Inspired by Luke: My Chapter, My life.

So...it's almost the end of this academic school year; to say I'm shattered is an understatement of huge proportions! There are only four working days left and after that I will probably not step back inside a school again.  After 3 years as a teaching assistant, four years of teacher training and 6 years as a full time qualified teacher, I will not be returning to work in this profession in September or any other time after that.

I am leaving the teaching profession.

I have written many times over this past year and a bit about being lost and not having control over my future; I have explained how losing Luke not only altered everything at that exact moment in time but in reality - every moment that has yet to happen.

Although Luke and I were very much intertwined as one, we were also lucky to have a relationship where we could be our own person. We had our own path, which quite remarkably,  ran side by side and overlapped with each other. We had our own identity which slotted together so well for the future that we wanted; I was always going to be a teacher - and Luke was doing engineering/mechanical man stuff (either in the RAF or as a civvie). My routine of teaching fitted perfectly with Luke's crazy schedule of shifts and mountain biking and MMA and Tae Kwon Do and Brazilian Ju Jitsu and running and gyming and biking (plus any other hobbie he had going on!) We were two lives that just worked so well together as one.

So when Luke was taken from us, everything that should have been, dissipated and fell away. We weren't going to travel or live abroad. We weren't going to have our weird routines anymore. And devastatingly, our lives and paths would not need to flow side by side because Luke's had been cruelly and abruptly cut short. Our future paths could no longer spiral around each other because there was only one path left - mine- and my path couldn't continue in the same way that it had once been intended to. Teaching became a part of my story that wasn't possible anymore. To me, it was part of a lost future and a stolen life that I should have had but never will have with Luke. I tried so hard and for so long to cling to any part of our old life and our 'should have been' future and to resist anything new but I have come to realise that it just simply isn't possible. To try to cling to this lost future is, in actual fact, doing a disservice to Luke.


I am learning to accept that I cannot continue to walk my original route in the same way I had when Luke was by my side (usually causing mayhem!) If I am to regain any control over my future and direction of life then I can't drift my way through the days and just hope for the best. I can't just pretend that if I just stick it out in auto-pilot mode, doing the same things I had done with Luke and living the same routine of teaching, as I had with Luke, that life will get better or that I'll be able to find enjoyment again. I can't pretend that by continuing on this now derelict path that I'll somehow meet Luke again and discover that this phase of life has all just been one big, massive mistake and that Luke will come bouncing back into my life and all will be right in the world just as it was before...

But I'm not crazy (despite my behaviour sometimes) and I know that Luke is not coming home. I know that clinging to the impossible illusion of what we should have been is unhealthy and it's killing me bit by bit, piece by piece. Every time I become aware that our story has ended without being able to read the written ending another part of me breaks. Up to this point, I have been staring at our story, at the blank space where our 'happy ever after' was written, and trying to comprehend that it's been so unfairly ripped out and thrown away. I have been staring at this space and trying to imagine what would be written on them and trying to continue the story as though you're still here or that you'll reappear. But I'm not crazy or an idiot and I know that this is not a way to live. I cannot re-write our ending because that has already been done for us and as much as I want to be able to read our 'happy ever after' those pages have gone and been taken from me.

I know that attempting to continue to live a path and a story that no longer exists won't fix this. It won't enable me to live life and if I'm honest... that just isn't me. I am not that girl that just sits back and accepts a shitty situation as my only option. I'm not that girl that will continue with something simply because it is vaguely familiar. I am not that girl that will just accept a painful situation and put up with it, simply because it appears easier to remain with what I've become used to. I am the girl that will fight; no matter how hard or how long it will take. I am the girl that is saying; no more. This is not how I want my story to play out. (At least I am that girl today because today I'm feeling strong!)

I don't like living this ghost of a future - attempting to somehow recreate what we should have had or attempt to walk in the unmade footsteps that should have been. I don't want to continue 'our life' with just me and the only reason that I would attempt to do so is for some irrational notion that it would keep me close to you. Except living this life and this pretend future isn't going to lesson the distance that is now between us and also -more importantly- it isn't going to keep you closer to me. You wouldn't want me to live in the shadow of our lost future together. There are many things in our stolen future that I cannot control. There are parts that I have no choice but to live through without you. But there are some things that I can change.

Don't get me wrong - I hate change and I particularly hate it when it's been forced upon me. But I won't have my path dictated. Luke wouldn't want me to just drift through the days on auto-pilot. He wouldn't want me to just accept what is, especially if 'what is' is painful and making the remains of my life not worth living. He often said that if there is something you don't like then change it- no matter how hard it is, there is always the possibility to change it. So I'm changing it - I am changing the parts that are possible to change.

It's for this reason that I have chosen to close this chapter on teaching. Teaching is part of the ghost-of-a-future with Luke and the whole lifestyle as a teacher is part of a routine that I am no longer willing to do without Luke.


So the question is what is next? Well as of September I will be returning to university to retrain as a nurse. I want to be a trauma nurse and work within critical care or maybe cardiology. I am remaining open minded about this and I am going to just see which areas I prefer to work in. The career that I choose needs to make me happy and make me want to live for Monday to Sunday; not just living for a weekend or time off. I want the opportunity to rebuild and to find my love of life again.

This is a very scary step as everything I have known for the past 13 years has been teaching and working within the education sector. But I am ready to begin this new chapter of my life. I am ready to take that leap. Luke will always be my everything and I know that entering into this new chapter isn't going to separate me from him. Luke is my inspiration for making this change and choosing to live a life that he would be proud of.

Wish me luck!!

Love ya Perryman. A little bit... A LOT. xxxx

Lost but searching...

