I was having a conversation with someone the other day about all of my hard days in July, and naturally there were tears for me. The whole month is full of dates that are big. – Our wedding anniversary, our last date, his death anniversary, the day of his funeral, his birthday…. So many dates that fill me with sorrow! But then, as is usually the case, the conversation moved on and we started talking to the big trip I have coming up in July with my new partner and how excited I am for it, and the person I was talking to asked me if that was weird. To be so sad about my husband and missing him so much, and at the same time to be happy and excited and looking forward to adventures with my new partner, and honestly, in a million ways, yes it is…. And then in a million more, not at all.

This for me is absolutely the duality of grief and moving forward. The split personality thing that happens when you lose your person. I will never not be sad that Claytie is gone. He was my entire world for such a long time – more than half of my life at this stage! I am devastated at all of the things we had planned that we now don’t get to do. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him and wish he was here. I still reach for my phone to tell him things that have happened, or stuff I hear about people in our world that he would love to know about; things that are happening with the boys and the Squish…

But at the same time, there are so many things happening right now that I’m excited and grateful for. I get to travel and and experience amazing things with someone who has brought a whole lot of joy and love back into my life. I get to have adventures and see all kinds of things, meet people that I wouldn’t otherwise get to know. I have a bunch of fabulous new friends to add to those that were there before, and I have four amazing kids that make me proud every single day… and I get to live a really full life that I am incredibly happy about.

I’m finding that grief is a constant balancing act between the sad and the happy, it’s a continuous rollercoaster of bitter sweetness. I am living both sides of that every day, and it can be confusing as hell. There is also a whole lot of anxiety around all of it, and without any sort of guide book it’s like wearing a blindfold on a see-saw and wrestling an octopus into a string bag. I have no idea what I am doing or what I am supposed to be doing, so as always, it is one day at a time.

It is really hard to explain just how bi-polar all of this is. Trying to feel all of the emotions – good and bad- and giving them the right amount of weight. I know that Claytie wouldn’t want me to be sitting alone crying all of the time, but at the same time his loss is so huge in my world the when I let myself, that is exactly what I want to do. When I am having good days (and there are now many of those as well) there is a guilt to feeling happy because he isn’t here; and then there is the knowing that I’m not doing anything wrong by looking for and being happy, because he would want that for me. It’s a circle that goes round and round in my head all the time!

The only thing that I know I can do – is what I have been doing everyday since the 20th of July 2020, and that is to take one step at a time. To feel all of the feelings and to keep moving forward in a way that would make Claytie proud. ‘As he would say, It is what it is’ – there is nothing I can do about it except to keep going, and to be grateful for the love and support that I have around me.