Can't believe we've got here, 8 months since she died, how is that real.
I wonder if I'll always count the months or whether, like with babies and toddlers 30 months will become 2 and a half years, or I'll say 4 and a bit, nearly 8, 10, 12, 14 years??
Lying in bed listening to the weather last night as the loud and ferocious thunderstorm raged, I am reminded yet again how small and insignificant humans really are. How our struggles, although they seem overwhelming to us, are actually of no relevance. I'm not sure if that realisation helps or not?
It's been a weird and not so wonderful few months, obviously not just for me. The last month has definitely been an up and down kind of month. Sometimes, like on her birthday, the ups and downs have been over the course of a day, while the holiday to menorca was mainly a happy time.
Now, in our enforced isolation there are alot of downs. I think I have quite good mental strength, but these two weeks are really stretching it. I'm unable to fall back on my usual remedies of friends and exercise. Zoom does not make up for actual human contact, and YouTube exercise videos are no replacement for the great outdoors. I've tried to make the best of it, but coming so soon after national lockdown means I'm all out of positivity. Starting what feels like the 400th garden project holds little excitement. Wine feels like the obvious remedy, when actually it's the worst cure.
There have been times when I've struggled to get out of bead, telling Chris that their seems little point. But that's insidious, soon there's no point in getting dressed, in eating, then, before you know how it happened, there's no point to life itself. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at that point, but I see how it can happen. I understand that many people will struggle with self isolation. I have three other people and a crazy puppy to isolate with. I can't begin to imagine what it would be like if I was alone.
Our government is sacrificing our mental health at the altar of covid19. What happened to track and trace? At what point do they/we realise that we can't continue this way, hiding away, not living just existing.
I don't know the answers, but I do know we haven't found them yet.
I do know that I'm looking forward to my self isolation being over so I can get back into the big wide world and continue my version of self help. I know that sitting at home, contemplating my fate, the fate of our beautiful 13 year old, is not what I need to be doing.
"If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back" Nietzsche
