Chapter Two - Dating disasters and other delights

So today was one of those days that came with a hard slap.

I had some stuff to fix with my pool … in the last little while I’ve had a leak, which has been fixed, but it’s been a bit of a mission to get it back to clean. The pool was always Clayties thing to fix, so it’s been a learning curve to figure it all out. It’s probably not actually that hard, but it’s just something else I have had to take on since he died. I have spent a whole lot of time and money on it in the last few years… chemicals, new pump, new cleaner etc.

I went to get the water tested the other day and was told that it looked like maybe the chlorinator was not working properly, and to bring it in to get looked at. Should be simple… right?! I took out the part that I thought they needed (with some help from my dad!) and the guys in the shop kind of laughed at me… I had only given them half of what they needed. Back home, and some more wrangling to get the other bit. In the car again to drop it off… luckily the shop isn’t too far away, but still a nuisance. I was told it would probably take a couple of days… no drama.

Home again… and onto the rest of the chores that happen when I have a day off. I had just sat down with a cuppa, when my phone pinged with an incoming message – and the slap…. Hi Clayton and Robbie, your item is ready for collection.

It is always such a shock and surprise now when something comes that is addressed to Claytie. I know it’s not done intentionally – I had asked them to change the details in their system to be just mine, and mostly that has been the case, but not today.

It feels a little bit like a set back? … you catch your breath and there is a bit of a lag in your brain as you go through a kind of ‘is he here, no he isn’t, he died’ reset. It’s not that you’ve forgotten, you can’t… but there’s a bit of a glitch that happens, and it brings the sadness back to the front. It’s not something I can fix or change, and I think it will always happen in a situation like that….and it is always unexpected!

Anyway, once I sorted myself out – of course there were tears! I went back to the pool shop and found out that the chlorinator was not actually broken, it was just on the wrong setting! … maybe the whole thing was a message from Claytie!

I had a conversation with someone new to my circle the other day about how much of a role Claytie still plays in my world. I think a lot of people think that when a person dies everything kind of just stops… and maybe for some people that is the case!? I know that most of the widowed people in my world still have a relationship with their person – it’s just very very different now.

For me, journaling every night is like a conversation with Claytie just before I go to bed. I tell him about my day, the boys and just what ever else is happening in my world. I have been doing it since about a week after he died and it’s a huge thing for me now. Music for me is another way of communicating with him… I know that sounds a bit weird, but stay with me!

I have a huge playlist that I listen to all the time… there are all kinds of things in there, and I add more to it all the time. I love to sing along in the car or at home… and it’s part of my ‘conversations’ with Claytie. I often talk aloud to him and if I have questions, I get answers in the form of the songs that play (the list is shuffled and random) There are songs that for me have particular meanings, and others that will have an answer that I maybe wasn’t expecting…. And often when I’m feeling sad, exactly the right song will play and it’s almost like getting a hug.

This weekend was full of music and interesting people for me; great conversations and a really happy energy and it’s been a huge lift – even with the very very late nights involved. Friday night was karaoke with a new friend.. I love it – it’s been a thing for at least 4 years pretty regularly now, but was also a source of happiness before Claytie died. I love the energy in the room, and the people watching is fabulous! The crowd is always super varied, and I love trying to predict and being surprised by the song choices. Good conversation with an interesting person was an added bonus!

I have also discovered a new happy place.. Doo-bop bar in Brisbane city. It has been around for a little while, but is new for me. It’s a hole in the wall piano bar where they play all the music that everyone knows and people joyfully sing along and dance their hearts out! A couple of girlfriends and I went on Saturday night and it was such a fun night out!!

I love having new adventures and I love when that involves music and happy, joyful energy! It is an absolute boost and it usually stays with me for a while.

I was having a conversation with someone the other day… one of those getting to know each other conversations where the most random questions come out, and I was asked if I am happy. I think at the time I gave kind of a glib answer… but I have been thinking about it ever since.

I think it is an interesting thing to really think about… it’s so easy to just say yes or no depending on the day, but to really deep dive into it is a different thing! To look at the whole and to assign percentages, to quantify how much of your life is happy or unhappy. We all have things that are hard, or sad or annoying… but how much of that negativity is real and lasting, and how much is a fleeting moment that we give entirely too much weight to!?

I absolutely think that for the most part I am happy – and I recognise that the last few posts have probably not shown that! The last month or so has been rough with all the hard dates, but even with Claytie dying, with all of the grief and the feelings that come with it, which are real and need to be honoured, the balance in my life definitely tips more to the happy side.

