Not Good At Hiding It Today

So today has not been the best of days for me. I usually plod along for these few days trying my best not to open that horrible box that hides all my horrible thoughts and memories but today that box opened a crack.

Now I usually like Facebook, it helps me to keep in touch with family and friends but not today. Today the ever helpful memories and reminders were not helpful nor a nice reminder. I did not need reminding of that time thanks very much. Sharing my photos of my beautiful daughter with hopeful and optimistic captions because the unthinkable just was not in my vocab. It never entered into my head for the slightest second that she would not grow up to be just as much a stroppy kid, prone to tantrums as I was, that she would give me as much grief as I did my mum and that turnaround would be fair play with the embarrassing photos I would inflict on her future boyfriends of her in various cute and cuddly outfits from her earlier years.

But this was never meant to be. Sometimes I feel like it didn’t actually happen to me, to us, but to someone else. That, that whole period was just some horrible story played out in my head for a character in a random book.

I took myself out not wanting to be encased in the same four walls as my laptop any longer and all was well for a time. I found myself a couple of books. I am a bit book obsessed. I buy books when I am happy and more so when I am sad so you can imagine how large my home library is. The sun has been shining today and I almost started to feel human again, even laughing to myself when a lovely old lady next to me in one of the shops was talking to herself looking at the books and misreading Joanna Trollope as Joanne’s Trollope and my mind went into writer mode thinking what a great character that would be to have in a story and then smiling even more at the way my inner writer was trying to take my mind off today and for a bit it was working, until I walked into another shop and heard a mother calling to her daughter who was about the same age as my daughter would now be and her name… Emily. It was like a slap in the face, like the universe was bringing me back down to earth with a thump and the crack in the lid to that box I keep shut opened a bit more. For a minute I just sort of stood there, watching them, sending that mother a silent prayer to hold tight to her daughter, to cherish every second of their time together because those moments are so precious and fleeting.

Then I heeded my own words, I took a breath. Today is one of those days when it is okay to just breathe and start again tomorrow. And my inner writer is still trying to take my mind off that box…I could almost hear Bob telling me to go home and write. So home I went, to breathe and cuddle my dog and write even if it is just my blog today and tomorrow I will start again.