Afterwards

I am still feeling distinctly odd, and embarassed by my reaction at the wake, my strange inability to talk to people. I can write, I need to write, but talking is hard. Today I replied to a lot of emails, then rebelled at being crunched over the computer on such a lovely day, thought stuff the housework, and went for a long walk in the sunshine. I walked for about 2 hours, realised I was hungry, ate some sushi, walked home. The world around me still feels unreal, like a film set. People move through it, smiling, talking on their mobiles, chiding their children, huffing as they wait for an overcrowded bus. I wonder what all of their stories are. What they are thinking about. What secrets they are hiding behind their public faces.

I am taking melatonin every night before I sleep, it knocks me out for four hours. Then I wake up every night, at 3.00am, crying. I take a sleeping tablet, wait for it to work. I lie awake 'til 6.30am, then fall asleep and have strange, anxious dreams. Sometimes the sheet is soaked with sweat. But in the day, I can't cry at all. There is a stone in my throat and an ache in my chest. Sometimes my head hurts as well. So I take paracetamol tablets for that too.

I tried drinking wine, but that just makes the headaches worse. Maybe walking for miles will work tonight. I hope so.

It's all out of kilter, as Pukeochic says. Worse for Dad. I think I would go under without J, who is still at work, poor thing. But he is there when I sleep and when I wake, and at weekends and he took a week off work to be with me through Mum's final illness. I feel very - mortal. Just because it is a rite of passage we all go through doesn't make it any easier. Writing helps. It's all I know how to do when bad stuff happens; it keeps my head above water. I'm writing for myself, to try to disentangle it all.