I made a choice, very early on in the piece, that I don’t want to be a sad and miserable person. It is a choice that I have to consciously make every day. Some days it can be really really hard, and sometimes I just have to admit defeat and sit with the negative; but I don’t allow myself to stay there for too long… the boys would be disappointed with me if I did, and I can imagine (loudly) what Claytie would have to say about it!

I chose to be grateful for all of the positive things in my life – and there are an overwhelming number of those. I chose to look for silver linings and different perspectives – sometimes that takes a little while, and I start with a less positive emotion, but mostly, when I take a step back I can put a different spin onto things. – and I do that for myself. It is not necessarily about the other person, but rather about me and how I live with whatever it was.

I also feel that for me, getting the negative stuff out of my brain absolutely helps to tip me back to positive. I journal every night and that helps to process the day. I talk to any number of people constantly and that also helps – and it gives perspective… and then there is this blog which I have found incredibly useful.

These days I am much more mindful about how I am feeling, and letting myself have the negative moments when I need them. It has been a hard thing to learn. Maybe it’s an age thing, or life experience, but I have reached a point where I am much less concerned about what other people think. Obviously there are opinions that are really important to me, that I value enormously, but on the whole I just can’t take on the added weight of what people think about me, I just have to do what I have to do to be ok… and that is ok!

For some reason, and I am not sure there is just one reason, this year has felt really, really heavy – and not just for me. My mum commented pretty much the same thing to me the other day. The weight of grief has been particularly heavy in the last month, with all of the anniversary dates around Claytie, and my resilience and ability to ‘bounce back’ just hasn’t been the same. It has been hard! – and when I look back over the year, there have been some pretty big things both in my world and the boys.

At the beginning of the year, the relationship I was in and one that I could see a bright future with, ended very abruptly. It was not my choice, but is absolutely done for me. It seems that the other person is still hanging on in a whole lot of ways, and that’s been really hard and confusing too. Just when I get to a place of being ok… something will happen to rock that boat again, and it feels like I slide backwards a bit.

One of my boys had a big disappointment around a holiday at the start of the year, and I had some concerns around how he would cope with that. There was a lot of stress around it, trying to find a solution. That situation was fine in the end, but the relationship he was in at the time ended a few months after that, which was also hugely sad and difficult because he thought he had found his forever person too.

We have since had another of the boys relationships break down, and none of us saw that one coming. They have been together for such a long time, and I think we all thought it was set in stone. No one expected that the two of them would ever break up; and there is now a whole new grief for him (and for the rest of us) to have to deal with and get through.

Helping your kids with their heartbreak is really hard! I am a fixer, and I can’t fix this. It really sux! I wish more than anything that I could make things better – or have some kind of crystal ball to see what’s coming for us next so we can brace for it…. But all of this stuff is just life;and I know that we are no different to anyone else. I also know that the majority of our lives are pretty good, and that we are actually really lucky! … sometimes you just have to sit and stew for a minute before you can see the sun again.

As Claytie would say, it is what it is, there is nothing you can do, you just have to get through it and get on with it! So that’s what we’re doing.

So this week is Clayties birthday. He would be 52 yeas old, and I am sure there would be a whole lot of teasing him about that. Instead, he stopped at 46 and we have to remember who he was. The joy he brought into our lives with his infectious giggle and his love for life. It hurts and it sux! Regardless of where he started the day, at home or working away, it would begin with an Iced Coffee – he loved the stuff, and I miss having the empty bottles cluttering up the bin.

I have been looking at photo memories on social media, and while there are a whole lot of smiles and love in them, there is also a whole lot of sadness. There is the big obvious one – Claytie is gone and I will never get the chance to make more memories or take more pictures of him, but there is also sadness about the other people in those memories. So many people have moved themselves away from us. Friends and people who were family are no longer part of our world, and that really hurts too. There are so many layers to grief. Sometimes they settle and you think that maybe you’re ok with those parts now, but they are actually always there and will come to the surface when you’re not ready for them.

I have really not been doing too well with all of these dates this year. For some reason they feel a whole lot heavier again, almost like they were at the beginning. I don’t know if it’s because it 5 years and that feels really significant, or if it is just where I am at in my life right now. A friend said to me the other day -‘you seem lost’, and that is exactly how I feel. Lost, without an anchor, drifting.

It really is a rollercoaster, and for me, the surprise is just how hard and heavy things are 5years down the track. I know that I will never not miss Claytie, but all those statements about time healing things are a load of crap! The only thing that time has given me, is permission to feel the feelings as they come up; to not let myself worry about what other people think about where I am at and what I am doing. It is what it is, and I am who I am, and I have to do and feel what I have to do and feel.

