The longest week has yet to end...

"Go back to work. It will be a good distraction." they said. "Do something and it will take your mind of it." they said. "Return to a routine, it will do you good." they said. Well I have been back to work and this has been the longest frigging week of my life. THE LONGEST WEEK!! and it's only Wednesday. (Well technically it's Thursday as it is 1.07am) but still. Only half way through the week. This is shit. This is all shit. All around me people are moving on. All around me people's lives are continuing. Our life has stopped. It's just stopped and I don't feel angry yet. I haven't met angry yet. I've been agitated and frustrated at myself. But I haven't hit the anger stage yet. Oh wait...I just googled grief. This is hilarious in a not so funny way.

So according to this model of grief I am at the anger stage. I am irritated when people try to make small talk and attempt to make me laugh because they don't pick up on the signals that I don't want to talk. It's not my fault if you can't cope with silence. Stop talking to me. I don't feel like laughing. When I want to laugh I will. If I want to sit in silence, I will. Stop talking to me. If this makes you feel uncomfortable please leave and come back later when I am going to be more talkative. Maybe. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate your kindness or your friendship. It just means I don't want to talk. I don't have the energy to engage in a meaningless conversation.

I am also, according to this, in the depression and detachment stage. Trust me to have more than one issue! Lack of energy and as I have just read on a different diagram it's the,"It's all meaningless" stage. I certainly feel like that. I also find that I'm in the Dialogue and bargaining stage as I write this blog. Does that count as reaching out to others? I don't know. All I know is that life is shit and I am up writing this instead of sleeping. I tried to sleep. I drank some camomile tea (ergh) and turned the t.v down low and tried to relax. But tonight is a night of no sleep and it's a night of missing Luke. Every night is a night of missing Luke. How can he be gone?

I think it's crazy how you're not offered help until 6 months after the event. 6 months. If I was any less than the person I am, I could have topped myself by now. 6 months is an awfully long time to just be left to deal with it. I am exhausted but not sleepy. What is going on? I am supposed to be up and at work in the morning. I haven't made it in before 10am yet. My body just doesn't work. Sometimes I am wide awake when the alarm goes off and other times I appear to fall back to sleep. There is no consistency. I thought going back to work would alter my routine and make me sleep, but it hasn't. It hasn't helped. Worked hasn't fixed anything. I need to work though because I keep buying shit and I have bills to pay for.

It has been 4 months since I gave Luke a kiss and a cuddle. Still only feels like yesterday. This evening my mind is filled of that night when I was called to go to camp or go home. Tonight all I think is, "I should have been there for you. I should have been there to hold your hand. I should have been there with you." But I didn't know. I didn't know you were in trouble because nobody told me. I didn't know that you were fighting for your life, while I sat in the staff room for the staff meeting. They wouldn't let me see you. They wouldn't let me hold you. I just got ushered into the chapel on camp. They wouldn't let me be there for you. I should have been there for you. I should have held you. I wish they had let me go to you. They wouldn't let me. They wouldn't take me to you.

Tonight I remember sitting in that room. Waiting. I remember being taken to the chapel. I remember wanting to see you and wanting this to all be a mistake. This sort of shit shouldn't happen to us. It should happen to someone else. Not us. Not you. It's almost 2am. What the hell?

I had to go shopping tonight. It was shit shopping without you. I didn't want to be shopping and having to choose things for one. I'm suppose to be a two. I am suppose to be yours. I still haven't worked out what I am now but I know what I was.

I don't have any great words of wisdom or advice. I am still fighting. I am still choosing to live without you Luke, even on the hardest of days. I wish I could just curl up under my duvet and just wait for you to return. I don't understand why you took your bike. I don't understand why the van had to be there. I don't understand why they couldn't start your heart again. I don't understand any of this and I probably never will. How are we all suppose to carry on? How are we suppose to move forwards?

There is no man on this world that can come anywhere close to you. You just need to come home. You need to walk through that door. You need to be home with me. You need to be here. It isn't fair that you've left me to live our life without you. This is not our story. This should not be how our story ends. So bloody come home!


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I've lost you. xx

What have I learned over these past few weeks? Time is NOT healer. This will not get better in time. Luke has been gone for four months. FOUR MONTHS!! Nothing has changed. I have not changed. This feeling has not changed. This loss and pain has not changed. Nothing has changed. Actually no that's a lie. It's gotten worse. Things that I could deal with before I can't deal with now. They stop me from breathing. I am trying so hard to carry on; to pick myself up and to carry on. But all I think is how unfair it all is. Luke deserved to live. He deserved to be here. He really was the kindest man ever and he made me the luckiest girl alive. He should be here. I wish it had been me that was taken and not Luke, because he deserved to be here. He deserved to be happy and to live. God he deserved to live! Luke lost his life in an accident. An accident that shouldn't have happened and it certainly shouldn't have ended how it did. Why Luke? Why us? Why has this happened to his Mum and Dad? To his sister and Gran and Grandad? This should not have happened. But it has and I don't know how to go on from here. I don't even know if I want to.

