Dancing in the Kitchen

We’ve started dancing in the kitchen again. Listening to the radio. Making dinner. Busting out some embarrassing moves. Letting go.

I guess from outsider looking in, there are two responses to such frivalous carefree joyful behaviour just two short months since Leo died.

1. How can you possibly feel enjoyment? If I was you, I’d still be rocking backwards and forwards in a dark, dusty corner.

2. And what? It’s been two months! Why wouldn’t you have moved on by now? It’s not that big a deal.

Those who are on this journey too, know that it’s not that simple. It’s much more of a grey, and less of a black or white kinda situation. Although, most further out on the peripheral friends and family,  seem to think that in our shoes they’d fall into the first camp. That we are “strong” and “doing so well”.

However, it’s just this weird world that we now live in. You carry on functioning, experiencing joy or laughter. You begin to establish a new normal by slowly, every day, adding an extra layer to your skill set.  Things that you didn’t ever used to question as to whether they were appropriate or not.

Now it feels familiar but like your doing it in the wrong clothes. Like you have your top on backwards, it feels kinda okay, looks about right, but it’s just clinging to your neck, strangling you a little bit. Turning it round just seems impossible, you get all tangled up, end up back to front and the wrong way round and it all just feels hopeless – so you cave, and just put a new top on, one much easier to work out.

The problem with learning new skills, is that through learning, you sometimes get it wrong. You often forget the method or get different outcomes. It’s take practice, reflection, time.

Currently, we are learning how to do Saturday’s. Saturday’s are pretty easy right? A lie in, maybe a tidy up of the house, food shop, washing, pop to town for an errand or two, cheeky naughty dinner and some trash TV. Saturday’s seem like the biggest challenge of the week at the moment. Monday to Friday have routine and structure. We have a job to do. She has an actual job. I have a “get through the day and do something worthwhile at some point” job to do. So on a Saturday it’s like all that effort during the week was just too much and we wake up exhausted, unable to keep it all together. Which is fine – if it needs a release, then Saturday’s are perfectly acceptable. It just means we hit the supermarket when the bananas are looking more banana loaf ready and less breakfast ready.

Sunday’s however, seems to be better. Like an attempt to reclaim a lost half a Saturday. No one likes to waste a weekend after all. We even get to the gym on Sunday’s!

I don’t think even we realise how much energy it takes. Functioning. Crying is exhausting. But so is not crying.

So, here we are, going into the tenth week without Leo. We have my 29th birthday to celebrate and Easter bank holiday weekend. And I’m really looking forward to being closer to Leo for a few days and getting to see him again. Make sure he hasn’t broken any more toys, and give him a little Lego truck so he can keep his grave tidy.