It's been a while since I blogged. I started this one in November last year (2015) I think and I keep coming back to it and then changing it again or adding to it. I think I've just gotten lost with this whole thing. I'm not even sure what 'thing' I am referring to, but I'm lost. Life lost all sort of meaning to it and I had come to realise that I was just blankly moving through the days with no real aim or purpose. I'd like to say I was drifting or floating through the days but that implies that there was some sort of gracefulness involved and it certainly hasn't been graceful! So here I am writing again.

Lost. It's a funny word. It implies that you no longer know where you are. It implies that nothing is familiar anymore. It implies that you have little idea, if any, about the direction you need to go in; you are unable to find your way. Sometimes you don't realise you're lost until you fail to reach your original destination. Sometimes you don't realise you're lost until it's pointed out to you and sometimes you don't realise you're lost until you try to turn back and go home. Home to the familiar sights and sounds. Home to the familiar feeling of love and security. Home to what you know. My dad used to say that it's when we're lost that we discover new places and new ways of getting somewhere. We discover places that we never knew existed. We're not lost; just taking a different road. I guess we've all been forced to take a new road now Luke.

Lost. Also implies that which is taken away and cannot be recovered. So in this context, you are lost from me Luke and I am lost without you. Lost is your laugh and your smile. Lost is your reassurance and your annoying jokes. Lost is the need of having to tie up my pj bottoms through fear that you would 'pants down' me at any moment. Lost are our cuddles on the sofa and your kisses. Lost is my annoyance at you for yawn-raping me for the millionth time! It's been more than a year and a half since you left and I still feel lost.

I still don't understand why we weren't allowed our life together. I don't understand why we were denied growing old together. It all just seems so unfair and when I think about this, my chest feels tight and I find it so much harder to breathe. I don't want to live the next years of my life without you and yet we have no choice. So what am I doing to keep surviving your loss?

Well for starters, I'm using all my strength trying really hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I am trying really hard to just keep living, because that's what you'd be wanting me to do. This Christmas, I didn't stay in our home; I decided to go away to Thailand with my friend. It was definitely the best decision to make. I thought about Luke all the time but I still enjoyed myself. It was a different sort of 'enjoy' to what I'd experienced before losing you but for the first time since you'd gone, I felt a different emotion alongside the pain of you missing.

I can only describe it as painting thick black all over a page and then painting another dark colour (possibly purple) around the edges- just a wisp of it, overlapping the black but still visible as a different colour. The pain isn't any less. The hurt isn't any less and the disbelief and brokenness isn't any less. But I appear to be able to take on an extra (opposite) emotion alongside this. Perhaps this is why I'm so shattered! But does this extra emotion alongside the pain mean I have forgotten you? Or that I am getting over you? Does it mean that the grief is over and that I will no longer feel your absence? Does it mean I have moved on? Well they're all easy questions to answer - NO! The extra emotion has definitely not replaced the pain. It certainly hasn't pieced my shattered heart back together. I've just grown to be able to feel both. Do I feel incredibly guilty for laughing; for smiling; for finding enjoyment in life outside of me and you? Of course I do. I'm sure I always will but you wouldn't want me to hide away for the rest of my life and shut the world out. So I'm going to do the hardest thing ever and attempt to continue to live without you.

On the 23rd December 2015, while I was in Thailand it should have been our 1st year wedding anniversary. The night before this, I thought about this and I thought of how we should have been and how rubbish life was. But on the actual day, I didn't think about it. It wasn't until nearly the end of the day that I remembered. Don't get me wrong, I didn't forget about YOU. I thought about you throughout the day and in everything I was doing. I was wishing you were there too and I would be thinking about what you would be doing and saying. But I didn't acknowledge the day as something significant (even though the evening before I had). I didn't think, "This should have been our wedding anniversary." I'm going to be honest; when I realised that I hadn't thought about it all day, I had to remind myself that it was ok. It was ok to not think about that. It was ok to think of you and not the non-existent wedding anniversary.

It didn't mean that I'd forgotten you or us. It didn't mean I was over your loss now. It just meant that I'd been living, like you'd want me to. I thought of you constantly in the day but just didn't remember that it was the 'wedding anniversary'. Perhaps this is a good thing. Perhaps this is what helped me through it. Perhaps this is the reason I survived that day. Luckily I had an amazing friend with me who reminded me that I didn't need to feel guilty for not thinking of the wedding day. I'm not quite sure what sort of a person this makes me but I'm being honest. Would you want me to remain in a state of permanent sadness and merely existing for the remainder of my life; not engaging in the world or the opportunities that occur? Never laughing or smiling or finding anything fun again? I don't think you would. I think you would want me to search for what can make me laugh and smile once again. I think you would want me to find some way of feeling something other than this hurt and sadness. I think you would want me to start finding my way from this state of 'lost'.

With this in mind, I have been able to do a few more things. Before going to Thailand I made the massive decision to go into the man room and to pick up your clothes and things that you had left laying on the floor that morning. For anyone following this, you would have a great understanding of how massive an event this was and how painful this was. The very thought of moving your things that you had placed there made me feel physically sick. The thought was like being punched repeatedly in the stomach, with the pain resonating throughout my entire body. These were the last things that you had touched. These things were reminders of your routine that day and I somehow felt that these things gave me a greater connection to you on the day that you became lost to me and everyone that loves you.

But I realised that holding onto those clothes on the floor wasn't holding onto your memory or our memories. Your things on the floor and the talc on the floor weren't a reminder of happy times. Those things weren't 'us' and by leaving them untouched I was actually holding onto the memory of the day you never came home. I don't need anymore reminders of that day: the very fact you are missing from us and the hurt I feel is a reminder enough. Those clothes laid on the floor represented a day that I will never forget or get over. Those things on the floor served to pull me back to that day every time I saw them. So I picked them up; one by one. I placed them in the wardrobe with some of your other things. It was one of the hardest things I've had to do. I realise I say this a lot about many of the things I've done without you but it's true! They're all so bloody hard! But I've done it and I think you'd be proud. I also hoovered up the remnants of the talc that you had spilled onto the floor. I still keep the door closed but the room does have a different feel since I picked up your things. Your towel however, is still hung on the banister and your pjs are still on the bed. Your pillows have also remained untouched and unchanged (which is really messing with the duvet sets Perryman!!) Your dressing gowns remain hanging on the back of the door, just like you left them and your pot of porridge remains untouched.

