Have you ever been doing something mundane, boring even, part of your daily routine and then some small thought has completely thrown you off track?
Did it take you by surprise? Did you wonder where on earth that thought came from?
It’s weird isn’t it, how our brain works (or doesn’t work)?
Caught by surprise
I made my (our) bed as usual today, bent over to fold back the covers, then as I straightened up and looked down at the bed, I noticed it.
The sheets are only creased on one side, where I had slept. For the tiniest fraction of a second, my brain puzzled over where J could be. Why wasn’t her side slept in?
I’m sorry if that sounds daft after 20 months, it is hard to explain the impact of that thought, of the almost instantaneous realisation, but the falling sensation I had in my chest and the shock when I was jolted into reality.
Inception
So much went through my tiny brain in such a small snippet of time. Like the movie Inception (if you haven’t seen it, why not?!), it was like time had slowed down and stretched out inside of what, to the observer, would have appeared a fractional moment.
I ran the whole gamut of emotions from confusion/puzzlement, through grim realisation, anger and injustice, to a dull numbness and immobility, all within that minuscule moment.
Even the sheets on our bed deliver a constant reminder that she’s not here any more.
Until that moment it hadn’t hit me so far that day – she has gone!
Duvet Day?
It is difficult to explain, to really convince someone who hasn’t lost what you have, how much these fleeting, almost immeasurable, moments stop you in your tracks.
All of a sudden that background ache, the subtle but constant gnawing inside your chest, is dragged flaming and painful, into the forefront of your mind.
And it brings everything back.
It is a fight, a real battle, to not allow yourself to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers claiming a ‘Duvet Day’.
The real struggle is to then go about your day, rubbing shoulders with people who have no idea what you have been through already just to be there at work, in the supermarket, at school or just to exist without that special person in your life.
There is no predictability about this horrible journey that no one wants to be on.
That’s what makes living through grief so draining.