We should be so happy right now. We should be laughing and joking and loving each other. Luke should be getting up to mischief and buying more random things from ebay. We should be creating more silly little sayings that only we understand. We should be together. We deserved to be together. We deserved to be Mr and Mrs Perryman. Luke deserved to live. If I had to lose Luke I would rather he had left me and walked away with someone else. Because at least he would still be alive. He would still be here and he would still have the happiness he deserved. (Although I would probably have wanted to kill him myself if he ran off with some hussy! But still...I rather that than this.

This week I went to Amsterdam. It was suppose to serve as a distraction. It was suppose to give me a break from everything. It was suppose to help me escape this whole life. But it didn't. It was gutting to know that not even a holiday to a different place can act as a distraction. Running away to an alternative place didn't leave the nightmare at home. I thought about Luke all the time, wishing he was there and imagining what he would be doing or saying. I imagined what we would be doing and I so desperately wanted him there. I wanted to sit and eat breakfast with him instead of sitting in that room on my own. I hated breakfast on my own. It just served as yet another smash in the face that Luke was gone and that ultimately...I am on my own. 

Amsterdam and doing things did not serve as a distraction because you can't distract yourself from a feeling. And that is what it is. I'm not miserable because I have thoughts of Luke all the time. Sometimes I am thinking of something else (like make a cup of tea, go and shower, shit I'm late for work...again, organise a meal for Luke's friends) but despite thinking other things, that feeling remains. The feeling of complete despair and loss. That feeling that this is wrong. This feeling that life has ended and it will never be the same. That feeling of utter panic of having to live the rest of my life without the one person that made life worthwhile. And it's this feeling that suffocates my every breath. It's the feeling that suffocates my every thought. It's the feeling that makes everyday things so fucking hard. It's the feeling that I have to hide from others because they don't get it, or because they're over losing Luke now and have moved on. It's the feeling that doesn't dissipate no matter what I do and no matter what I am doing. 

How can I describe the feeling as something you could see? It's heavy...really heavy and if it had a colour it would be a thick, dark, black smoke that encases and damages and harms everything it touches. You can't hide from it. You can't shut the door on it, because even if you can't see it, you would be able to smell it. It chokes you with each breath you take and you can't see clearly through it. In fact most of the time you just have to feel your way through the dark and hope for the best. Sometimes you stumble and can't get back up. Sometimes you get back up only to be hit with it all over again. It wouldn't matter if you were doing something because that smoke, that feeling is always there and it sticks to you and every part of your life like hot tar. You don't have to be thinking about it to know that it is there. If you try to pay it no attention, it gets heavier and darker and more vicious. it can't be outrun, it can't be tamed. I guess I just have to become stronger at fighting my way through it.

So distractions don't work. They haven't made this week any better. They haven't made life any easier to handle. It's just reconfirmed that there isn't a solution to this. I just have to stumble and fall and try to keep getting back up. But if I want to stay down for a while to catch my breath then I will, because that's all I can do. 

Since coming back from Amsterdam everything has been harder. I don't know why. Mornings are the hardest they've ever been. Night times are sleepless and restless and I can't stop the tears. I can't control it. I can't do this anymore. The simplest task of getting up and dressed is almost impossible. It takes so long. I have no motivation. I have no desire to begin yet another day without Luke. I have no desire to live another day without Luke. I have no desire to live without him. It all just sucks. I just don't see the point anymore. And before you tell me to try...I am fucking trying. I am trying every single bloody day. When I interact with you I am trying to be motivated and interested in the conversation. I am trying to be engaged with life. I am trying to do every day things that once upon a time were so easy and I just took for granted. 

I miss coming downstairs and the smell of chorizo and egg and Luke's cafetiere on the side after he'd had breakfast and a cheeky coffee. I miss being able to open the fridge to see that Luke had nibbled at the left overs. I miss his bagels in the freezer. I miss hearing the squeak of his motor bike boots. I miss being able to go out of the house and look at his car without feeling pain. I miss being able to drive past motorbikes without any weighted feeling. I miss being able to fall asleep with that comforting knowledge that he'd be home soon. I miss having to guard my crisp packet when Luke was about because he always tried to steal them. I miss being able to make a cup of tea without wanting to cry. I miss being able to clean my teeth without knowing that Luke will never use his shaver that sits in the cabinet. I miss being able to move his stuff without feeling incredibly and indescribably guilty.  