It is the last day of March and the sun is shining and the birds are singing. I've been out in the garden and I miss you. This is the kind of day that you would have been out on your bike; the windows of the house would be open, and music would be playing. Today would have been a good day.

I remember, in the first few months of losing you, reading this quote:

'There are moments that mark your life. Moments when you realise nothing will be the same and time is divided into two parts- before this and after this.'

It didn't mean anything to me at the time. It didn't stand out at the time and I just passed it by. But while choosing an outfit to wear the other day this quote suddenly sprung to my mind and I found myself pausing. This quote is so very true. I was sifting through my clothes thinking I can't wear that because I always wore that with Luke; or I'm never going to be able to wear that again because that's my date dress/Luke really liked me in it. So my clothes have a 'before losing you' and 'after losing you'. This got me thinking about what else has become like this and I've realised it's with a lot of things: the foods that I eat; the type of meals that I cook; the places I go or the jokes that I laugh at. Everything has been divided.

So we are now in June - almost July. You would be 28 now. We would be discussing plans for our anniversary and no doubt you would be getting deployed somewhere just before we were due to celebrate! I have made some massive, out of this world, life-changing decisions. You would be so proud of me right now! (To anyone reading this, you will find out in time). This decision will take my life in another direction and this time, it has been controlled by me. It's a path that I am choosing. Those close to me, already know what I am talking about. This decision, although scary, makes me feel excited for the future. This is an emotion I never thought I'd feel again. I also feel very anxious because I feel as though it's another step away from you (But I know this is just in my head. No matter what happens in my life or the paths I choose, you'll always be my one and only and you'll always be in my heart). However, I do believe you would be so happy and proud of me for the path I'm about to embark on. I hope you're up there watching!

I think to keep taking steps, no matter how small, is how we get through each day. Even now, I still have to break the day down into even smaller parts and sometimes into actions. Time hasn't made a difference to the pain. It's only made me stronger to handle it and taught me how to adapt to survive this. I think the most important thing I'm learning is to not give up, even when it feels like I have no choice. It's ok to hurt and to cry. It's ok to wake up aching for you to be laid next to me again. It's ok to laugh and smile. But it's not ok to give up. One step at a time. One moment at a time and one decision at a time.

Miss you Perryman. I love you forever - a little bit...A LOT! xxx

Love isn't forgotten in a year...

Why I left you no message on the anniversary of your death.

October 15th. It was a whole year since you left me. It was a whole year since I kissed you good bye and left for work. It was a whole year since I got to be held in your arms for a cheeky snuggle. A year since I received the news that you were never coming home again. I had lived an entire year without seeing you. 365 days of getting up and surviving your loss and of fighting through this feeling.

October 15th and I wake up to you missing. I'm not sure what I was expecting the day to feel like. I'm not sure if I was expecting it to be one of the hardest days yet or just another day. After all, we've already lived through the worst day, which was the day you never came home. I'm not even sure what I was supposed to feel. I chose to escape down to Devon to spend the week with your Mum and Dad in the hope that the day would be easier. I couldn't just sit in our home waiting. Waiting for the day to end and waiting to wake up from this endless nightmare of reality.

October 15th. A browse through facebook and I can see your friends remembering you and sending their love. I can see that they too are hurting and have remembered you. I'm sure you'd expect me to comment about this day and to write a big heart felt message of all that you mean to me but I can't. Not on this day. For me I don't want to mark this day and I'm not sure why or what sort of person that makes me. But I can't mark the day because in some way it is no different to any other day that I've woken up without you. I don't need an anniversary to remind me that you're missing or how much it hurts. I don't need an anniversary to re-live that day. Why? Because I relive our last moments together every time I open my eyes and turn to see your side of the bed - untouched and empty.

October 15th. The day itself was peculiar. The day itself, surprisingly, wasn't any harder than any other morning that I've woken up without you. I didn't suddenly remember that you were gone. I didn't suddenly remember the event that stole you from me. It wasn't suddenly harder being without you just because of that particular day. I'm not sure what to think to this. Perhaps it wasn't any harder because in my life EVERY day is hard. Everyday is an anniversary of your death. There isn't a single day that I can go through without thinking of you and what happened because I wake up to your absence every day. I wake up to you missing from us every day. I wake up to the reality of your death every day. The space where you should be sleeping is left empty every day. So I guess the year anniversary didn't suddenly make me remember what had happened because I live through that EVERY SINGLE DAY. In a way, that made the year anniversary just another day and I've adapted to get through a day (admittedly not very well but I'm doing it.) So I left you no message but you didn't leave my thoughts.

October 15th. It wasn't harder waking up without you but it did mark that a whole year has passed and I'm not sure how that's happened. Time really doesn't work the same when you've lost someone really important to you. It feels like it was only yesterday but it was a whole year ago. I never imagined that I would reach this point. I never imagined that I would make it through a whole year without you. But I have and it sucks.

The trouble with a year anniversary is that society thinks (and I admit that I also had the same misconception) that it's the first year that is the worst and that after that you'll start to be ok again. But I am discovering that this isn't how it works. Yes I have made it through a year but to me it's just another day. It's as hard today as it was when you first left. It's as hard today as it was after a week, a month, a year. It is not any easier and now I have to make it through an endless number of days without you. Each one with the same wake up and the same reality punch in the face.

