Thursday 2nd July

I have decided that humans are funny creatures.

Actually, I knew this a long time ago, it’s just kind of fun to be reminded of it at times – especially when I am the human who is so funny…

I think we all crave attention in some way. Man is, after all, a social being. It is also really nice to be the subject of attention at different times. Maybe we all like to be (or feel that we are) the centre of a circle of interest. When, however, this changes, it feels a little strange and even dislocating.

I find that I almost miss the constant solicitious attention I received, particularly from the family, during the whole cancer thing. At the time, it did feel a little cloying and claustrophobic at times, especially when it seemed that I could barely do anything without someone asking me if I was okay, or kind of monitoring what I was doing. It was good at the same time, though, to feel that I definitely was not alone and to know that I had all that amazing support. Now that the whole cancer thing is pretty much over, at least as far as everyone else is concerned, or so it seems, I definitely don’t get the same degree of enquiring attention – and it is weird, because I miss it in a strange way – and kind of need it.

You see, for me this is definitely not over. It may seem to be taking a long time (at times it feels like forever; at others, just like a few moments) for me to come to terms completely with the whole thing, but that just seems to be how it is. Because of this sense of the ongoing journey and the harsh reality for me, I feel the loss of those rallying around me.

There is no way that they don’t all support me and care about what happens and how I feel. I think it’s just that real life moves us on and we deal with so much on a day-to-day basis that, unless something is directly about us, we do tend to be carried forward with the tide.

Everything has its own pace and so does everyone have their own timing when it comes to dealing with things.

It’s like me facing the loss of Mum and learning to deal with it; and of Dad.

We are in Sedgefield now, after our road trip. Finally I can stop feeling a bit like a rolling stone 😉  I found being here this evening quite difficult, actually, as the place brings back more than a flood of memories of being here with both Mum and Dad. I miss them so much.

I suppose there is no moratorium on grief or on mourning. I don’t think that I will ever stop missing them. It’s just that in different places, especially where they have been and we have had such good times, that it will be more (and differently) difficult.

Everything is about timing and everything is individual.

People are funny creatures, simply because of the things that make us all individual.

Me, well, I may just be the funniest creature of them all.