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.