So really what even is a year in terms of grief? Is it the marking of a moment when you should begin to heal? Is it the mark of when you should be rebuilding your life? Is it marking a moment of placing the past behind you and moving on? Is it the mark of time after losing someone of saying, "It's ok to be happy again"? Or is it marking a point where you are supposed to stop grieving for a life lost and just get on with things again? Is it the marking of time to stop hurting and to suddenly feel better with the situation? As someone who is currently experiencing this moment of time I can quite firmly state that the answer as NO. No. The passing of a year does not signal any of these things to me. It is nothing more than the marking of time passed. It does not mark feelings or healing. It is just a marking of time. It is marking the days that you have survived since losing a huge part of yourself. Luke Perryman it has been a year since you were here and laughing. I still can't get my head around this fact.

October 15th. A day that none of us will forget and a day that represents the moment all of our lives were irreversibly changed for the worst. This is the day that you lost your future and we lost you. Perhaps this is why the first anniversary is expected to be harder; because it brings the reality of a day that altered all of our paths. It reminds us that life rarely works how we plan it to work.

This date serves to remind us of that initial stab of pain when we learnt of you leaving. It brings back that moment of standing in the chapel being told you had died. It brings back the memories of driving around trying to find out where you had been taken, only to learn that you had been taken no where as you had died at the scene.

Yet strangely, I didn't exactly have these thoughts on this day. I didn't have these feelings on this day. I have had these thoughts on many other days but I didn't have the vivid reminders of the events of that evening on this day; the year anniversary. Not sure what sort of person that makes me. Don't get me wrong, as I said above, waking up without you on this day was as hard as it always is. I replayed our last morning together as I always do. But the anniversary of the evening when I lost you, I didn't feel. I was numb.

I thought of the events that had occurred at the times they happened. But I think my mind had numbed me to feeling at that moment. I remember thinking; this is the time you would have come off your bike. This is the moment I found out that something had happened to you. But I just felt numb. As though my mind didn't want me to re-live that experience again on this date.

October 15th.  I left you no message of great remembrance or love for all to see because I couldn't mark this day- the day you never came home. But don't think for a second that I didn't remember you. I remember you every day; regardless of the date.

I am discovering, as I have mentioned in previous posts, that what you want to do and expect to be able to do are very different to what you are actually capable of doing. I am trying to return to our old life. But it is proving to be exceptionally difficult. It just feels wrong to be living our old life with you missing. It just feels empty and wrong. It has been a year and despite how far I have come without you, I am now right back to taking each part of the day as it comes. Most mornings I am back to taking each task/moment as it comes and not being able to think past that.

So this morning, whilst laid in bed and not wanting to start yet another day, I had to think of the task of getting out of bed and putting on my dressing gown. After eventually managing this, the next task I thought of was letting Molly out for a wee. We had a little play before I fed her breakfast. That's as far as I could think of at that moment. I laid on the sofa for a considerable amount of time, before then deciding that I really should force some food down. So I set about the task of breakfast and a cup of tea for me (whilst pinching a pair of my pants out of Molly's mouth as she'd gotten into the clean wash pile!). I had previously made a list of jobs that needed doing but I can't face them yet. It is half 1 in the afternoon and I have only achieved getting up, feeding Molly and myself. This is not a very successful day.

The thing with grief is that is never lessens. The black void that covers your entire life does not shrink with time. Instead you have to work hard to make your life larger than the grief. You have to create a life to work around the grief. Easier said than done. Keeping this in mind, I am attempting to try different methods to do this. Keeping on top of the daily life of simply getting up and living and running a house is actually a huge job for just one person, especially with a puppy creating chaos everywhere she goes! So I am breaking the tasks down and making them a morning or an afternoon target. Everyday there are two things that I aim to achieve. Only two but that's where I am at the moment and that is just going to have to be ok.

For example: (and it doesn't always go to plan as today is proving and again that is ok)
My main morning target: hoover upstairs
My main afternoon target: clean fish tank.

Tomorrow's morning: hoover downstairs and mop floors
Afternoon: walk Molly and practise our training at a new place


And so on. I have broken up the tasks of running the house and of me doing something more than sitting on the sofa. But they are small and usually manageable targets. I am back to small steps. Previous targets this week have been to buy lunch, get milk, go for coffee with a friend. They are small targets. But by doing this I am hoping that I will build back up to taking on the day as a whole. But right now, a whole day is too big and too much. Rome wasn't built in a day and a love lost isn't forgotten in a year.

I have no idea what the year ahead will bring. I have no idea how I will get through another year without you but I know that I will because I have no choice. I am just going to take each moment as it comes. Small steps and small targets. I have an amazing support network around me and I couldn't have gotten this far without those special people. So I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I am hoping that one day, instead of reliving the pain of losing you, I will relive your laughter and your smile everyday. I will relive how you made me feel and it won't hurt as much. A year has passed and I know that I am still very far away from this day but I will keep trying and keep fighting.

I miss you Perryman and you are the reason I smiled so much. A love you a little bit...A LOT xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An unfinished story...

Tomorrow it is back to work. Back to normality.

What even is normality anymore? My normal consists of waking up and missing you. It consists of waking up and hurting. The kind of hurt you couldn't even begin to imagine. My normality is the same self argument I have every time I wake up: Should I start another day without you? Or just take a sleeping pill and skip it for a few hours longer? Do I take on the fight of surviving this pain or put it off for a bit longer? My normal is looking at your side of the bed, untouched and unslept in and trying not to break down and cry. It is seeing your dressing gown hung next to mine, unworn for far too long. My normal is seeing your toothbrush gathering dust. My normal is having no more messages from you, no more cuddles with you, no more kisses from you. It is eating alone. It is making it through one event to the next with no real aim or focus or any real care for anything anymore.

