No,not really - I had a feeling deep down that the guilt would return with a vengeance but also that feeling of loss, of Carol just being "missing", would turn round and bite me - and it most certainly did.
Coming home brought reality crashing back in - an empty house, with Carol everywhere around - as she will thankfully always be - but that reality is a bitch.
Even as I was writing the last blog post, talking about everything we'd done, I could feel it descending. I was trying to concentrate on the positives of the weekend, and there were many, but it still just didn't seem right.....being positive.
It's really hard to explain how you are constantly fighting with yourself. Trying desperately hard to focus on the good times, remembering that Carol wouldn't want me moping around - but "real life" isn't that easy to control.
My mind is all over the place, so full of thoughts that at times it's impossible to organise them into anything sensible. That's why I find myself drifting off so much, unable to concentrate on anything for too long.
I caught myself staring at a photograph of Carol on the wall at my parents house last Saturday - my guess was about 15 minutes had passed before I realised what I was doing, I was just sat there staring.
As someone who is so used to being quite clinical about things, being very organised and in control, this is quite scary.
Here's an example of my current state of "mind fog" - I went out in the car on Wednesday with a very specific thing to do - I was going to one place (about one mile away from home) to pick up a form. That was it nice and simple, should take me about ten minutes there and back.
I drove off down the hill and then suddenly realised I was two miles further up the road, having driven straight past my destination, and having completely forgotten what I went out for. That's what I mean when I say this is scary - and it's happening to me all the time.
I've cried lots of tears this week, for lots of reasons, it's just been a week of feeling really low. I'm coming to understand the grieving process more and more - some will view it as me just feeling sorry for myself - I say let them reserve judgement until they have to go through this themselves. Just go back to my post about "real loss" and think about it for a while.
At one point I got really angry with myself for not spending more time with Carol during that last year. Despite all the reasons for working, and how we had everything set-up at home, I can't shake the anger that I didn't work from home, or just stay at home more, so I missed spending time with Carol that I can never get back now.
It doesn't matter that I can't change things - or that even if I had stayed at home 3 days a week last year I know I'd be sitting here now wishing that I'd stayed at home 4 days a week.
I'll always be wanting that - more time - more time for those conversations we never had, more time just to sit there holding Carol's hand - more time just "being" with Carol - is that so much to ask?
That's what the mind does to you - because there's no sense to what's just happened to us there's a constant longing to change it all - to go back and do it differently because that will lead to a different outcome - so then it never actually happens.
The cheque for Carol's life insurance policy arrived on Friday and when I opened the envelope I felt physically sick - really, really sick. I remember making those jokes when we took the policies out years ago (you probably did the same). You'll know the one's I mean - when you say you're worth more when you're dead.
Well believe me that's absolute crap - and when it actually happens to you then you'll understand - there is no number "worth" more than Carol.
We all know why we take these policies out - to provide for and protect those we leave behind - but their actual "worth" is meaningless.
Money isn't going to bring Carol back - money isn't going to replace Carol - money isn't going to mend my broken heart or those of our children.
You work all those years together........to earn the money for all those things you plan to do together.......and then you lose the most precious person in the world, your partner in all of that work and all of those plans.......and that means you get money.......so you can now afford to do all of those things you'd planned.......but the person you'd planned to do them with isn't here.......so what's that actually worth?
And as I'm typing this it's now gone past midnight, which means it's Sunday - Mothers Day - so it's no surprise that I'm sat here crying again then is it?
You've probably guessed that for me this has been one of the hardest weeks yet emotionally - I don't know if I'm still sliding down that slope or now stuck at the bottom waiting to start climbing back up again.
Someone asked me the other day if I thought that this year was flying by. I said I've no idea, all I could tell them was that it was 11 weeks since Carol had died.
I do wonder how long I'll continue to count my life off in weeks - 11 weeks is nothing really, I hear you say, so it's no wonder I'm feeling the way I do.
11 weeks is just a blink of the eye - so why does it feel like 11 years since I've seen my beautiful lady?
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