretty sure there is another crash coming (and soon) but for now I’m pushing through.

It’s a funny thing feeling like I don’t want to miss out on anything, and then being somehow disconnected from the things that I am doing, because I’m exhausted from trying to maintain those positive feelings. It is not that I don’t want to feel the negatives, I know they are important too, but they take up so much space. They are enormous and everywhere and they tend to take over. They feel relentless, but staying positive takes a whole lot of work. Doing all the things that I am doing is a big part of that whole fake it til you make it thing. I don’t want to sit in my sadness all the time… I do it plenty – and more at the moment as we come up to our big yucky dates.

Next week will be my third wedding anniversary since Claytie died. Two weeks after that is his anniversary, and two weeks after that will be his birthday. That too is a lot all at once! This year all of those things will be quite different for us given that some very significant family relationships changed at Christmas. Life is what it is, and things change and move on, but some things sting more than others. One of the boys will also be away for Clayties anniversary this year and will most likely spend the day on his own. That hurts too!

Theses days, for the most part, I feel like I am much more attuned to my feelings. I know that I won’t be a whole lot of good on those dates and I have made sure that I won’t be working. Someone suggested changing some of what we do this year, given the things that are already different, but I don’t feel ready for that. I want to sit with my feelings on those dates. I want to eat ‘catfood casserole’ with the boys and talk about him. I miss Claytie every minute of every day anyway. Significant dates don’t change those feelings I know that, but it does feel important to sit with them then. That might change at some stage, but for now it feels right.

I’ve just had a lovely dinner with all of my kids, and my Squish (as I call my fabulously delightful grandson) and that has been just the right thing to finish the week, and I do have some lovely things planned for the days that I have off this week. For now I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and riding the rollercoaster that all of this is. There really isn’t a whole lot else that I can do.