If living with you was like tasting every exotic amazing mind blowing flavour that there is, then living without you is like chewing ash. It has become pointless and a chore. I go through the motions of life and social situations but I don't really care much for them anymore because you're gone. I have to force myself to take part. I have to force myself to take part in life. I'd rather not but I don't think that's a great option to be honest. I float through life now without really paying much attention to it. I feel completely disconnected to it all. Yet on the outside to others I think I appear to be quite 'with it' and 'normal' and just like 'me'. But I'm not me anymore. I don't feel like me anymore and everything takes so much more effort. A conversation takes a lot of energy to remain focused and I find that I drift in and out of it and hope I haven't missed anything important! So apologies if you ask me a question and I don't respond.

Tomorrow I have to return to 'normal'. But it can't be this new normal. I somehow have to force it to be the old normal. The old routine. I have to return to a life I had when you were here, except I have to do it all without you. I'm not sure if I can. I'm not sure if this is going to work. This time last year we were so excited (well I was probably more excited than you!) because we were on the count down to our wedding! Just one whole school term and then we were going to be husband and wife! It was going to be amazing. But that isn't happening this time round. Now there is this wait between school starting and the one year anniversary of you leaving. Fuck. It's not even a full half term. Double fuck.

I will be back to doing the same old thing that I was doing when you left. It just feels so wrong. To be back to that normal and doing what I was doing on the day that you left just feels as though I'm saying you didn't matter. That you leaving didn't matter. That somehow your leaving hasn't altered my life. But you DO matter. It DOES matter. And my life has been forever altered. In fact it's been completely smashed off course. It feels wrong to be allowed to carry on without you, as though nothing has happened. Because something has happened. And every moment of the day is a battle. Even though I look OK. I am not OK. But despite all of this...tomorrow I have to return to the old normal.

Being a widow sucks. It really sucks. Most other people are able to move on with their lives and just continue as they were always planning to. But I'm stuck and there isn't anything I can do to alter that. I've tried and I do get that seeing this can make others feel very awkward. But I can't just skip over what's happened and I'm doing the best that I can. I learned the other day that I wasn't invited to something. That hurt. But I kinda understand why but it still hurt. I guess there isn't much room for a widow among happy couples.

Oh Luke. You were supposed to be my entire story and my happily ever after. Our stories were supposed to be linked and connected all the way to the end, with sequels and a whole flipping boxset! But instead you became a chapter in my story. You aren't supposed to be one chapter though. You're supposed to be the entire story. My story and our story. It was all going so perfectly and it feels as though someone has just ripped out the ending of our story. Without waiting for any neat moment in time...they've just decided to rip out the pages of our story from the only copy. And now I'm just left hanging and left to wonder what the rest of our story could have been.

How are any of us supposed to continue? I feel as though there are a million and one things to say and yet I'm all empty of words, Tonight I feel as though I want to scream but what is the use in that? Tonight I want to disappear and not resurface again. But that's not possible. I don't want the old normal and I don't want a new normal. I want to shut out everything and just vanish. I want to be with you again. I want to see you and hear you and feel you. I want you back, I want to hear you say you love me. But I can't.  So now I have to do the old normal because I've run out of options and life clearly doesn't stand still.

I miss you Perryman. You're my everything and life has just lost all it's flavour and colour without you. I wish you were here with me. I wish I could see you again. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

...

I always thought I would see you again. When you left that morning for work, I always believed that you would be returning. I even left for work with a 'see you later' because I had every intention of seeing you later. I had no reason to suspect that I wouldn't. But later never came and it will never come. It doesn't matter what I do or what I try. I will never get that 'later' with you. And knowing this makes me want to vomit. The feeling in my stomach is as though someone is squeezing it and twisting it and it doesn't matter how much I will them to stop they don't.  It makes my throat feel as though it's closing up and it becomes so much harder to breathe. Why were we not allowed our 'later'? Do you know what is going on here without you? Are you aware of my daily struggle with your absence?  Can you feel this pain? Do you feel it too? You promised to stay with me forever Luke. You promised to be my forever man. But you're gone and it hurts. What the fuck am I supposed to do now Perryman?!?!

Even today I remember that morning when I left for work. The morning that you were laid in bed after finishing night shift. I remember kissing you before leaving for work and I remember you pulling me in for a cuddle. I remember the thoughts I'd had. I remember you. But I don't want to have to remember you; I want to have you here with me now making new memories for us BOTH to share!! I don't want to have to rely on my memory of you to feel that you existed and were here. I want to have you here so that I can feel you and touch you.

I look at couples and I just want to punch them in the face. Which is awful, I know. There's no rational explanation for this urge and you'd be telling me to relax. But I don't understand why they get to have what we couldn't. I'm sure this urge to punch people will pass. At least I hope it will.

I hate not seeing you. I hate waking up each day. I hate knowing that there is yet another day I have to survive. I hate knowing that there is another day that I have to continue a life that was never supposed to be. I hate knowing that our path no longer exists and I have to walk an entirely different path all on my own. Because ultimately Luke, I am on my own. People can visit and I can go out and meet up with people. But when it really matters, when the house is too still, when the quiet of the night settles in and everyone is busy with their own lives, when that unmistakable gut wrenching punch in my stomach starts and that heavy weighted, oh-my-god I'm going to cry and can't stop it moment happens...I am alone.

There are no comforting arms to hold me and to tell me that everything is going to be OK. There are no comforting kisses on my forehead, reassuring me that life is going to be OK. There are no hands to wipe away my tears. There is nothing but your absence. There is nothing but the weight of your absence. There is nothing but the quiet and still of the house. There is nothing but my cries and my tears. Because you are gone. The comforting arms, reassuring kisses and hands to wipe away my tears are gone. I have to fight this on my own and I'm beginning to doubt if I'm strong enough to do this same fight each night. I'm exhausted and you are gone.

