A room full of colours...

Every day is the same and yet every day is different. What I can do one day, may become the hardest challenge of the next. It is true what people say and the illustrations of grief. It certainly is not a straight line. As time moves forward, living without Luke does not get easier. Some days are better to manage than others but this does not mean the next will be the same. In fact if I've had a day where I've thought, "I CAN do this!" The next day rolls up, smacks me in the face and laughs before leaving me in a crippled mess on the bedroom floor; or bathroom floor or even in the shower. In actual fact it's not really fussed where it leaves me, just providing it floors me then I guess it thinks it's done its job. So far though it hasn't left me this way in public, so that's something to be grateful for I suppose. I've always managed to make it back to our home.

But grief is not straight forward and it doesn't get easier or better simply because time has moved forwards. Grief is a knotted mess of hair from a brush. It is a child's scribble on a piece of paper as they learn to grasp a pen. It is a thousand colours of paint thrown into a small room, with the colours splashing on the floors, walls and ceilings. Whatever isn't touched by the paint initially, soon gets covered as the paints runs and flows and drips across the surface, leaving its mark. Grief is a mess. It is a mess that I now need to clean up, or at least begin to clean up.

I am considering going back to work, although this is a normality that scares the shit out of me. Losing Luke is not normal and to carry on life in the normal way feels wrong in every way shape and form. To move back in to a normal routine (even a new routine) feels wrong. But I know it needs to be done. I know that I can't hide away and sit the days out for the rest of my life. Don't get me wrong. I want to. I really want to hide away and just wake up with Luke, where this moment in my life without Luke is nothing but a distant memory. But life does not work this way, so I need to suck it up, put on my game face and do 'normal' things. I need to cover the feelings that are inside and just do the everyday routines without thinking too much, almost like auto pilot. If I don't move into auto pilot again, then I'm afraid that I'll never move again.

I was thinking today about being told to, "do something." I thought about what I have done since Luke left me. And actually I have done something every single day. Admittedly, for some days my 'something' was to simply breathe and to not give up (lol 'simply'). My 'something' was to walk away from the packet of sleeping pills, which could so easily stop all of this and would mean I wouldn't have to wake up one more day without Luke. Some days my 'something' was to just make it to the evening. On these days, this 'something' was the hardest most challenging thing to do and it hurt. It hurt with every breath and felt like a huge crushing weight slammed on top of me. But it was a 'something' that I succeeded to do. To an outsider, it may have seemed like I was doing nothing but moping in our home because my 'something' was not what they expected or anything they could see. But if they could see past the outside, they would have seen that it's on these days that I was doing the biggest 'something' of all; I was choosing to live without Luke.

On the more manageable days I have organised paperwork and sorted finances, I have made arrangements with friends. I have left the house. I have interacted with people. On the better days I have even interacted with strangers! (This does not happen often anymore. Strangers stress me out because they are so clueless to what is happening. You don't realise how painful a simple, friendly question can be when your whole world has fallen apart, "So are you doing anything good with your day?" "How's your week been?" "Is this a gift for a loved one?"). I now try to avoid these interactions as best I can.

I have done lots of 'somethings'. It's just that you can't see many of these 'somethings' and I admit that is partly because I don't let you see it. But please don't think I'm just moping in the home doing nothing when I don't come out or if I haven't been productive in the way you want or expect. I am doing the best that I can because I have never been in this situation before. I'm pretty much making this shit up each day and learning from each encounter and moment as I go along. If you think you can do a better job...please take my shoes and walk in them to show me how it's done.

Dealing with grief is hard enough, but having to come to terms with the death of an entire future and shared life together, well...it just adds a whole new array of colours to the room of paint. It's all layered. The paint dries and you think you've just about come to terms with this new image and then another pot gets thrown and all that you knew is not what is at all. I find myself thinking, I should be Luke's wife. I should be Mrs Perryman. But I'm not. I'm just me. Luke and I should be doing husband and wife things and laughing at each other (and having loads of sex!) But we're not. This year should have been so different. But it isn't. This is what it is. SHIT.

My friends are still amazing in all of this. It's funny who I have grown to trust and who I don't want to speak to. It's as though I've formed an invisible bubble around me, as though this is somehow going to protect me from more hurt. But the thing with bubbles is that they are so easy to burst. Then it's just a sticky mess.

I feel like I am constantly waiting. I don't know what I'm waiting for but I am waiting. It's an odd feeling to be waiting for nothing. It's unpleasant and makes me feel anxious and sick. The only way I can describe it is when you're waiting for that very important phone call to say if you have the job, or waiting to go into a very important exam or interview, or waiting for the phone call that will tell you if your Dad survived major surgery or not, or sitting on the oncology ward with the oncologist and your Dad, about to learn whether the chemo was successful in some way or not. It's like the feeling you get when receiving a call telling you that your whole world has broken. I have this waiting feeling. It is always there and I don't know what my body thinks it is waiting for, because Luke is not coming home. This moment is not going to change. So I don't know what I am waiting for or why I am waiting. But I am.

I feel like I have rambled off the point of this blog...a room full of colours that needs to be cleaned up. My first step is to return to work one way or another. The next step is to finally wash the bed sheets. "Wash the bed sheets?" I hear you ask. Yes. I have managed to remove the sheets where I saw Luke for the final time but they have not been washed. Actually I am lying to you all. I haven't removed all the bedding. Luke's pillows are exactly as he left them. I can't make that step yet but the duvet and bottom sheet have been removed. I just have to make it to the washing machine now. I keep telling myself that they are just sheets and Luke would not be so sentimental. But this was the last time I saw him. This was the last time we told each other we loved one another. I know it sounds crazy but I feel as though I'm washing part of him away. A totally crazy thought I know. I'm not an insane person. I am completely capable of rationalising my behaviour but it doesn't stop this feeling.

I think the next step is to change something that I have chosen to change. I need to change something that I am choosing to change because I want to and not because I have been forced into the change. I am not sure what that will be yet. I will keep you posted. But I do need to regain control of this moment. I feel completely lost and alone and I need to regain control.

Luke is not here. Everything I do reminds me of this fact. I am so incredibly tired that each day becomes more of a challenge than the last. I have a feeling that tomorrow will be one of my 'something' days. I wish so much and so hard that Luke was home. That this was all just one shit dream and that I won't need to clean up a mess because our lives will be a beautiful canvas of colour and fun because Luke is here and all is as it should be...come home please Luke.