I'm sorry to be so late posting this week. This isn't the only thing I've run late with, or not done at all. I can't blame being ill - I'm definitely better now, thank goodness. But the combination of the trip to China followed by the illness has somehow completely upset my daily life.
It took me a long time last year to get back some sort of equilibrium and come to terms with living alone on a day-to-day basis. I thought I'd managed it pretty well, really. But it depended on a range of routines, including cooking for myself and for friends, and doing some work, and going out.
While I was ill, all of this fell apart, and now I'm having trouble putting my life back together again. I know this sounds really feeble, especially considering that we're just coming up to the anniversary of the February earthquake which devastated so many people's lives in Christchurch. (The film When A City Falls is on TV3 this week - Wednesday at 7.30.) But it somehow feels as if I've slipped back quite a long way. I've gone back to having flashbacks of the last few days of Harvey's life, and I have to try hard to realise what I'm doing and consciously stop and think about something else. It all just reinforces the difficult but essential knowledge that none of this is straightforward, and it really is two, three, many steps forward and then several steps back.
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Oh Anne, much, much aroha to you. I have flashbacks too, of my mum in hospital, of conversations, of her dying moments (I was alone with her). They come and go in waves. Sometimes something clearly related sets them off - a television show with an older woman in hospital - sometimes a song. It is frequently agonisingly painful.
ReplyDeleteI wonder sometimes, for me, if they are about not wanting to forget those intimacies. I try to just honour them. But it is a terrifying rollercoaster for me, and like you, not a linear process. Please be gentle with yourself and take very good care. LJ
It's good to know you are over your illness Anne but I'm wishing you v gentle days as you sift through where you are 'at' in this new chapter of life. Flashbacks can be evoke such a range of emotions. I hope you can navigate this time care-fully. Thanks for continuing to share your journey with us.
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