hefty

I weighed 59 kilos when I had my accident in December (I remember being grateful for this as the man who saved my life hauled me bodily onto the platform). I've since barely been to the gym (laziness born from broken routine) and I've been eating wantonly. Hello, three extra kilos.

Bizarrely this used to be my "happy weight". It certainly seems to be where my body settles when I'm neither working too hard at being slim or ignoring it entirely. I don't know why my attitude has shifted. My therapist would probably say it's something to do with getting back to where I was before the accident.

numerate

The benefit of suffering another day of accounting tuition is the knowledge there is one less to go. Air conditioned horrors of white painted classrooms, hands stained with biro.

The colleague to the right offers a finished answer, eyebrow raised. No point, no point; I cannot translate.

Misery of mathematical memory. My self worth takes a battering.

things acquired free in the last two weeks

A bag of soya products (revolting).
A man's razor (new).
Blackberry Torch (!)
Rescue Remedy chewing gum (as weird as it sounds).
Knowledge that I will barely scrape through the accountancy exam I am taking in May.

Ooh! There's a new Kitsune album out. Excuse me.

early

It's half seven and I am asleep, curled on my side after a late bedtime. He nudges me awake, hands on my back, and I slither over into his arms, what's wrong?

Those worries you have before the day gets truly light are the worst, grey sadness, limbo of pre-action. We drift in and out of sleep until the room is brighter.

I wait and wait for the weekend where he won't leave on Sunday, where we won't hold these concerns (just others) between us in the stillness of the morning. Where we have all week (all life) and he won't wake so early, so sad.

vday #3

(last year here)

Yesterday we spent the day in Kensington, visiting the Natural History Museum and Kitchen W8, then lazily browsing the shops in the clearest, sunniest weather we've had since before Christmas. It was decadent and perfect, and it went all too fast.

I suppose it isn't surprising a day disappears at such a rate when I can barely believe it's two years since we drove to Tintern Abbey, eating chocolate all the way. I love thinking of moments in those first few months, the fizz of excitement being with someone new and wonderful (and I still get excited, every Friday, every time I know I'm going to see him) and how I knew, smiling at him by the tube stop on the Goldhawk Road, that it would last. And, oh, how I hope that whatever happens in these next months we will still feel this way.

Since I last wrote an awful lot has happened and as a result of a terrible accident I have post-traumatic stress symptoms. Life has been pretty fucking awful. Things are much better (counselling and supportive friends and family; and him, of course, his constant mopping of tears and telephone calls) but I'm not myself. It's an odd existence.

I am also trying to fit the puzzle pieces of our lives together, we are both trying. I will never stop trying.

update of sorts

I'm still here, lurking (not sure you can lurk on your own blog, though).

I'm sick after a month of dodging the flu going around the office, sick on my day off, sick for the weekend I was meant to be in Edinburgh. Of course I am.

I am terrible at taking time to rest, so, today, I have forced myself to do it. Sofa, blanket, TV, laptop. My job is quite demanding in terms of hours and brain power, though nothing as mad the time and energy my lawyer friends put in at their offices. I'm looking forward to the Christmas break.

I have enjoyed it though, for the most part. There are days that are beyond miserable, but that's true of any job, any life. I am not a corporate girl in the long run, that much is clear, but I guess I knew that, anyway.

So much else has happened that I can't talk about yet. But the thing that has emerged more than anything in the last three months is that I need to take more time for myself; I need to write more, if I am ever going to be anything I'm proud to be. And, I need to take more time to be with my friends.

Merry Christmas. It's unlikely I'll check in before then, as we know.

the thing is

By Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.