Dear Alex, moving on...

July 17^th 2012

Dear Alex,

Seizing the rain ceasing long enough to mow the lawn, I snatch the opportunity today. I am not the strongest armed of people (!) and I think how proud of myself I am for becoming as DIYey and dude jobby as I have (no offence but there are certain jobs I classify as boy ones, like taking out the bins, unblocking the toilets, generally all the sh*tty ones, putting up prepacked furniture and all the  other ones I don’t want to do!)…

I have become scared of the dark. Well, I have always been to be honest, but not for over ten years have I felt the fear, you by my side took that away.

I became scared of the dark again when this happened.

In so many ways, your accident has had me re-evaluate, consciously, unconsciously. There’s SO many changes, so many intricate facets…

Trying to change an outlook on life. Challenging normal anticipations, expectations.

Is everything all relative? As I hear a great deal, or is, in fact that I just should damn well try as hard as possible to give thanks for all I have, continually and not excuse it on a ‘well, it’s all relative’ quip? Tough one. But sometimes I overhear a comment and I do feel I would love to have that to worry about instead!

I don’t know how I get to sleep at the moment, I drench the pillow heavily with lavender oil, I no longer need the TV on all night to help me sleep…but I think I finally drifted off, tears flooding, free falling, around 1 am last night. The nights are something I’ll never get used to, with no you in the bed it so starkly stares me in the face; emptiness, when I have to turn out the light- eyes burning with tiredness, I can read no more. I dread it, having to put out the light. Knowing what’s coming next. Darkness, real and blind, no protector by my side, just little me to look after, to watch, to protect four sleeping souls…

I think part of me has been facing the fact you will not be the same, that you are not the same, that you’re not going to just reappear…it’s been a struggle, tangled and heavy, I still feel I am dragging myself through it. In facing this, I am acknowledging something, something unthinkable, and for as long as it is blocked out, it means it’s not real, surely? But fight it as I might, nine and a half months into it, I cannot shake it, it’s there. It’s terrifying acknowledging it, it means accepting.

When I glance back at some of the photos of you and the kids before, I see how young the kids look, how much they’ve grown. I can’t ignore it.

I suppose I am moving towards accepting our new future, still together, still a family, just very different to before. No matter how much I want it, I, we, will never have our lives ‘magicked’ back to how it was…

Letting go of the past is painful, acceptance of the new and unknown, equally so.

That you are whole again, and home…that’s my dream now…

Me xxxxxxxxxxx