I am ok and it’s not all bad and sad, there are definitely good things in my world, but under it all is just an emptiness. I am trying hard not to let myself stay there. I’ve given myself permission to just get through all of these dates and then I’ll pull myself back together, but it’s hard.

The post holiday blues are a very real thing in my world…

I am currently in the middle of two weeks away from work. I have needed it! July is really really hard in a whole lot of ways, so it has been nice to not have work to think about.

I was really lucky last week to have an adventure with a friend. I have known him for a really long time, and we have actually had a whole lot of adventures together. It is always fun and easy! This time, we climbed Bald Rock (in Girraween National park, NSW). It is a huge granite monolith, with a near vertical face. It was a 1.2km hard climb to get to the top, and it was spectacular! I am proud of myself for doing it. We also stayed at his daughter’s place – an idyllic property in the countryside, with fruit trees and horses, sheds and tractors and her very cute (almost) two year old son. From there we went to the beach – which is where my friend lives- and had an amazing couple of days there.

…and then it was time to come home!

The sads hit almost immediately. I was back to my everyday world, and back to being on my own. Yes, a whole lot of my kids still live at home, but they are all so busy and involved in their own lives (which is how it should be) that there isnt a whole lot of time for me; and the interactions with them are not what I am talking about.

I really really miss one on one time with a person who wants me. I miss feeling connected to someone, the looks and touches and just that easy familiarity that makes you feel content with life.… but I also don’t want to go back to online dating. I don’t have the energy for that – and I don’t think I trust myself to get it right! Even thinking about starting again and downloading my profile feels gross!

I know that this is just another phase to go through, but it is a hard one, especially in July! Loneliness is an insidious thing… it coats everything and cycles around itself. It is hard to snap out of feeling that way and usually just leads to a pity party. It makes me feel needy and clingy and I hate it. I want what I had, but that is gone and those reminders are hard!

I know that I am ok on my own, that I can do a whole lot of stuff by myself and I know that at some stage, these feelings will get less again…. I also know that when I am feeling like this I need to find ways to stay busy so I don’t keep spiralling into these thoughts. I have a few things lined up that should keep me occupied and I’ll start planning the next adventure… it’s good to have those to look forward to, even when I know that the come down is hard.

So today marks exactly 5 years since I came home from work and found Claytie unresponsive on the floor in the bathroom. It is 5 years since the boys and I had to go through the hardest thing that anyone could ever have to go through, loosing one of the best people I have ever known. 5 years since my very favourite person died.

It feels like it all happened a minute ago – the chaos and confusion, the crystal clear pictures that live in my mind. The sounds and the smells, the feelings of WTF just happened to my world. The tears and the overwhelming weight of the grief that we have carried. …. and at the same time if feels like it has been a life time since that moment.

So very many things have changed in our world since the 20th of July 2020, and I am more sure than ever that Claytie would have a whole lot to say about all of them. The boys are the most amazing people, and are doing so incredibly well. We have had a whole new person in our world for two and a half years, and there is another one coming soon – and I know just how obsessed Claytie would be with both of them. We have had good things and not so good things happen for all of us – holidays and experiences that he should have been part of, bucket list things that we were going to do together. Relationships that have changed forever and people that should be, but are no longer part of our lives. Business ventures and career choices that he would be so immensely delighted about.

I know that my life would look completely different if Claytie was still here, but I also know that he would be so proud of the boys and I for continuing to put one foot in front of the other every single day, and making the very best of the lives that we now live without him.

So today we will honour and celebrate Claytie. We will have our traditional family dinner of Catfood Casserole (Tuna Mornay to those new to this blog), iced coffee and pavlova. We will scratch scratchies and hope that this is the year he comes through with a big win for us; and we will remember and be grateful for all of the good times that we had with him for the 46years that he was in the word. We will never not miss him!

July is exhausting. It is all the emotional build up and then the big, sad dates. All the memories and replaying moments… the lack of sleep because of the dreams and nightmares. I have found that it hasn’t really got any easier, and even though I should know by now what to expect, there are still so many moments that catch me off guard.

The other day I got into my sons car (he wanted Clayties car and after a whole lot of conversation and deliberation between all of us he bought it from me) .. we were going to a friends party, carpooling; I got the front seat and there in the footwell was an empty bottle of iced coffee. That took me right back to driving with Claytie in that car. He always had empty iced coffee bottles in there, he drank gallons of the stuff, and seeing that one on that day just floored me – again.

