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