A scream.

I’m writing this on a phone so please forgive any typos and the inevitable brevity. This entry feels a bit like a scream I’ve been holding in for weeks and if I don’t get it out on paper it’s going to boil over into some kind of ugliness. So. Phone composition it is. Needs must.

What I’m struggling with is that life will never be as good again. How can it be? Mike was my soulmate in every sense. Everyone I speak to reminds me of that. That our love was something special. That many people never get to experience a love like it. That it was obvious from first meeting us that we were made for each other. I’ll never get that again. How could I? The chances of meeting Mike were so infinitesimal. The chances of meeting another person who sets my whole world alight, who completes and complements me in every way, who understands me and loves me wholly and fully and also happens to be the funniest, sweetest, silliest, most beautiful person I’ve ever met are essentially zero. They have to be. Nobody gets that lucky twice.

And then even if I did, even if by some miracle someone else came along who fulfilled me in that way and made me feel as loved as he did, they won’t be Lyla’s Daddy. They won’t love her in the way Mike did. They won’t have the shared memories of her infanthood, they won’t know how she liked to be sung to, how she used to do a little sigh in her sleep that sounded like a text alert tone, how we had to bounce her on a yoga ball to get her to sleep. They won’t be half of her. And on this fucking day, Father’s Day, that all seems more important than ever.

What I’m realising that is breaking my heart is that there’s no rule in life that things keep getting better. I think I always believed there was, and that they would. And they had – obviously we had been through tough times but ultimately the trend was upwards. Having Mike by my side was the security that life would keep getting better.

And now he’s not.

It feels impossible to go on with that knowledge, to know that I’ve hit the highest high and things can’t ever be that good again. That I’m almost certainly never going to find that kind of soul-deep connection, that intense love, that absolute wide-eyed adoration ever again. That my beautiful child will always be without her Daddy. It feels so pointless even trying, although I know I will, for Lyla. But it’s getting harder and harder. As the shock wears off and the hope gets extinguished, life gets duller and more painful. Every night now I go to bed with a headache from repressing tears all day, holding in this scream that is always threatening. Every night I have flashbacks to finding him, to screaming his name, to CPR and all the absolute horror that followed. Every day is bookended by that waking nightmare. And then I have to just get up and carry on and smile and interact with people and all the time I’m just internally screaming…

I just want to yell at everyone, shake them and ask how they can possibly be going on as normal when Mike, my Mike, my wonderful Mike is no longer in the world. I don’t want to be like that, full up with negativity and anger but I am. I worry that one day it’s all going to come spewing out, this toxic sludge of all the horrors I’m holding in, the flashbacks and the anger and the fear. And I have no idea what that will look like but I know it won’t be good.

Even now I want to minimise this, to say “it’s okay, I’ll feel better tomorrow, I just need some sleep”. But it’s not okay. I’m not okay. I’m drowning. And there’s nothing anyone can do because nobody can bring Mike back. Nobody can tell me – honestly and truthfully – that things will be okay, that I’ll be happy like that again, that Lyla will be okay. Nobody can hold this pain for me or stop the flashbacks or cure these fucking headaches. I have to just go on with it all. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair. He was the best thing in my life. The best thing in Lyla’s life. The best thing in the world. And now he’s gone and everything is worse and always will be.

How the fuck do I live with that?

In the weeds.

I’ve been having a tough time of it lately. A lot of widowed people talk about 6-12 months as being particularly tough, as the protective numbness from the shock is starting to wear off and the realisation that this is it – forever – starts to kick in. Plus the mental and physical exhaustion from being so unhappy for so long is a real challenge.

On top of that, the lifting of lockdown restrictions means that I’m being confronted by new “firsts” on a daily basis – first dinner invite without him, first day commuting, first visit to my family, first time in London again, first family lunch out – etc etc etc. And Lyla is getting ready for preschool and potty training and making the transition from cot bed to “big girl bed” – all things he should be here for.

Add to that the endless news cycle discussions of the footballer who suffered a cardiac arrest (and all the ill-informed nonsense about CPR and defibrillators that goes with it) and I’m feeling extremely vulnerable, sad, lost and alone.

It’s tough.

Tough is a bit of an understatement, really. It’s taking most of my energy to keep myself going and functioning when really all I want to do is crawl into bed and howl until something changes. I don’t know what, exactly, but something. And it’s hard because to the outside world, things should be a bit “better” by now. I’m almost 8 months in, I’m back at work, I’m socialising etc. But actually things are no better. In fact, in many ways they’re worse.

And I’m finding it harder than ever to keep plastering on a smile and being positive and determined and trying my best. I feel angry – angry that this is my life now, angry that Lyla and I have to go through it alone, angry that anyone is expecting anything of me when my world has completely fallen apart and I have no idea how to put it together again. And that’s on me, not on them – nobody is being unreasonable – but I’m struggling so much with the expectations of the world.

And just so, so tired of being sad. So tired of missing him. So tired of walking around with all the joy sucked out of my life, like this big deflated balloon. I arrange nice things – things for Lyla, things for me, even – but they come and they don’t help; in fact they often make things even harder because his absence is louder than ever. I’m full to the brim with missing him and longing for him and there’s less and less room for anything else, especially patience. I find myself digging my nails into my palms to keep from screaming, sometimes. Because life is going on around me but mine feels like it’s over forever.

That’s what I’m finding the hardest to adjust to. That this is it forever. And yes, the pain will dull a little, and I’ll get better at carrying it. But regardless, it’s here forever. My soulmate, the father of my daughter, the most wonderful man I ever met, the thing I was meant to do, will never come back and there’s nothing I can do to make that any better. Life now is about finding joy where I can, raising my daughter, and trying to learn to live with a massive hole right through the centre of me.

I sometimes wish there was a physical manifestation of grief. My best friend – who lost her beloved dad 6 months ago – and I were talking about this yesterday, how we wished it was still customary to show that you’re in mourning through your clothes. Because I feel like the world has moved on somehow and I’m still stuck here in this… bog of grief, wading through the mud, calling out for help through the dank air.

Only the help I’m calling for can’t come. Because the person I’m calling to isn’t here any more.

I feel exhausted by it, exhausted from thinking about it, exhausted from holding in the screaming, exhausted from trying to make everything neat and nice and organised, exhausted from living a life that holds so little contentment, no matter how hard I try. Joy I can find – joy in my daughter, in my friends, in books and art and nature. But contentment eludes me completely. Contentment is his hand in mine, his arm around me, his breathing slow and steady next to me in bed. And that’s lost to me forever.

This is disjointed and messy and has no conclusion, no neat point to come to, nowhere I can draw a line under it and move on. And in that way it’s like grief. It just… goes on.

And it sucks.