We should have been celebrating our anniversary yesterday. We should have been together. We should still be together. I just want you back. I'd give anything to have you back. I would do anything if it meant I could have you again. You just need to come home. I just need for this whole thing to all be some shit unfunny joke and for you to come home. We all need you to come home. I wonder what we would have been doing this year for our anniversary? A spa? A romantic picnic like last year? A bike ride round Rutland? Camping? A romantic meal and candle lit bath? Would you have been deployed somewhere with work, meaning we'd be arranging a belated anniversary treat over skype? What would we have done? I know it would have been amazing and we'd have been together and laughing. I miss you laughing. I miss your smile. I miss you.

You look so real in all of your photos. You look so alive. You look so 'here'. It's a struggle to grasp that you are gone. These photos of moments we spent together and of moments you experienced will fall further and further into the past. They will one day become a time of long ago. How can that be? How can you be allowed to fall into the past? How can you be allowed to fall into my past when you were so much meant to be my present and my future? I realised the other day that if I live to make it into my 40s I will have lived more of my life without you than I had with you. There will be a greater portion of my life that I have existed with your absence than I was allowed to live with your presence. Again I find myself thinking, 'What the actual fuck?!' I can't think on this too much because my body just wants to shut down and it takes all of my energy and strength to remember how to breathe. I want you as my future Luke, not as my past. Why did this happen to us? You didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve to be taken. Time isn't going to fix this. Time will just cement in place how permanent this is. It will just define the absence with a greater weight. You are not coming home. We are not getting our 'later'. We are not getting our future together.

I don't think I can write anymore on this post. I am shattered. I'm shattered from living without you and I'm shattered from the daily routines that no longer serve a purpose. I'm just tired. I miss you so much and I love you more than you will ever realise. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Re-building without a design

So not really sure what to say or write. I just feel as though I need to write something. I am so lost right now.

My feelings from the start have not altered. They haven't lessoned. I feel as shit today as I did back then. I feel the same brokenness now, as I did then. I had some strange pre-conceived idea that by this time I wouldn't feel better but that I would find things easier. I believed I would be able to do the normal day to day things with the same ease prior to losing Luke. I believed that by now I would be able to get through a day without it being a constant battle and struggle. I thought by now I wouldn't have to live through the same daily fight of trying to find a point in living and that I wouldn't still be having to fight to choose to do another day without Luke. I thought I would be able to rebuild my life and piece things back together, because I had a pre-conceived idea that by this point, life would have fixed itself and that I would be able to manage life with the same ease as before. But I am wrong. This pre-conceived idea was not realistic and does not match reality in any way, shape or form. How do I feel about that? Disappointed, frustrated, confused. hurt and very concerned!

I'm concerned because this feeling has remained the same. The struggle and the battle have remained the same. The same lack of love for life has remained the same. The same, "What's the point?" feeling has remained the same. Which makes me question whether it will ever alter and be different. Telling me it will get better in time offers no comfort to me and unless you're in this position how could you ever know? How do you know that time will make things better?? They're just empty words and promises. They're just your pre-conceived ideas of how this should work and your pre-conceived ideas of how grief works. I'm as guilty as anyone for having these ideas but actually they don't help. They just offer a gutting disappointment when, in reality, the feelings remain the same and the daily struggle to continue through life remains the same. Telling someone to give it time just adds pressure to this whole process of surviving. It's like putting a deadline on something that actually has no end.

It makes you begin to wonder if you are doing something wrong because things haven't gotten better in time, like people tell you it will. So please don't tell me to give it time, because I am learning that time takes on a very different meaning to those that are grieving and it doesn't work in the same way. Time does not offer comfort and it doesn't appear to pass at the same normal rate. It's been 9 months today and it doesn't feel like I have survived 9 months without Luke. It's gone so fast and so little has changed. Time is a different shape to the bereaved.

So where does all of this leave me now that it's been 9 months? The same place I was when it had only been a few minutes after losing Luke. Completely broken, just placing one foot in front of the other and hoping I don't crash into anything. Part of my struggle is that I believed I should be able to take on the world by now and that I would have somehow started to rebuild my life. I also never believed that I would make it to 9 months without Luke. I never really thought about the future without him and so just expected that it would work itself out. (Not sure when I actually thought this would take place because I've not currently got the energy to do that and I've yet to want to create a new normal without Luke but I guess I thought it would magically happen. Note to self- shit like this doesn't just happen!)

I need for my own sanity to stop trying to rebuild a new life to a design that I don't have. I have no idea what my life should look like without Luke. I have no idea what my life should be without him. At the moment I don't see the point to it. But I know that's a dangerous place to be. I know that I don't want a life with any other man. My life was supposed to be as Luke's wife and nothing will ever match that. I don't want to settle. I want Luke. But I can't have Luke, so I need to rebuild with what I have. I need to take it step by step and place the rebuilding into 'phases'. (Cheers lady!) I've spoken about how I expected things to be easier and because they're not I feel like I'm failing. This is partly because I'm still at the point of needing to take things day by day, hour by hour. And it's ok to be at 9 months and need to do this. Apparently 9 months is no time at all and still very early. It doesn't feel like a long time to me but it sounds like a long time. And because it sounds like a long time I have placed the pre-conceived idea on myself that I should be achieving much more by now. But actually I shouldn't. This is reassuring to know. So the first phase is to give each day a purpose. No matter how small.

Creating a purpose for each day. Even if I don't want to. Even if I don't want to engage with other people or take part in life. I am going to put one thing down that I need to achieve on that day. I am going to go through the motions of existing and of taking part in life even though I don't want to. Because to see no purpose in life and no point to living is not a good or healthy place to be. It may be as simple as make dinner or go out and meet a friend for coffee. (I realise this is something you can all do without even thinking about it, but it's a massive thing to someone that should be sharing their mealtimes with their special someone. It's also exceptionally hard to choose meals because there are some meals I can not eat, as they were mine and Luke's favourites. And meeting a friend for coffee requires me to start yet another day and to interact with someone when all I might want to do is curl up on the sofa in Luke's hoody and cry.) So I just need to write down one thing for each day that I am going to do at some point. (Right now it's go and make a cup of tea!)

