Life in A new era

I need to sort my life out. She says. I’m sat by the sea writing this on my phone instead of going home and doing the things.

It’s safe to say that the last six months have simply been survival mode. Hospital appointments and inpatient stays with my mum, visiting, juggling childcare and work.

And the last three weeks since she died, it’s all gone to hell. I wash clothes when the basket is full, I haven’t ironed a single thing in about a month. I think it’s a British thing, ironing. There’s a lot to be said for just flinging everything in a drier and folding it while it’s still warm, but I’m my mother’s daughter and if I’ve inherited one thing from her, it’s her insistence that clothes are ironed!

The housework has been minimal, to make it passable. I did the living room when I took the tree down and had a big sort of V’s presents, got two big bags of toys to donate and a massive bag for life full of books she’s outgrown.

The kitchen needs a bit of a sort but I do tidy as I go in there for the most part. Just need to sort the big shelf unit that has my nice pots and V’s craft stuff on, that’s a bit out of hand.

V’s room needs a quick shufty, the bathroom needs a clean. Mostly it’s my room. Actually, I think there are small boxes/baskets in every room with junk to go away or be binned that I just haven’t had the motivation to sort through. But we moved in 6 months ago and the basket in my room has been accumulating since then so it really needs to be done. Tidy house, tidy mind and all that.

I need to make a meal plan for when I’m back to work at the end of the month, do a proper food shop and stop winging it. I buy fish and meat and freeze it so it’s not all chicken nuggets and beige, and V does eat vegetables, so it’s not completely dire, but we spent the whole of December not knowing where we would be on any given evening with trying to juggle hospital visiting and the poor kids being passed from pillar to post.

Small changes that will actually make life easier on low motivation days. And in fairness that’s every day at the moment. I need to get out of the habit of dropping V at nursery and just coming home and hibernating in bed.

I mean I’m sure I’m reacting appropriately to the situation I’m in. We’ve spent the last two years with mum being ill, constant stress and in fight or flight mode, particularly the last 12-15 months where every phone call was panic inducing because you didn’t know if the news would be good or bad. And in fairness there was a lot of bad news over that time.

It’s no small wonder I’ve felt physically unwell since she died, have headaches and dizziness a lot of the time and feel absolutely exhausted. I never realised how utterly exhausting grief was. Add a 3 year old into the mix who’s going through a clingy, whingy phase and yeh, I’m done in.

Really, she goes to nursery and she loves it, but it’s a big change being away from me so much and she’s so independent and well behaved there that when she comes home she doesn’t want to do anything for herself. She wants to be wrapped around me in bed, wants me to feed her, generally things she can do that are driving me round the bend. I know they’re just a reacting to starting nursery and she’ll get over it, and then in a couple of weeks I’m back to work and so comes another hurdle which will probably come with more issues, she’ll be spending a lot more time away from me. Covid kids man, she’s only ever really been with my sister or my mum and dad. And joey, but I barely count him as more than a babysitter.