Hi Dido, maybe you’ve been busy these last few days with paperwork. I hope you are looking after yourself, as well. Sometimes all we can manage to do are just the essentials and even then, it’s a struggle. Thinking of you, x
Thank you Rainbow. I’ve been low. I can do some things like going out but I become very anxious over others and I seem to have hit a bad patch. I keep thinking how I held everything together for two years as I saw my husband suffer a no hope illness and change as the dementia progressed. And now I just long for someone to look after me. But there can’t be. So somehow I have to carry on. I feel so alone and so afraid often and I was always a strong woman.
Oh Dido, I’m sorry you feel alone too. It’s horrible. I often long for someone to look after me - even just make me a coffee when I come in from shopping and am tired. I’m so grateful to my little cat when she jumps onto my lap in the evening.
It’s my birthday today and I’ve spent it clearing out my aunt’s house ready for sale. She died in October after celebrating her 98th birthday. After my grandparents died she lived alone for 42 years. She never married and was active until two years ago. She often told me that being alone didn’t mean she was lonely.
Presumably it was a case of you can’t miss what you never had. She was a very determined lady. She told me several times she was ready to go. I was wondering today as we disposed of her things as to whether I could have learned more from her about growing old alone but too late now.
I am sorry to read that it’s more difficult for you, right now. Going out is good…it brings a bit of reality into our lives…rather than being in our own bubble. I wrote in a post yesterday about having a cup of tea…lovingly made. It can be all the little, everyday things that used to be done for us, a few years ago now, that make us feel sad and alone. You’re still that strong woman…you walked beside the love of your life, in sickness and in health…we need to fill our days as best we can…keep posting Dido, kind wishes, xx
Birthday greeting for yesterday, hope your day was a little easier than some, difficult times at present, I keep getting told it gets easier, perhaps, some friends who have been where we are now, or who are still on the same path tell me we never forget, never get over it, we just learn to have a life different to what we’ve always known. This is the first time I have ever lived alone, my son and daughter both live alone and are happy on their own company, at my age I cannot see that happening for me. Don’t know about you Yorkshire lad, some days I just wander aimlessly about the house, some days very busy yet doing nothing. Tend to lock up the house as soon as it goes dark and settle on the sofa trying to feel safe once more, Alan always gave me that feeling of being safe. Take care and blessings of strength for you ☆
Thank you.
We hadn’t celebrated birthdays for a long time. I couldn’t find much to celebrate in getting older so after opening cards and admiring the creative skills of grandkids it just became a day like any other. It’s my wife’s birthday on Tuesday and I’m going walking with two friends. If I let it that could be a bit more emotional. It could become a self fulfilling prophecy.
I’ve worked out I need to adopt a strategic approach to things. I know exactly where I would be at if I sit and become introspective and lack direction. It’s a bit like sticking pins in myself, in that I know what it will feel like and how deep I could let my despair become. There are a number of things, repetitive behaviours, that I’m trying to reduce. Saying all that there’s still a lot of time left in every 24 hours. I haven’t live alone since student days, and that wasn’t really alone. It’s all about new learning and even new thinking.
I expect grief to be a permanent fixture so the sooner I learn how to live around it the better, I think. It’s not quite as painful as it was. I do get spells of engagement with other things or people. Some things spark interest but not really excitement. Unfortunately I also have the wherewithal to go backwards as well, and probably quite quickly. It’s a case of keep on keeping on.
My wife Sandra died 6 months ago. I went away with my niece for New Year. We were in quite a large party and I was fine for the most part, but come midnight I had to walk out and fine my own quiet corner, tears openly running down my face, as they are now. I just wanted her with me. Life is so cruel sometimes.I hope it will get better for you in time