Facebook is also hard… memories that come up. I love them and that they are there, but it is also really tough. Today was the anniversary of our last date. We took ourselves for a big drive all around the Noosa hinterland area and through the glass house mountains. We had the most spectacular day, calling ourselves ‘speed tourists’ cause we didn’t stay anywhere for too long, but we managed to pack so many things into the one day. It was fun and happy and it makes me sad that all I have left is a memory and we don’t get to do it again.

It’s having the Squish looking at family photos, there is a big one in the room we change his nappy in, and him knowing all of the people, except for his Grandpa Claytie, and wishing more than anything that he did. It is all the memories and songs that play randomly. It’s those moments, that you can’t prepare for that are some of the hardest. They can happen anywhere and any time, and they are just as hard now as they were when he first died.

It’s also really hard having all of those feelings, and trying to hold it all together. Trying to function at work and just getting through each day. Finding any sort of motivation and pushing myself to do things anyway. Sometimes that works and I have a nice time, other times it just feels like a punishment… but the alternative of sitting at home just being sad is also not great… it’s just July!

So this year – this week, I should be celebrating my 30th wedding anniversary. It feels surreal that Claytie is not here for such a big milestone. There have been four others without him, but for some reason the fact that it is a ’round’ number has really played with my head, and the build up for it has been a whole lot this time…. in fact it has been that for all of the dates coming up this year.

The last anniversary that we got to celebrate together was our Silver one. 25years of being married, but we had been together for 28 at that point. I had a couple of weeks annual leave from work and he was between projects – it was also a period between COVID lock downs which helped to make it possible for us to have a road trip. We decided to head to the Hunter Valley for a couple of days with his mum – probably not how I thought we would spend it, but money was a bit tight and we actually had a really nice time. We spent a couple of days doing a bunch of stuff with his mum (her birthday was the day after our anniversary) and then a full day driving around to a whole of vineyards. Claytie was the designated driver – he was not a fan of wine, and was happy to drive… and it was really lovely. We had a beautiful lunch, and I was very lucky to receive a diamond pendant from him.

My gift for Claytie that year was much less lavish.. I bought him a new stainless steel cup – he had one that was his favourite for a really long time, but it got damaged and was no longer usable. It was a bit of a search to find the right replacement cup for him, but eventually I did, and I had it engraved – “Here’s cheers to another 25 years”. He never actually used it… He died 12 days later.

It’s funny the things that you remember – those things that are always right at the front of your mind, and then random things that pop into your head. Things that just make you smile, before the reality of the situation comes back in to set you straight. The lead up to all of the yucky dates is a huge time of introspection for me. There are so many memories, photos and videos that I love to go through that are just as hard as they are happy. I remember the first conversation that we had. We were on the school ski trip, and he was on a mission to take photos with everyone. He popped into the girls cabin and made us all pose with him, I can’t remember who actually took the photo, but it’s our first together. They are memories that (along with all of the others) I will cherish.

This year, I have taken the day for myself. I know that it’s a day that I struggle with now and I don’t want to have to be anything for anyone on these dates. I want to sit and remember and just feel what I need to. I also decided to take myself away – which is absolutely something we would have done together for a big anniversary like this one. I am in one of our favourite places, and somewhere I go often, watching the waves and the whales, and snorkelling with sea turtles.

It is calm and peaceful and I wish more than anything that Claytie was here with me x

I was a bit unsure what to write about this week… I had some fabulous social events for friends birthdays over the weekend; one of which was a dress up – and we all know how much I love those! Having a busy weekend also reminds me how grateful I am to not work on Mondays. … I am of an age where it takes a whole lot longer to recover from things that it used to!

This time of the year is difficult for me tho… I am coming up to all of the significant dates that changed my world, and the build up this year feels particularly hard. I’m not sure why that is because for the most part I am actually in a pretty good place in myself. I’ve lost some weight and am feeling healthy, I have great people around me and I am a whole lot more confident that I used to be, but right now it feels really heavy to be doing all of this on my own.

Mostly I’m proud of myself and I want Claytie to be proud of me too. I want to know what his thoughts would be on how I have managed all of this shit for the last five years. I want to talk to him about the boys and how fabulous they are. I want his people to still be my people, our people…. I want him to be here! I want the life that I used to have!

Grief is a weird thing. It is such a rollercoaster! Just when you think you’re in an ok place something comes along to knock you right back down. It’s not even always something that you can pinpoint – which makes it hard to prepare for in any way! I know that the big dates are there, they are coming; and by now I mostly know how I will feel… it’s the day to day stuff that is the hardest… and there have been a lot of days!

Anyway… that me right now – doing my best to get through it and keep going. In the words of a great man… “it is what it is, you can’t change it, you just have to get on with it!”