I was snuffling on the phone again yesterday, emotion intruding on a conversation with the decorator. Only Jane is not just the decorator. She was already not just the decorator the very first time she came to the bungalow. Recommended by a mutual friend, she'd come to take a look at what I wanted, what she'd recommend, give me a rough idea on price and timescale. She asked how I came to have the property, and I told her, and I hadn't then got through the statutory year-and-a-day since Clive's death, so allowing the tears was even easier then. In between listening to me and sharing the story of her own year of grief in losing both parents within days (or was it weeks? too close anyhow), she hugged me.
That was back in March. It's now July. She's been de-gluing and filling and sanding and priming and finally adding colour for the last four weeks. In two weeks she'll be finished.
We're starting to become friends.
We weren't talking about decorating. We were talking about the garden, and the flaws I'm finding now the designer/installer has gone. But that's nothing to cry about. What won't fix, will fade. I can afford not to care. I can let it be. Let him have his petty victories. I can decide to just do what needs to be done and not sacrifice joy to the rigours of the contract. I can sit in the zen space – which I already adore – and claim it and know that imperfections are important. We should notice them, and appreciate them, and not struggle against them. Wabi-sabi, I believe the Japanese call it: the idea that imperfection, impermanence and incompleteness are hallmarks of beauty, not marring of it.
No, the tears are not for the garden. The tears are because we've just endured very un-Englishly high temperatures and I'm tired from lack of sleep and exhausted from activity and still somewhat overwhelmed by everything that's going on. The tears are because I'm of a certain age and the hormones probably haven't settled down yet. The tears are because although I've come through that year and a day, the full round of memories and festivals and anniversaries, each of them devoid of our traditions, the old jokes not told, the sharing no longer possible, the silliness absent, the love still present but with nowhere to go, a mad fling having proved to be nothing more than that. The tears are because I've been talking a lot about Clive. The tears are because major emotional impacts don't dissipate overnight, or even over-year, they lurk like childhood monsters under the bed ready to pounce.
The tears are.
And will be for a time yet.
I get emotional when people tell me how strong I am and how much I have achieved. Why is that? Perhaps because I don’t always feel strong or resilient. I feel pathetic and lost and alone. I know, intellectually, that those feelings are not justified. I'm not alone. And I must be strong because I am getting this stuff done. Why do I find it so hard to look back and acknowledge the scale of this mountain – not the path still to climb, but that already conquered? I'm still looking forward wanting to reach the summit, even though I know there'll be another one beyond it. I want to get there and enjoy the view for a while. But surely I should also pause and look back. Consider the distance already covered.
I can't. Not yet. I so much want to get through this transition, complete the renovation and move into the bungalow that we never shared but he always wanted me to have.
The decoration is nearly finished. A new door next week, blinds the week after. Then it's only carpets and flooring and I can move. Re-settle. Start my new life.
There's been nothing special about my journey through the last 18 months or so. I've done what millions of people do to deal with grief. I've written about it. I've talked about it. I've worked. I've wept and wailed, and I've laughed and had fun. I threw myself into a passing relationship that was never going to last and kidded myself it would. I've learned how to ask for help and how to accept it. Mostly, though, I've just got up each morning and looked at what needed to be done next, and done that.
So much for practicality: do what needs to be done. Keep busy.
What about the other side of things, the less tangible…?
I've started learning to listen to the whispers. What you might call them will depend on your belief system. They could be messages from 'somewhere else', they could just be our subconscious (or our soul?) screaming to be heard by prodding us to notice what just happens to be there.
In the midst of a 'down' few days, I turned on the radio and the first three songs I heard included the refrains "stay strong", "you've got to make the most of life" and "Hakuna Matata". Received and understood.
A text message alerted me to a delivery…which kept me home waiting all day. It dutifully showed up just after 5pm. But maybe a stay-at-home day was what my body craved? No maybe about it…the way my body reacts to stress is not something you want to take out and about.
And so it goes on…I'm having to pack up and leave where I am. It would seem that some stuff is getting the message. In the last few days, my washing machine has broken down, the lawn mower puttered and spattered and gave up, I've just torn and ripped a favourite skirt (ok it's nearly 30 years old but that's not the point)…"stuff" is telling me: "let go of stuff".
A year ago I was dismantling the detritus of other people's lives and it was so hard. Now I'm faced with doing the same of my own…and wow, how much harder that is proving.
