Dad things are shit. My mental health is just at an all time low. My relationship is hanging by a thread, we don’t even fight cause he literally doesn’t say anything!! That angers me more. I just feel so so lost without you. I repeat this all the time but I’d kill to go round your house and see you I just keep listening to Pink Floyd and pretending you’re with me. I feel so broken all the time, I don’t have as much to give and that worries me for going back to a Counselling course. I so wish I could get your wise insight. I miss your voice so much. Your smell. Bosies. I’m so confused with who I am, what I want to do and where I want to go. These are all things we’d talk about. I miss you so much my heart still hurts everyday. I know it will never go and I still haven’t figured out how I’m supposed to cope with the pain. I know we just do it but the thought is as daunting as ever. I need you Pops.
I don’t know why I keep coming on here to pretend I’m writing to you. I don’t know if it comforts me or I’ve made myself believe you’re actually reading this somehow.
Love you, miss you, your darling daughter xx
One from the archives. I feel guilty about how long it is since I’ve wrote here but it’s not because you’ve not been on my mind. Things haven’t been great. My ‘wee pal’ as you called her has decided to end our 10+ year friendship at a time I depended on her. I don’t even feel sad anymore, just sheer disappointment and anger. She’s withholding my vape that you bought me to just be wicked and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m in between cutting the loss to just never have to be in contact with her again, or doing something a bit more dramatic like just showing up to her flat. She still lives with her Mum and maybe I’d have more luck trying to reason with her but I doubt it.
On a good note, I’ve finally found a counsellor who just gets me. She’s been amazing at actually providing coping mechanisms and at a time of pure desperation last week, she stayed on the call well over our time just to make sure I was stable enough. Last week… I wanted to hurt myself. I’ve not felt that way for years. You’d be so heartbroken at how low I was but how could I not be after everything that’s happened? If it wasn’t for Jamie, and my animals, I’d have done something so much worse by now. I’m sorry, it’s not what any Father would ever want to know but I have to be honest. I just feel so devastatingly alone, like no one really cares about me. Like no one would even notice me not being here. It took a lot for me to really open up to my counsellor but I’m glad I did and she managed to talk me down from that place. I know I’d have regretted it.
I’m going away this weekend with Jamie to stay in a lovely cottage up in the Scottish highlands. It’s been amazing having something to look forward to - I’ve not looked forward to much at all this last year. I’ve decided when I get back I’m going to really try and get a routine back in my life. I think our lockdown is lifted and hopefully I’ll be back for a shift at work. I’m sick of being up till 4am every day. I’m sick of sleeping all morning because I’m so exhausted. I’m sick of not having any gyms open. ‘Oh why not just work out at home’. Not everyone has that motivation - I need to go places for that. Like when I’m studying I usually sit in a coffee shop to stop being distracted at home. I go to the gym and work out/ swim. I go to Uni to learn etc etc. All I’ve done this lockdown is cry and eat and I want to break that.
Keep calling me a chunky monkey in my ear Pops, give me some motivation!
I promise I won’t leave it so long next time.
Love you Pops xx
Oh how I adore this photo, it shows exactly where you could find us at every family gathering - at the bar. Although in the later years the bottle changed to a cup of tea ‘mines a tea, 1.5 sugar, a little milk and a long stew’. I would kill to make you another cuppa. Well, the day has come to turn on your phone - I’ve been mulling this over for months now, why haven’t I turned it on? Fear of getting upset? Or fear of what I might see. Well tonight, once J has gone to bed, I’m turning it on. I’m fed up guessing. Sometimes the wondering can be worse than the reality, I’m hoping that’s the case.
I’ve managed to finally sort out my sleeping pattern Pops, way! No more 4am bed time! I’m finally back to work as well and doing 2 shorter shifts a week which has been fine so far. No music works for me at the moment as I don’t need to worry about hearing one of your songs again at work - that was so so awful. I’m starting Uni again next week and slowly but surely, I’m starting to piece my life back together. ‘Slowly slowly catchy monkey’. I know you’d be proud. The other day I counted 13 white feathers on my walk and I couldn’t help but feel the warmth in my heart, like you were close.
The next thing on my mind, the year anniversary, I don’t even know where to start. All I can think of is getting another tattoo, but what to get? Something in your writing? A crow? A campfire?
Love you Pops, I miss you. It still hurts. It always will.
