State of Affairs

I had another poor night, last night. Couldn't get to sleep, couldn't stay asleep. Not a huge problem, but enough to leave me feeling very rough this morning. Verum is taking part at an exhibition in Germany. Sunday we traveled down, Monday we set up our stand, yesterday we had our first full day on the stand. Yesterday evening I was feeling... well exhausted, I suppose. My body was aching all over and I guess that that didn't help with sleeping. This morning, when it was time to get up to head to the exhibition, I felt as though I was into the exhaustion danger zone, so I have decided to rest out for a while and go to the stand a little later. I feel hellishly guilty about this, but frankly, I don't want to collapse and I still have a long week ahead - tomorrow is the last day, then we have to take the stand down and drive home for 5 hours. Then we have to unload everything from my car because on Friday I have to drive back to Austria for a week's holiday. I think that by the time I get to Austria I'll be too damned tired to think about skiing. 

But lying in bed this morning I was driven by my state to think about where I am in the process of grieving for Kay. Sometimes I think that I'm doing quite well and that I can take (my) normal life full on. But at others I am reminded that I am as yet still very weak and more or less constantly running on Emergency Power, Mr Scott.

And indeed, if I think about it, my normal energy levels are far from being replenished and most days I have to drive myself beyond what is normal. But this has become so commonplace that I no longer notice it. And the fact that I tend to end the day feeling like I have been lightly beaten all over with a stick has also become commonplace. In fact, lying here now, feeling so rough, I'm amazed that I haven't actually become sick. When I'm as tired as I am now, it feels like I'm suffering from bone deep 'flu, but without a fever. I suppose I have to thank the Homeopath for advising double doses of vitamins.

But what also troubles me is how long Mr Scott can hold the Starship Rob together before the dilithium chamber explodes. Essentially, the medics around me are just supporting me while I push myself deeper into the red zone. At least, that's what it seems like I'm doing this week. So when I was lying in bed earlier, wondering about getting up, I could hear the voices of my friends telling me I'd be a fool not to just keep lying there, so that's what I did. Thanks, friends!

Mentally things are also very far from improving, I suppose. Again, lying here this morning, trying to relax and recharge, I consistently found myself reliving Kay's last minutes. I so clearly remember us gathering around her bed, the doctors coming in, the sedative being administered, the ventilator being switched off, my eyes meeting with those of the doctor and her giving me the sign that Kay had passed away. All too often I also relive her last conscious moments as well, her last interaction with me, slapping my face out of fear for what was coming. I think about our last trip to the hospital in my car, her conversation with Esther about whether she wanted to stay in the hospital or go home, her worrying about how Marion & I would feel and about her deciding to stay at the hospital because she felt safer there. All these things and far more go through my head, often enough for me to find no peace with them or with life in general.

I think that at the moment life is harder than ever because I have the tendency to think that I'm considerably better than I was. I work almost full time, my agenda is fully planned, I don't spend very much time talking about Kay or my loss. I don't consider myself fully available, but shall we say that I think I'm back to doing 80% of what I was doing previously. I also think that people still make allowances for the fact that I'm only 80% available, but they don't make much allowance, which is fine and I would have it no other way - I hate the thought of being treated specially because of my circumstances. The problem is that half of the energy it takes to do the 80% is emergency power, which is something that I can and do try to keep inside me, but at moments like this it unfortunately does leak out. 

So, all-in-all, things are perhaps not what they seem in Rob-land. I'm struggling like hell to balance all the demands that my life makes of me, while running on emergency power. I'm still confronted with the most raw and intractable memories of Kay's final moments and I can find no peace with them because I want them to mean something, but I can't for the life of me figure out what they could mean. I have no idea how long this will or can go on. I fervently hope that there comes a moment when something gets simpler and I have more space in which to deal with some of these things and try to heal my system somewhat more.

Time to go and do some work.