Some of you may wonder why I would choose to do these things just for the sake of doing them, even when all I want to do is curl up and vanish from this world without Luke. Well it's because on the days when I stay on the sofa and push the day away, I feel like shit. I haven't achieved anything and I am left with the feeling of 'well I survived another day but I'm doing a pretty shit job and I feel like I've failed.' I no longer view surviving a day as an achievement, even when it is the hardest thing I will ever have to do again in my life. But on the days where I force myself to take part in life (even for a little while) I feel like absolute shit but slightly less of a failure. According to my lady, I need to stop beating myself up.

When everything first happened I was able to organise so much. In the first few weeks I actually got a lot done. I cancelled our wedding and organised Luke's funeral. I interacted with people. But now I don't want to do anything. The lady suggested it was because I organised things that were for other people. I did things for other people. But now life requires me to exist and to do things for me. And I don't see the point, which is also a reason why everything is so much harder. I've lost my purpose. By beginning to do one thing each day, even when I don't want to, isn't going to improve how I feel. It isn't going to make my life easier or the daily struggles easier. My feelings will probably remain exactly the same but my life will start to take a new shape. And this is apparently one way of rebuilding a life with no design or plan.

I'm not really sure what I am supposed to do now. It's all just so surreal. This is not what our life was supposed to look like. :'(

An ever-changing layer

A lot of time has passed since I last wrote, yet everything has remained the same and in my head, time hasn't moved. How is that possible? It's July now and I never thought I was going to make it this far. It doesn't feel like almost 9 months since I last saw you. It doesn't feel like almost 9 months since we were snuggled up together in bed. It doesn't feel like almost 9 months since we were talking about our future together. It doesn't feel like almost 9 months ago that we were so close to being married. I am now closer to the year anniversary of losing you than I am to the event that took you away.

I have tried all sorts of things to survive. None of which have made me feel any better. I think at the moment I am not living, but surviving from day to day. I'm almost certain you wouldn't be happy about this. I feel as though the world around me is blurred and fast moving, while I am still. Like in the films when the focus is on the person standing perfectly still and the people moving are blurred. That's how I feel. Everyone else is moving forwards and life is moving around me. But I'm still stood in that room being told you had been involved in an accident and that you were gone. I'm still in that room being told I can't go and see you.

There are so many different parts to grief that I just didn't realise. This is so different to losing my Dad. I'm constantly battling being rational and logical with how I'm feeling. And how I feel can alter and change so quickly. Sometimes the feelings don't really match with the moment. I look at your clothes and I don't feel sad anymore. I feel numb and lost. I think I also feel a little bewildered and detached. It's wrong that you're not in them. I often wonder what you'd wear when I get dressed, especially on the hot days! But I should feel sad looking at your clothes because that's how I used to feel. But that feeling has been replaced with numbness and disbelief. Your clothes are slowing getting covered in dust and that is sad. I have to keep shaking them off and then I feel like a crazy person for doing it but by the time I've caught myself doing it, it's already done.

Some mornings, I can open your side of the bathroom cabinet and I can cope with seeing your toothbrush and razor and hair gel. But other days I can't. Some days I can easily wear the perfume that you bought me and other days I can't. Some days I can wear the dresses and clothes that I know you loved to see me in and other days I have to put them back into the wardrobe because it's too hard to hold myself together. Some days I can wear my engagement ring and my wedding ring and they make me smile because it reminds me of what we were and what we were going to be. They remind me of how you proposed to me in Jamaica and they make me smile. But other days I can't wear them and I can't look at them because they remind me of what we have lost and it just hurts too much.

This is hard because there is no pattern to grief. There's no one way that works because it's constantly changing. What I can handle one day I can't handle another day. What makes me cry one day will make me laugh the next and vise versa. How am I supposed to work out how to survive the next 60 odd years of my life when I can't even work out how to manage a frigging day without breaking at some point.

There are things that I find really hard and I know that I shouldn't find them hard, which also makes this frustrating. For example, making sure I actually eat something in the day. I have found, when I'm on my own, I just don't have an appetite. I know I need to eat but just don't want to. I don't want to do such a normal task because life isn't normal. Going to bed at night is a normal task but it's so bloody hard because you're not here. I still have to force myself to sleep in the bed and not on the sofa and often I won't go up there until the early hours of the morning. I'm not supposed to be sleeping alone in our home. We're supposed to be spooning and snuggled up and racing to be first in bed, so that the other one has to turn off the lights. I miss our bedtime routine of racing each other up the stairs and playing pants down to try and slow the other one down. I miss brushing our teeth as fast as we can, just to beat the other. I miss you.

Walking into a room should be easy. Should. I don't go in your man room, unless I need to open the window. That's not easy. Your clothes are still exactly where you left them and so is your porridge pot! The talc on the floor, from where you put on your leathers that morning, is still visible on the floor. I really should hoover in there but I feel physically sick at the thought of removing that trace of you that I can't do it. So I haven't done it and I won't do it. But that's also crazy because it's just talc and if you were alive I would have hoovered in there and picked all of your bloody clothes off the floor! On the other hand though, I guess it's not doing any harm to anyone at the moment, so it can just stay. But it's these things that makes grief so confusing. Nothing works as it should.

