This week has been a bit up and down, as most of them seem to be!

Our tiniest human, the Peanut has started daycare this week, and I am reasonably sure that he would not have loved it! He is very much a mummies boy so the separation will be a challenge for him. The Squish was pretty excited for baby brother to also be going to ‘school’ tho, and was very very cute about discussing the fact that the Peanut has his own bag with different things in it.

One of my boys girlfriend’s dad died. He had been unwell for quite a long time, so while it was not unexpected it is still super sad for her and her family and it rocked the boys a whole lot. Death has taken on a whole other meaning in our house, and a dead dad hits especially hard. It’s really nice to see tho how they all band together and look out for each other. They are a pretty strong team and that is something that makes me incredibly happy.

One of the boys has a birthday this week, and I actually find those quite challenging. It’s always a reminder of all the things that Claytie is missing out on. He would be so proud of all the boys and the amazing people that they are. There are so many ‘if only’ and ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ scenarios that I think about all the time. Those feelings are somehow still just as raw as they were at the beginning, and there is almost a sense of ‘why am I not doing better by now’.

I had a conversation along those lines with a couple of widowed girlfriends the other night, feeling like we shouldn’t still be grieving this hard this far down the track. That some days feel like the very first day where you question absolutely everything, and then the next day you’re back to feeling stronger, which is the part that the rest of the world expects and gets to see. It’s really validating talking to other people who completely understand what you’re saying because they are experiencing the same things.

Most of the time I feel like I am doing ok..I have a whole lot of things in my life to be grateful for and happy about, but underneath all of that is a Claytie sized hole that has not shrunk. He is still absolutely part of every single day, and I don’t want that to change. It can be a weird thing to navigate around, so many mixed emotions all the time, especially with new people in my world. I am happy, enjoying a new relationship and I am looking forward to what the future holds, but there is also a constant looking back and wondering what Claytie would think.

That’s life tho, isn’t it!? Just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to make it the most positive thing that it can be. Each interaction and experience builds up to make us who we are, and I’m ok with me right now.