I miss being able to walk into the bedroom without that feeling of, "Shit...it really did happen." I miss being able to sit on the sofa without this feeling. I miss looking at his clothes and having no feeling of hurt and loss. I miss being able to talk to my best friend. I miss being able to write notes to Luke and looking forward to my replies when he was on night shift. I miss so much. I miss Luke. I miss everything about him. I miss the life we had. I miss the hope and the promise of the life we were going to have. I miss Luke. 

I wish there was a solution to this. I wish I could move on like others because this pain hurts. Everything hurts. I wish my Dad was here because I am sure he would know what to do. Dad would fix it. I don't know how he would fix it but he would because that's what my Dad did. He fixed things. He always helped to fix a broken heart. There's nothing that fixes a broken heart like a Daddy's hug. 

But my Dad isn't here and I don't know how to fix this. I don't know what to do. Distractions don't work. Going to work doesn't work. Getting up doesn't work. Looking after a dog doesn't work. However, hiding under my duvet has worked pretty well and has gotten me through many days, but this isn't a very sensible solution, so ultimately...that doesn't work either.

I don't know how I am suppose to keep going. I don't know if I have the strength to keep fighting through every second of every day like this for the rest of my life. I don't want anyone else. I want Luke. I don't want anyone else to be near me like Luke was. I just want Luke. But I can't have Luke, so what is the point?

Miss you Perryman xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A path untouched...

So my last blog spoke about my return to work. I did return to work last Monday and it was so fucking hard. Somehow, by complete fluke, I got there on time. I sat through the first morning session interacting with the children and the adults. Although this is all a blur to me. I don't really recall the conversations. Just the feeling of being very disconnected to everything and thinking...is this really happening? And it took a lot not to drift towards thoughts of Luke. By lunch time I just wanted to go home and hide under the duvet and just ignore the rest of the world and the brutality of it all. But I didn't. I stuck it out.

My first day was a full day and I should have felt so proud and felt so pleased and good about myself because I had done a whole day at work. But I felt nothing good. I felt numb and as though the whole day hadn't really happened. I had a sense of, "This is all wrong." I didn't feel any sense of achievement. I didn't feel as though I'd made any great step forward. I just felt lost and deflated and discouraged. Is this how the rest of my life is going to feel? Nothing feels real and everything feels so detached. Life feels detached. Like I'm not really part of it anymore.

I went home to an empty house and no hope of Luke coming back from night shift. I went about the house doing what I used to do when I got home from work but stopped half way through and just broke. This isn't how things should be. Why on earth am I going about everyday life things when Luke isn't here? Why am I carrying on when Luke can't? Why am I doing this?

I shouldn't have been cooking a meal and then saving the rest in the freezer for myself to eat later in the week. I should have been cooking a meal and saving the rest in the fridge with a note on it for Luke. So that he has something to nibble on when he came home from night shift and so he had something for his lunch the following day. But I can't do that anymore. So why am I doing anything at all? What is the point?

Auto pilot may kick in and put me into an 'old' routine but even an 'old' routine must be altered and changed. I will never again save left overs for Luke. I will never again plan my evening meals to ensure Luke has some for his lunch the following day. Never again will a routine feel OK. And all of this..it was still only Monday. Still only the first day.

After Monday everything went downhill. I didn't make a full day again and in actual fact, I barely made it in for the afternoons. I was hoping that returning to work would make me so tired and exhausted that my body clock would re-adjust and that I would fall asleep before midnight and then be able to get up on time. But this didn't happen and again I felt very frustrated with myself. How hard is it to go to sleep and wake up?!?! I also felt deflated because what I was hoping to happen and what I wanted to happen were so very different to what actually happened.

I am learning this a lot and many times over. I have always been used to getting what I want. If I have wanted to do something, I have worked hard and got it. I have always managed to do what I want. I have always been independent. But since losing Luke, I am learning over and over again, that what I want to do and what I am physically and realistically able to do are at completely opposite ends of the scale. They aren't anywhere near close to each other. What I want to do and what I can do are two different things and it's out of my control. I don't like being out of control.

For example, today I was going to do a full day at work. So last night I went upstairs to bed before midnight in an attempt to get a good nights sleep. I didn't sleep though but at least I gave it a try. So back to today...today I was going to put one foot out of bed when my alarm went off for work and stick out the other and walk into the shower. I even had my towels ready in the bathroom. Then I was going to walk into the dressing room to get dressed (I had my clothes ready). This would be followed by going downstairs and putting the green bin out. (I deliberately didn't put it out last night so that I would definitely get up this morning to do it.) Then I was going to have breakfast and drive into work.

