Today I could feel myself falling in to a self destructive loop, a cycle that I couldn’t get out of.
I did everything right; I followed all my own advice to jolt myself out. I took a shower, I read a book, I went for a brisk walk in nature, I went in to a busy restaurant and ordered a big fat burger and fries, I filled my head with Scottish culture and I diverted my attention with a movie at the cinema.
But each time I did anything, something would trigger a memory. And my mind would leap back in to the loop.
For the loop is like an old cassette that I can rewind and replay. But the only problem is someone ejected the tapes of all my memories for the last 4 years and replaced it with ones I don’t know, don’t understand. So I fast forward, I rewind, I stop and start and try to work it out, piece it all together.
I know dwelling on the past isn’t helpful. What’s the great saying? “Stop looking in your rear view mirror. You aren’t going that way!”
I don’t mean to. But so many little things provoke a dive back in to the past; a picture in a magazine, the name of a restaurant, a place, a smell, a sound… even just a word.
It feels like I am going slightly mad. There is so much to understand, come to terms with. And each time I loop, I find more. I wish I could just press eject and put in a new soundtrack. The Big Man wants to take it and smash it to smithereens, replace it with future happiness for our family, as a family and create and be free from the past. It feels like he wants to wrap us all up in a big blanket and run with big strides like the BFG to the dream tree.
But I am not sure I am ready for that just yet. I feel there is more to feel in the grief cycle of emotions. I know there is more to come in the healing process that involves the memories. Plus the future frightens me, I am moving on to a place I don’t know an can’t see, from a place I don’t know or fathom. Dreaming leaves me open and vulnerable and I could just as easily wake up in another nightmare.
But in the meantime, I am back in my little bolt hole where all is new and safe.
For the moment, the tape is paused.