Six Months On

It feels like a very long month between now and my last post. So much has happened since then, it’s been my birthday, my first one without my Dad, I’ve returned to work (although in a completely new place and with a lot of new people) and I’ve also gone on my first holiday, (which I’m currently on when I’m writing this). It’s been six months since losing my Dad and I was very much dreading this time frame as it feels so long yet it’s still so fresh, it just happened. Six months feels like a long time to be doing life without my Dad. 

I’ve gone from being able to openly respond to ‘how are you?’ to no longer being able to. Besides my very open blog posts, I just can’t answer generic questions with deep answers anymore. I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall and it makes me feel worse than if I kept things to myself. But, I will be open in this post with how I feel about everything and maybe other people going through the same thing can relate and feel less alone when it can feel (and usually does feel) extremely lonely. 

I feel like I’ve gone back quite a few paces recently. I wouldn’t say I’m in ‘denial’ as such but I do feel like I don’t believe that it’s happened, and I do feel this big pang of shock in my chest if something really brings it home and makes it real. I’ve also being getting so many big grief waves and they literally rip the ground from beneath me. I could be just sat watching a video, icing a cupcake or stirring some chicken and suddenly ill burst into tears and it’ll feel like they’ll never stop. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if my Dad knocked on the door and said sorry he had to go away for so long but he’s back and would give us a big hug.. I don’t know why I do it to myself but I have such a good imagination I can make it feel real for a moment, (of course then I feel incredibly upset after). Sometimes I see people who look like him or dress like him or walk like him and I just imagine it’s him for a second and that he’s walking by me.

I only really get to talk about him to my mum, brother and partner now as I think my timeframe for sharing with others has expired and nobody really asks me anyway. The good thing is that me and my mum talk about him a lot, every single day, and we talk about everything. We share memories, we talk about his cancer, we talk about when he passed, we talk about things he’s told both of us, I’m very lucky in that respect because I’ve read so much about people not being able to talk to their surviving parent about their parent who’s passed away and I would find that very challenging. 

I do get why people close off though, I had a conversation recently that included talking about my Dads passing and it was so frank that it actually made me feel ill. It was as if it was somebody’s hamster that had died, not my Dad. I feel really uncomfortable that there’s a chance that could happen again and that’s made me question being as open as I am because I feel like I let that happen by being willing to let his passing be talked about on anything other than my terms. 

I realise (and I’m sure every single person who I’ve seen in the last month would agree), I come across like I’m doing really really well. I resent that a lot, I’m not saying I want to look like I’m completely miserable but some balance wouldn’t go a miss!! I feel like it does my love for my Dad and longing for him a massive injustice by hiding it but I can’t help it, I can only cry and be upset alone which I find odd. I found this recently which I’ll post below as it sums up a part of how I feel/a possible misconception very well. I had my birthday in August and all I’d asked for for this year was to celebrate it with my Dad. This was before I even knew he may pass away in 2020, I simply just wanted to spend it with him. Of course, that didn’t happen and very kindly the majorly of my family came together to spend it with me. Even though I ‘celebrated’, nobody saw me spend the morning crying, the night before crying and going home and crying. I posted the photo at the top of this post because I can’t add it properly whilst posting this from my phone, but I’m sure many of you in a similar position can relate. 

I’ve actually wrote this whilst on a train in Italy, it’s probably very long and all over the place as I’ve kind of written it point by point as it comes into my head, but it’s helpful for me to offload. I’m a weird space with things at the moment, I wish I could understand and have some kind of rhythm with my feelings but it’s just not like that, all I can do is somehow keep going and not expect the world from myself, or let others expect much from me whilst going through the most difficult time of my life.