Giving yourself permission...

It's a funny old turn of phrase isn't it? Three and a half years on I'm still trying to make sense of this whole grief thing. Time goes on and just when I think I've got a handle on it and I'm moving on Christmas comes along and shatters my whole world to pieces.

I miss her like you wouldn't believe. It's not even her birthday when I'm down the cemetery that makes me upset. her grave's just another place to me now, most people go down to visit her and shed their tears but not me. I think I'm the only one that can't cry for her there, I don't know.

The first few mornings after she died we'd awake from our sleep and for the first few seconds everything would be alright. then the reality of the true horror would hit us and we'd just lay in each other's arms in bed, crying as we realised that she wasn't inside me anymore, she was gone.

It's supposed to get easier in time, isn't it? Every day that passes I become further away from her and each day without her seems harder to bear. I don't know how much harder it has to get before I break into a million tiny pieces.

Recently the prospect of staying asleep has felt like the more preferable option than waking up and deaing with the fact that there will always be an empty space at the dinner table.

The funny thing is I know all the facts; I could probably quote chapter and verse at you the textbook definition of the stages of grief, but none of it seems to fit with me. You can tilt your head to one side and smile at me in that sympathetic way and ofer all the platitudes and wise words and nothing will change the fact that she's never coming back. Nothing you say will make a difference.

I just want to stay in that place when I sleep where I don't have to think, I don't have to "do" - I can just forget. But then surely that'd mean that I'd have forgotten her too, wouldn't it? How could I want to forget my precious daughter, my firstborn.

And how can I stay in that place when I have Jake, who, whilst angry at me for leaving him every day to go out to work is still everything we were working towards when I was carrying Jaia. just reminds me of that Remembrance Sunday quote "remember the dead, but don't forget the living".

I'm so lost it's stupid.

my feet haven't touched the ground...

... In the last few weeks, I've hardly had 5 minutes to call my own, let alone to post on here! I started my job in London; Jake's gone into full-time childcare which has been a total emotional wrench for both of us and we're now trying to settle into a new routine, mainly consisting on early nights for me and even earlier mornings for Jake.

I'm up before dawn and don't see my son now till after dark - thursday last week he didn't see me at all :( All I got to see of him was when I went into check on him before I went to bed that night.

Lots to learn at the new job - meetings, nowhere near enough training for my liking but I've just got my first appointment and it's at none other than Music Bank Studios - http://www.musicbank.org and although it's not a massive commission (they don't spend all that much on their telecoms) - when I go in there next wednesday I'll be like a kid in a sweetshop looking round it. This year they've had everyone from Robbie Williams, to Kylie, Snow Patrol, Massive Attack and The Darkness. I'm really excited about it (as if you can't tell!).

Keeping this brief as I've got a mountain of work to do to get myself and Jake ready for the morning and Rob's got another job interview tomorrow at 5.

Rob's work's xmas meal is this Thursday and mine is friday the 15th at a bar in The Minories which should be fun.

Keep you posted, when I get the chance!

Ciao

L
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