But here is how my morning actually went. The alarm went off. Then everything was a bit of a blur and time passed and I found myself still laid in bed staring, wide awake at the ceiling. All the time telling myself what I was going to do (read above paragraph), Actually I was just telling myself to stick foot out of bed (small steps and all that). At the same time of doing this, I was also reminding myself that the bin needed to be put out so I needed to get up. I also needed to get up to be at work on time. I also needed to get up because this behaviour is just plain insane and crazy. It's not that difficult to get out of bed. But my body didn't move and the duvet may have been pulled up over my head. Time kept ticking. Then I heard the bin man truck. I thought, "I can make it. If I run now I can get the bin out and make it." But my body refused to move and I was left with the thought of, "I should have put it out last night because now I have a full bin. Brilliant."

I wanted to get up. I tried to get up but nothing was working. My body didn't move and for me everything slowed down but time sped up. Before I knew it, it was 11.45am and I hadn't moved. I don't know what I had been doing. But it certainly wasn't getting up. I eventually dragged myself out of bed at 12.15pm. I showered and broke. I got dressed and broke. I did my hair and broke. I cleaned my teeth and saw his toothbrush and broke. Cleaning your teeth and breaking is very hard. I then ended up sitting on the top step of the stairs and broke again.

I can see the man room from that step. I can see the talc on the floor that Luke left that morning that he never came home. I can see his man room just as he left it. How is this happening? I can see our bedroom and I just want to crawl back under the duvet and pass the day away. I can see the sleeping pills. I could just take one and then I really would pass the day away. I sit on that step, hugging the rail, broken for a very long time. I realise my head is resting on Luke's towel. The one he used that morning and it all hurts all over again and I break all over again. I look at my watch. The school day is almost done but I need to make it in. I am suppose to be at work. I am suppose to be taking on the world. I am suppose to be surviving. But right now, just breathing is taking all of my effort. Just trying to stop crying is taking all my strength. I decide to focus my efforts on just taking that first step downstairs towards the day. Getting back into the bed is not an option I want to take. But I still don't move. I drift back to the times Luke sat on that step waiting for me to get ready and the conversations we had and the looks we gave each other. I drift to the times I saw him upstairs and try to imagine him back here. All the while, there is the back thought of, "I should be in work."

I did somehow manage to take that step downstairs and from there it was all a blur. I did about 2 hours in work. I am suppose to do a full day. What a failure. I achieved nothing that I wanted to do. The bin isn't emptied, I didn't get up on time, I didn't make it into work on time. It is almost 1am and I am still wide awake. I feel emotionally drained and exhausted but sleep doesn't happen. I am awake when my alarm goes off, so it's not even as though I'm getting sleep in the mornings.

My life died with Luke. It's not me being dramatic. It really did. I am suppose to be Mrs Perryman. I am suppose to be Luke's wife. But I am not, and I never will be. That life, that path was killed and died with Luke. The path that I was suppose to take was stripped away and there is no way that I can ever get back on that path. Who I was suppose to be died with Luke. I have no idea who I am suppose to be now. I do not know what life is suppose to be now. Because it can never be what it should have been.

If it had been a friend that had died it would hurt but eventually my life would have returned to the same path and in the same direction it was always intended to be. The plans I had for the future would remain the same, except I would carry the loss of my friend along that journey. But I didn't lose just a friend. I lost my very best friend, my life and my everything. Luke was my life and he was my future. Everything that was planned was planned with him and it was planned as an 'us' not a 'me'.

I don't have any plans to return to because they don't and cannot exist without Luke. I cannot continue in the same direction as before because that direction was determined by being an 'us' with Luke. So I am not just adjusting to losing the most amazing man ever, I am trying to adjust to losing my life that I should have had with Luke. I am adjusting to losing our future together. I am trying to adjust to losing who I should have been. I have to attempt to overcome and understand what I will do now. Who am I going to be without Luke? I can't be who I was before Luke because I am not the same person. I cannot be who I was with Luke because I need Luke for that. I cannot be who I was going to be with Luke because I need Luke for our future. So what do I do?

My entire life stopped when Luke left. The door of that life was slammed shut and locked from the inside. It will never happen. And this is all so hard to grasp. And at the same time of trying to work out where I go from here I am trying to grasp the loss of Luke. I am trying to survive that pain and overcome the total disbelief that this is happening. I am trying to hold everything together. I am trying to hold onto Luke. I am trying to be a good friend to others and to hold onto friendships that aren't so easy. And now I am trying to return to work. I am trying but just seem to be failing on every level. But despite all of this. I am still breathing. I am still here. Tomorrow I will try again. Tomorrow I will go through all of this all over again. Tomorrow is another day without Luke that I will somehow fight through.

It is 1.23am and it appears that time has done it again. Tomorrow is already today. Shit. xxxxxxxxxx