The lady suggested I should try and spend some time in your man room. By avoiding it, I am apparently denying what has happened and I'm shutting it out. By avoiding the room, I am apparently not allowing myself to grieve. I am shutting out those emotions and feelings that my body needs to go through. But at the moment, it's just too hard. When I step into the room everything feels so heavy. It becomes harder to breathe and harder to focus. It becomes impossible to hold myself together. I don't want to break because it's always so hard to recover and so hard to pull myself back to reality. So at the moment I shut the door and I stay out.

The lady has said that if that's my coping strategy at the moment then that is ok, but to consider what happens to the grief and emotions that I'm avoiding. There's only so long they can be controlled before they bubble over. I thought about this and went in the man room for a whole minute. It pretty much destroyed me, so I gave up and shut the door. I'm just not there yet and that's ok. It's strange though, because when you first left I was able to go into your room. I don't understand why it is so hard now.

Your gym trainers and running trainers are not looking very healthy or hygienic either. I'm sure something is growing on them! I thought about throwing them out because that is what you would have done. I picked them up and then put them straight back down again. I just couldn't do it. I know they're just trainers and I know you would have binned them but I just can't do it. I actually felt like I wanted to be sick when I tried. I guess I feel guilty for binning something of yours because it feels as though I am throwing you away. I'm not throwing you away and I know logically that binning the trainers does not mean I'm throwing away your memory. It doesn't mean I'm throwing away our relationship or disregarding how much I love you. I know this. But it feels as though I am throwing you away and, at the moment, that is over-taking the logical side of me. So your trainers are going to continue to grow what ever gross stuff it wants.

Apparently in the stages of grief there is a re-organisation of life. This is where those who are left behind begin to rebuild their lives and they begin to pull the pieces of life back together. They begin to re-engage with life. They become more functional and better at handling the day to day pressures of life. They are able to control when the memories hit them and they are able to create a new normal.

I don't want to move into the re-organisation stage of grief because I feel as though I would be saying, "It's ok that you're gone." And it isn't ok. It isn't ok that you have left me here to live our life without you. It isn't ok that you don't get to laugh and smile and live anymore. It is not ok that our wedding was cancelled and we all had to say good bye to you. It is not ok that I don't get to kiss you anymore. It is not ok that I can't hear you laughing or telling me not to be mad. IT IS NOT OK!!!!!  I feel as though by re-organising my life, it is dissolving your memory and who we were to each other. I feel as though it's being disloyal to your memory and to how much I love you. But I know that this is not how it really is. I know realistically and rationally, I have to re-organise life at some point. I know that this re-organisation is supposed to happen at some point. But I don't feel like I'm there yet. I don't want my life to adjust to life without you. I don't want a new normal. I want you and I want us.

At Christmas time I went away because we should have been on our honeymoon and I just couldn't be in the house and when I came home I discovered that our home had flooded. Until the flood, I had no intention of changing anything in the house, except maybe painting the living room. But that was all I was going to change. Everything else was going to remain the same. Then it flooded and I was forced to change everything. I was force to move your things. I was forced to move your cereal and protein shakers. I was forced to move your clothes and to move the things you had left laying about.

I can't even describe how hard that was or the stress that caused or even count the number of times I broke because the house was changing from what it was to a new way. I hated it. I hated having to make the decisions without you. Yet if you had been here, I'm sure I would have been the bossy one saying what I wanted and it would have been easy and exciting. But it didn't feel exciting and it certainly wasn't easy. I wanted to be sick every time I had to make yet another decision without you. I found I was constantly battling with what I wanted, with what I thought you would like and trying to play out what the compromise would have been. This is all very hard to do especially when the people asking for the decision are stood in front of you wanting an answer there and then because actually it was a really simple decision to make.

But to me, having to make yet another change that I never intended to make in the first place was fucking hard. I found myself saying a few times that I just didn't care because I just couldn't cope with having to change something else and having to think of what you would have liked or what you would have done. It was easier to hand the decision over to someone else. I put pink in the hallway and instantly regretted it. I definitely over stepped the mark with that. The deep pink I know I could have gotten away with for a while, because I'd have bought you steak and dressed nice and taken your mind of the fact that I'd just pinked up the hallway ;) but the other pink really was a step too far. You would not have been impressed! If you were alive and I had done this I would have laughed and we would have re-painted it and there wouldn't have been a problem. And you probably would have been a little mad followed up with, "Oh my God Dee!!"

But you aren't here so I sat at the top of the stairs, staring at the door of your man room and cried for hours. How it is even possible to cry that much is beyond me. But that's what I did. And I felt like a crazy person. It was just paint on a wall. It wasn't the end of the world. It could be fixed. But I knew you'd hate it and I couldn't cope with that. So I just cried. I hate the fact that at a time when I wanted the world to stand still and when I wanted everything to freeze in time, I was forced to change everything. The flood forced me to rip out our home and even if I'd put everything back to exactly as it was, it still wouldn't be the same; it would have still been change. God is such a dick sometimes. The hallway has now been re-painted and looks much better. I'm still doubting if you'd have done it that way but I just don't have it in me at the moment to think about this, so it will stay that way for a little while.

I'm slowly trying to make our home a place that I can stay without breaking everyday.  I was forced to alter everything downstairs but I'm trying to take control of some of the other changes. I have moved the fish tank to the living room and removed the table and chairs from the dining room. We don't need a table anymore because it's just me and I don't need anymore reminders that you are gone, so I've removed the table that we would sit at and once I have a sofa in there, I will remove the two chairs because we don't need two chairs anymore. Change is really hard. it's even harder without you.

Grieving sucks. It doesn't end. It doesn't switch off and it can't be hidden from. It's just there. It's a constant layer that changes and moves and just when you think you've got a handle on it, it shifts again. Bastard thing.

I think I've rambled a lot in this blog and I've just run out of energy now, so maybe I'll come back to it later. I started it at 3am because I couldn't sleep and then came back to it late morning but I'm done for the day now.

I miss you Perryman and I love you a little bit...A LOT!! xxxxxxxx