It has occurred to me that this is probably the first time in my whole life that I have spent a Christmas or New Years Day entirely on my own.  We would always have shared them together, and before I’d met John I would have been with family.

I did spend Christmas with family, but today I’ve been all day at home alone, trying to treat it like any other day, and getting on with things like sorting and washing.

But it’s not any other day.  It’s the first day that it’s already that he died last year, not this year any more.  Everyone comments on the passage of time, my life is racing on.  But I feel utterly adrift with a completely uncertain future.

I didn’t stay up for the new year.  What’s everyone celebrating anyway?  The fact that the world has kept on turning?

I don’t think I’ll ever be singing Auld Lang Syne again, not without John to sing it with.

 

I had to look something up in my old diaries – when I previously went on a particular course, turns out it was eight years ago.

I didn’t like the experience of having a pile of old diaries in my hand and thinking, for every one of the days here, he was alive (well that’s the good and comforting bit) but didn’t know he was soon going to die (that’s the nasty bit).

I particularly didn’t want to look up the day he died in previous years, but I couldn’t help glancing at a couple.  I was sort of afraid it would be something nice and significant that happened, which would then have an awful tinge put on it, to think that at the time we didn’t know that x years later, he would die on that day.  For the two years I looked at, it (22 January) was an insignificant day, nothing particular noted down.  But I’m still thinking – that day passed and I didn’t know it was the day that…

So I’m holding those diaries and thinking – one of these days, these dates, will be the date that I die.  And maybe someone (but probably nobody) will be looking through these diaries and saying, oh how poignant, she ended up dying on the day that such and such happened.

I expressed this sentiment to someone and was told it was unhealthy thinking.  Quite true, clearly.  Everyone on the planet lives through the date they’re eventually going to die on – but you don’t know which it is and there’s nothing you can do about it.  You have to forget about it and just live.

I’ve always thought my over-profoundness is an affliction.  Seems it’s at its worst now.

Went to a Bereavement Group meeting and heard some horrible stories about other people’s recent experiences.  I suppose there does come a point when that isn’t helpful – it would be better, maybe, to go to some different type of meeting now, that would help me to be more cheerful and move on, rather than dwelling on horrible things and sadness.

I talked about how I felt about it being the one year anniversary of the start of the ‘hospital period’, how I had to push it out of my mind a bit because it made me flinch to remember what it was like, visiting him every single day for so long, and never being able to communicate, and gradually losing hope.  If I’m not careful, it can feel like he’s still there in that hospital and it’s all happening again.  I can so picture every part of it, all the details of what happened.

On the day that was the anniversary of.. it happening, I went to the place and ‘paid my respects’, and also went to the Cemetery and left a beautiful big bunch of purple lilies (which neither he nor anyone else he knew will ever see).  I must be careful or my profundity about all this will become debilitating.

I deliberately went Christmas shopping afterwards, and now I am keeping myself busy finishing off my newly decorated bedroom, just as a way of trying to return to normality and stay in the real world.

It doesn’t mean I’m not (very) aware, or that I’ll forget.

I think London is one of the things that will save me.

I’ve been to the V&A cafe again, with the nice windows and tiles and chandeliers and piano (silent today) – and nice food.

I no longer feel quite so distraught and sad about my poor dear partner and friend no longer existing.  Well, it’s still bad, but that balance between him, me and the world is changing.  The world is pulling me back.

People all around are talking about everyday, inane things.  You can’t hold it against them.  Everyone can’t be profound all the time.

As I’ve said before, I no longer have him, but I do have the rest of the world.

I’ve looked round a shoe exhibition, seen shoes worn by David Beckham, Naomi Campbell and Marilyn Monroe.  (So what, I hear you ask?)

I’ve eaten nice chicken and courgettes and new potatoes.

I’ve seen some of my favourite old pieces – the amazing statue of the woman nursing a baby, in the long gallery by the courtyard; the way her expression is captured, the way she looks so real.

If I was a sculptor I would make a statue of my dear John.  Soon I will start to do artworks of some sort to commemorate him.

But today I’m just going to enjoy looking at pretty things.  I know he would have forgiven me for carrying on with life.

I carry him with me in my heart.