X
My Dad never had the best sense of hygiene and I don’t say that to put him down in any way or to make fun. It’s just the truth, and I don’t sugar coat it. My Dad used to live in a small bed sit apartment. It consisted of one small living room with a coal fire, 2 cupboards and a fitted wardrobe, one bathroom with a shower over bath, one tiny kitchen with everything you need and a small hallway cupboard. That was it. I never had a bedroom, I used to sleep on the couch and my Dad would sleep on the floor in front of the coal fire on a bed made up of old couch cushions. My Dad used to always tell the story of my first overnight visit in his care. He had me on a single couch cushion on the floor and stayed up all night watching over me to keep me safe. He was so scared in case I might roll over in my sleep or something terrible happening that he just never slept.
My Dad was always super protective of me and I can honestly say I never felt safer with anyone else. As I got older, we switched to give my Dad a better rest with his bad back and I would sleep on the floor. The rest of the family never approved of course and would always advise my Dad to move out and get a place with a bedroom for me. My Dad was settled where he was though, with everything he needed and his shed he built himself. It honestly never seemed weird or strange and I can almost guarantee being that close was a result of all the quality time we spent together. We used to always joke about my Dad’s snoring, my tooting in the night - he used to say sometimes I’d keep him up with my ‘orchestra’! Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, we would just stay up talking to each other in the dark, laughing over silly inside jokes or having really deep chats about life. He really was my best friend, I can’t emphasise that enough.
His place was always relatively messy - he was a total hoarder so never used to throw anything away as ‘it’ll come in handy some day’. He used to blame his lifestyle ‘I’m just an auld dirty biker!’ The clearing of his place was such a big job and because there was so much things, most with memories attached to them, it made it so much harder to clear things away. I still have black bags lying around my room of things I just can’t throw away. I have no storage left either for anything. All the things I have left from my Dad have stories to tell or smells of him, or I know meant something to him. I got excited yesterday when I ripped my dressing gown because I knew I had 2 of my Dad’s ones that I could use. Today, wearing it for the first time, I’m just walking around smelling his smell… and it’s not a familiar smell of cologne, his deodorant, or any washing detergent, it’s his most natural smell. Pure Dad. Not to be confused with anything else. How on earth am I supposed to let these things go? How am I supposed to just throw any of it out? Give any away?! They are precious, invaluable, too meaningful to have anywhere else but with me.
I have 1 week left before I am faced with the year anniversary. I honestly don’t know how I managed this far. There’s been so much happening since he left, sometimes I think I’m still walking around in shock. People say parts of them die along with their loved one and I can’t even describe how much that’s true. I’m not the same person anymore. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of me in the mirror and I don’t recognise the person staring back at me - I look tired, broken, disconnected. It feels like I’m trying so hard to stay afloat at times still. It’s not all been bad, there have been moments of happiness but they never last like they used to. The guilt comes in, the waves of grief, bawls of sadness and the tears… oh, the tears still consume my face some nights. ‘The battle within’. I still hope for the days I can feel like myself, the days where it doesn’t feel I’m plastering on fake smiles, the days where I can be outside in nature and feel the simple pleasures this world has to give, the changing of the seasons and feeling the cold air on my face. The feeling of being alive, I do not take for granted. I just simply wish you could still feel those joys too, but, as always, I will continue to enjoy them for the both of us. I will continue to hold our love and bond closer to the heart. Always. I know when it is my time, I won’t be alone or frightened and your guiding light will be there to show the way.
Forever missing and loving my favourite person on this earth. My Dad, my confidant, my protector and my whole heart. Ride Free:blue_heart:
things are shit. My mental health is just at an all time low. My relationship is hanging by a thread, we don’t even fight cause he literally doesn’t say anything!! That angers me more. I just feel so so lost without you. I repeat this all the time but I’d kill to go round your house and see you 
I just keep listening to Pink Floyd and pretending you’re with me. I feel so broken all the time, I don’t have as much to give and that worries me for going back to a Counselling course. I so wish I could get your wise insight. I miss your voice so much. Your smell. Bosies. I’m so confused with who I am, what I want to do and where I want to go. These are all things we’d talk about. I miss you so much my heart still hurts everyday. I know it will never go and I still haven’t figured out how I’m supposed to cope with the pain. I know we just do it but the thought is as daunting as ever. I need you Pops.
