Caught between the past and future tense

I haven’t written anything for about a week and I’m struggling to think of what to write.  I seem to have used up all my ideas and already written all the thoughts that run round my head…

Last week I wrote about finding some peace and quiet.  About downing tools and having a rest.

Why is that so hard?  Admittedly we’ve been busy because the boys are off school and there have been different but extra things to do.

What I find hardest is my brain doesn’t stop, doesn’t rest or switch off.  All the jobs I have to do, all the options I’m considering are always there bubbling away. 

I’m very good at writing platitudes about resting and stopping but not so good at living them.

As I said at the start I feel like I’ve used up all my creative ideas.

I’m still trying NOT to measure my days by achievements, attempting to get some peace.  How many times have I written this stuff?

I feel disjointed.  Some parts of me have moved on.  There are some things I’m doing differently because I can.

It's a small example but I’m wearing make-up and perfume more and more.  Andrew hated it but these days’ new eye shadows and mascaras are finding their way into the weekly shopping trolley.  He said I looked fine without it, wouldn’t even kiss me with lipstick on, but there are times when I look in the mirror and know I need an extra bit of “sparkle”.  Who is that old woman?

However sometimes I feel like I’m all talk and no action.  I have fanciful plans and dreams but I have lost “the wind beneath my wings”, as Bette Midler sang about in Beaches.

My confidence is slipping.  I can recognise the beginning of the downward spiral where everyone else does things so much better than me.  There must be a more interesting blog to be reading than this one?

I’m caught between the old life I can’t have and a new one I have to rebuild.  It won’t necessarily be better but different.

I'd trade this new one for the old one in a heartbeat!

I wrote a poem a while ago called “Caught between the past and future tense”.  I never posted it because it wasn’t finished.  I’m still not sure I’m 100% happy with it but it talks so much of what I’ve written today…

Caught between the past and future tense

Sometimes… I catch myself

Falling in between

What was and is

I say “we do that”

Instead of shifting

The word “do” to “did”

Shifting my world

From “us” to “I”

I get stuck somewhere in the middle

Of what is and is no more

And can never be

Sometimes I hear myself

Laugh and dream

Of what will be

I say “next time I…”

And move my world on

Like winding round the hands of a clock

Embracing the future

I get wound up in a wish

Of what can be

New hope to enfold me

Sometimes I am all too aware

Of where I am

What is.  The Here.  The Now.

I say “this is too hard without you!”

The day-to-day-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other routine

I get lost in the myriad of conflicting voices

I just want to hide and cover my ears

Curl up in a ball and disappear.

There’s a cliché that the present is so called because it is a gift.  At the moment it is a cruel one.  

I’ve called this blog unravelling edges and I feel I am still coming undone.

Imagine accidently catching your favourite cardigan on an unseen nail and it pulls.  You immediately want to be able to step back in time, spot the offending barb and sidestep it altogether.   

There are alway sharp points that catch you unawares, a song, a comment, an item you uncover and you crumple.  Sometimes just a few tears and other times a torrent of “why?” and “how?” and “what do I do now?”

My post seems pretty depressing today.  I am mostly optimistic for the future but in the present I have reached the point where I know Andrew isn’t coming back.  I’m still adjusting and fine tuning but I finally accept he’s gone – for good. 

 

I wish I could end on a more positive note, I really am trying to find one.

  

I just received an email from a friend of my mum’s asking for the link to this blog, if it wasn’t private.

Should I keep my thoughts to myself?  Should I just stop “curl up in a ball and disappear” like the end of my poem?

 

But if you have read this far don’t you want to know how this turns out?  I can’t promise a happy ending but I love the fairytales where everyone does get to live happily ever after.

Somewhere between the past and the future tense is NOW and that’s where I am living at present. 

 

It’s the bit where Cinderella is clearing up after her ugly sisters when they have been invited to the ball. 

It’s where Frodo and Sam are struggling towards Mount Doom through the wastelands of Mordor.

Being topical it’s the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. 

 

Somewhere between the worst thing that’s ever happened and the resurrection.