All the days I have walked the same path. Seen the same views in differing weather conditions. Yet I’ve been blinkered. Walking through a small wood and always looking straight ahead at the path leading out of the trees. If I only had stopped looked right and peered through the trees I would have seen this small pond. Yesterday I did that. Then throwing caution to the wind I looked left. Another pond.

Yesterday was a day of revelations. I was sat in the living room pondering life and death when I suddenly noticed something that I had completely missed. Before the world change we were like most couples. All of our possessions just merged together. Her 80s dance CDs would be intermixed with my Heavy Metal discs. Her historical drama DVDs would be randomly mixed up with my Sci Fi ones. Apart from clothes our stuff just randomly lived together.

Now she is gone and yesterday I realised the order of things has changed. Now we have separate piles. Her CDs in one near pile, mine in another. Her books in one book case, mine in a separate one. When I’ve used her stuff I have filed it neatly back with her pile. A repeated pattern. Her stuff, then the stuff we bought together then my stuff. Perfectly split.

Bizarre. Why? This is purely down to me yet it’s completely out of character. The most disorganised and random person going. Probably more than ever and yet suddenly items are being put in order. I hadn’t even realised I was doing it. Blinkered again.

54 thoughts on “Blinkered”

  3. Great that you noticed the lakes (- finally!) 😉 Now you’ve started noticing these things it will likely become increasingly more common – if you let it, and it brings you some joy you might have otherwise missed?

    It may be a sign that you are getting closer to some kind of ‘recovery’ after the devastating loss and are not so inward looking… letting go of some of the fear and hurt. At least i hope so anyway!

    So – have you got any fingernails left after that ICC game??

    Could NOT have been any closer, neither side deserved to lose and you got the result all of England were desperate for. 🙂

    Now you can call yourselves a Cricket Team! (Albeit one from Ireland, West Indies and even New Zealand (Stokes), but a team none-the-less!) 🙂

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  5. You’re not blinkered. You saw these ponds. You’ve reached a different bit of the tunnel. The mind works in ways we can’t begin to understand. It’s like a continent of which only a tiny bit is chartered. you’re not letting go either of her or her things. You’ve just reached this bit of the tunnel x

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  6. Interesting. Clearly, a grieving mind at work. I often find myself asking MYSELF, “What are you doing?” and then the bigger question, “Why?” Talking with the counselor helps me figure it out and so does writing. Society (Western society that is) doesn’t give us many opportunities to memorialize our loved ones who have passed away, but it’s a deeply human impulse. You can see this need and impulse played out across peoples and cultures throughout the world. We will naturally find ways to contain and/or permanently affix the memories to something tangible, to a specific action, or even a specific place and time . This can be done with purpose and intent, or it can evolve organically as our grief process progresses. It sounds like her piles are little memorials, things and spaces that contain representations of the essence of her because they symbolize her personality, what she liked, what she enjoyed, what made her smile. My opinion? From one griever to another. It’s good. It’s healthy. Let the process evolve naturally but also give yourself some time to understand what it means as you go.

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    1. It’s kinda fun being organised for once. But you often do stuff then question yourself. Grieving is just another word for love. One of the problems is you have an imbalance with the outside world. After you lose someone the world seems to move on almost instantly where as for the likes of me and you it’s a long term adjustment. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

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  10. Exactly. I still find I have separated my things and kept his in a drawer. I rarely look at them. I don’t attend funerals either. I prefer to remember my last happy moments with them.

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  11. Making order out of life’s chaos perhaps? I like things to be tidy, drives Hubby mad sometimes as I’m always putting away something he’s likely to use later. Have always tried to put things back where I found them., whereas he leaves them where he puts them!

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  12. This post is so deep and poetic. You are such an insightful person. I’ve never dealt with the death of someone extremely close to me, but this just seems like you’re naturally distancing yourself from someone who left you so that you can grieve properly. That’s my interpretation and it seems completely normal. In addition, I think it’s great you are noticing these details you haven’t before. Noticing certain behaviors and life in general more are important in every recovery process, in my opinion

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  14. Well if it helps, Bo’s never let my pesky fantasy stuff mingle with his epic movie collection. Mine’s stuffed into a couple of shelves near my books while his fills…well, it’s his equivalent of a man-cave, only without the manly sport things. It’s all his movies and books about film. Our books are in separate areas too.

    I know that for mom, the mingled stuff made it hard for her to go into things at all–like movies, which we finally sorted this past summer. So many of those were Dad’s, but she could never bring herself to get out something of hers that she enjoyed. So she never looked at the movie bins at all, not since he died. So you know, it’s not a bad thing, separate stuff. That way you go into your partner’s stuff when YOU are ready to go into it. xxxxxxxx

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    1. It’s strange for years my partner wanted me to have a man cave. I suspect it would tidy up the majority of the house. But now I would hate the idea. You are so right. It’s not a bad thing at all. There is a her stuff which I have never been able to touch. They are left as she left the. Suspect that’s where they are staying. Do you keep your Dads stuff separate. I do with my mums. xxxxxxxx

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      1. We do, in bits and pieces. Things are slowly trickling down to my brothers and I, some to friends of my folks, some to my dad’s seminary. Mom’s had enough time of everything just sitting there around her, I think. She’s happier seeing Dad’s things get new life in other homes, and that’s fine by me. xxxxx

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      5. Well, I was growled at a lot, and had a toy thrown in front of me so hard that it shattered on the floor….not by my own kids or by a dog, but by my nephew, whose birthday we were supposed to celebrate only he refused to eat with us, have cake with us, and only joined people when he could open presents…we survived.

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      9. And it went well, too. They were both to listen and break down what they do in the classroom, and are totally fine giving the boys the chances to take “sensory breaks” (a few minutes to chill from the classroom with somethingto mellow them out, like a rubix cube or music) but also recommended I don’t have the boys on the bus for the ride home. Picking them up everyday gives us a chance to touch base as I have with their previous teachers. Lord willing this all works out 🙂

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      10. It’s really worth a try. For a while his last school adopted an idea of a sensory shelter. Basically a small tent in a corner which was our Sons to use when he needed to. It worked really well and he loved it. But too soon the other kids started to use it and school got bored with the idea. But it did work. Did you say your new school district is where the boys school is so it’s ok for you to pick them up.

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