The New Normal
It’s a term I hear a lot, ‘the new normal’, but what does it really mean to me? Six months have passed now, the first three were slow and dark and not somewhere I want to revisit. The next three were hard too but not so depressing, I focused on doing rather than thinking and to be fair I think I’ve managed reasonably well, sorting out the house and the finances going forward. Might seem strange but Julie and I had one simple rule once she gave up work to have our family and that was, I would earn the money and Julie would spend it. The point I make is that I didn’t even know how to access our banking online, our trust was complete, so I didn’t need to know, then suddenly I need to do things and whilst it’s not hard, with my state of mind it felt worse than it was.
Now as we start the next three months, I am on top of the house and the finances and getting jobs done that had been put off for a couple of years due to Julie’s cancer. I hate that word so much now; every time I hear it it’s liked being mentally stabbed and once you know it you find it everywhere. I hear people saying how much cancer took from them, but it doesn’t just take, it gives too and that can be almost as bad. What does it give? It gives you the chance to tell your kids Mum’s going to die, it gives you the chance to hurt so much inside but not show it on the outside, it gives you multiple opportunities to have your hopes raised and then be dashed at every scan, it gives you the chance to see your most precious person wither away in front of your eyes and to hold them when they’re in pain but not be able to do much about it. Finally towards the end you start to pray that they may pass in piece as it’s clear that the life they have left is of no value to them, I remember saying to Julie the night before she passed that if she should see a light or someone coming to take her she should run to it, don’t fight anymore darling, I’ll see you again. These thoughts keep coming back to me in the evenings when I’m alone, maybe they always will.
What now, is a thought that I have all the time, I feel like I’m going through a process but not connecting truly with my surroundings, scared to stop doing things that provide distraction and leave room for the thoughts to return. Is this the new normal, I fear it is at least for the foreseeable future. I will try to spend the next few weeks trying to be more positive and look for things to bring some fun back into everyday life and see how that goes. I am looking forward to Easter with the family and I have two dogs to babysit for three weeks after that so looks like I’ll be busy.
I was going to finish there but I’ve just noticed something while I’ve been writing, there are so many I’s in this here where there used to be We’s, that sums up everything, getting used to it being just me rather than always us, I don’t like it, I don’t want it, but I’m stuck with it and that’s the scary thing.