pneylan's Journal

It’s been some time since I last wrote in my journal and the last few months have involved a lot of thinking and a lot of decision making. Those of us here have gone through a traumatic event that has changed the course of our lives forever. For me, this has shattered my very picture of the world. Certain beliefs no longer seem true and many goals are no longer important.

Strangely though, I now feel in some ways much stronger and have developed a new and different confidence in myself and my capacities – if I can survive this – the worst thing that could happen already has -  what can I now do to go on with my life?  I have greater feelings of compassion, I’ve learned to appreciate anew what I have, especially the small things in life that I maybe used to take for granted. 

Slowly I’ve tried to make some sense of life as it is now and rebuild it to reflect how it now is, my views of it and even my views of the “new me”. What’s crucial is my attitude towards my new life as that’s all I can control. I am a different person now. I don’t worry as much about what seem to be trivial things that ultimately don’t really matter that much. I have a different sense of what’s really important in life – my family, my health, my friends etc. I’m less materialistic now, valuing experiences not things. I can just imagine Pam telling me, “I told you so” and smiling. She always had a more down-to-earth approach and sureness about what really mattered. It saddens me to realise that it’s taken her death to get me to understand this fully but I try not to have too many regrets. I now regret less generally and try to focus on the things I have to be grateful for in life.

 I realise I can never become who I once was, only who I want to become and that this is solely down to me and the choices I make but they have to be choices that are feasible, realistic and attainable. It’s now nearly four years since Pam first became ill, over two and a half years since she died and I just don’t feel I can leave my life on hold any more. Well, I suppose I can do but it is a choice I make and I’d rather try to push on and try to make as much of my life as I can. I know only too well that Pam would want me to be happy; it’s all I would have wanted for her if our roles had been reversed.

Happiness won’t be life how it once was but it can be something different. Life isn’t either happiness or sadness but an inevitable mixture of both and I think I can cope with that now. I don’t have any wild ambitions for my future. Outwardly my life hasn’t changed much but mentally and emotionally I am now a different person. I can cope with the bitter sweet moments of life. I can look back with some sadness but some comfort and affection also. I can push myself to be more positive and optimistic. I still have those deeply sad moments and days but I can now accept those and also remind myself of all the good things in life also and the things I can be grateful for. Work will continue to keep me busy for the foreseeable future until I retire. I’ll keep travelling and seeing new places. I could do with finding and developing a wider social network but that may come in time.  

I now feel I’m ready to sell this house and move to a new place, a place that’s mine and not just a memorial to the past – that memorial’s in my heart and I’ll take that with me. It was over two years before I even touched anything of Pam’s or even anything in the house. I now realise that most of it is just “stuff”, random, chance, serendipity – or whatever you want to call it. I’ve started to de-clutter, to sort things out as a prelude to getting the house up for sale. Not great timing I admit with the economy as it is but it will take as long as it takes and that’s okay.

What really matters now is my state of mind and that is much changed. I now have much more peace and calm in my life and hopefully that will continue.  DS has been a huge part of my life and the support and friendship I have found here has helped enormously to get me to where I am today. Most of the people I met here nearly two and a half years ago now rarely or ever come here anymore and that’s great if it’s right for them. I still enjoy keeping in touch with the friends I have made here. I still find comfort and support on the “widows and widowers” group and plan to continue to use that. I think I will remove myself from the “bereavement” group– it just feels like the right thing to do now.  

It’s all in the mind really and my mind is in a different place now. Many of us here have achieved so much over the last few years. Probably more than we could ever imagine. I suspect we’ve much to be proud of. We’ve proved to ourselves, if no one else, that we can survive, we can make it through and we can slowly build our “new lives” and our “new selves” and if anyone had told me that back in March 2007 I simply wouldn’t have believed them.