Great Christian Diaries

2004-09-24 - 9.58am  previous entry  next entry

How to start today’s entry?.... I have been staring at the keyboard for ages, not really knowing what to type, but wanting to do what I used to do here, which is spill all my feelings and thoughts out through the keyboard and into a diary entry. First I went back and read the entries from this date a year ago, but I still can’t figure out what I feel and how to write about it. Maybe I am just really out of practice? I do write feelings in my pregnancy journal, but maybe I’ve forgotten how to in this diary. Or maybe it’s just a difficult thing today.

Today is the first anniversary of Cameron’s death. He died a year ago today, and at this time in the morning (9.15am) I had no idea about any of it yet.

I have been wanting… not sure if that is the right word… meaning, to write an entry here for the last couple of weeks, but I didn’t know how because I have had all these feelings that I’ve been trying to ignore because they won’t make sense and they don’t feel nice. I wanted to write about them but at the same time I didn’t want to even acknowledge them. So I didn’t write. But I think I should have.

I started noticing recently that I feel sad for no reason, and I can’t think what has triggered it. At first I put it down to pregnancy – good old hormones! But in the last few days I have been more able to pinpoint triggers for my feelings. Like when I’m in the car with Neil and we’re driving along, and the sky is blue and the trees are just…. being trees! And you know, nothing in particular. But just looking at the sky and the trees and feeling the air makes me feel like an echo of the feelings I had last year are heavy in the air. I try to shake them and think of happy things but I can’t seem to get past how the outdoors makes me feel at the moment. It’s too heavy all around me. It took me a little while to realize that it must be the first time since Cam died that the climate is getting to be exactly the same as back then, when I had all those crazy huge emotions about his death. It’s the same time of year, that time when the season starts to change and the air feels chilly for the first time since last winter, and the light is so specific, like it’s hitting the earth at the exact same angle that it did when I was dealing with Cameron’s death. I obviously don’t remember noticing the exact angle of the light back then! But isn’t it funny how we unconsciously have an awareness of stuff like that. We must do if the same light triggers feelings from the last time the light was like that.

So yeah. Today I feel sad because up until now, I could always say that “this time a year ago” Cameron was alive or doing this or that or the other. Now I can never say that again. That makes it feel like he’s been gone for an awful long time. People keep saying it feels like ages since Cameron died. And I see where they’re coming from, but to me it feels like I can’t believe he has been gone for a year – for such a long time. I can’t believe a year has passed on earth without Cameron in it. Why do anniversaries make you feel like you’re back in so many of the difficult feelings when you were previously doing fine with it all for months and months?

All this week I’ve been thinking how I want to go to the cemetery today and buy Cam some gorgeous flowers and leave them at his grave as a sign that I love him and I remember him, and I still value him and everything that is a special date about him. It’s such a completely beautiful day today – oddly enough it’s exactly the same weather (so far) as the day he died. The light is sort of golden and autumnal, the sky is blue and clear with no clouds visible anywhere. I waved Neil off to work this morning from the doorstep and the air was chilly and crisp and gorgeous. Not cold enough to see your breath on it yet though, but still chilly and autumnal, which I love. Just the same as this day last year. When I looked up into the blue sky just before I closed the front door, a flock of pigeons were flying close together, swooping in a tight curve right over my head. The sun was so low at that time in the morning that the golden light seemed to light up the underside of the birds, so that their wings looked like a bright white with just a touch of gold. They looked beautiful. Beautiful things made my feelings seem much harder to deal with last year, and this year it seems to be the same, only I can appreciate how lovely they are at the same time. It’s just that for some reason there is a sting that comes with seeing natural beauty at a time like this. I don’t know why that should be?

Well unfortunately I can’t go to the cemetery when I want to, because I have to stay in and wait for a couple of deliveries today. Argos are delivering a new phone and some pillows and a shredder (!), but all I know is that it’s sometime between 8am and 6pm, so I could be waiting all day. Then we are getting a new washing machine/tumble drier delivered (ours broke) but that’s between 3pm and 9pm. So between the two deliveries I might end up stuck at home for the entire day, and thus the entire opening hours at the cemetery :( I’m really sad about it, because it means so much to me to actually visit Cam’s grave TODAY, and it won’t mean nearly as much if I go tomorrow. I want to remember him and make a point of it TODAY, not tomorrow, because today is the important day to mark. So I’m hoping and praying that Argos will get their butts here like anytime NOW, because then I will have a few hours to get flowers and spend time at the cemetery before having to come home and wait for the washer/dryer. I feel antsy about the possibility of missing the opportunity to go, and I just have to sit and wait, which is frustrating.

Surely I have some other news? It’s been ages since I wrote here again. I am in the process of trying to figure out a new layout for this diary, since it really doesn’t feel like “me” anymore when I come here. And I’ll be back full-time (!) once the baby is born, so it needs to feel like me again pretty soon.

The baby is due in six weeks – six weeks today! That is soooo soon! I can’t wait. Everything is going well, except the odd annoyance and this thing in my nose (!), which obviously I’m not going to elaborate on here, because that’s the type of thing I waffle on about in detail in the pregnancy journal.

We have a new car, well, we did have a new car and then we got another new car! Ford are crap. They have diddled us completely, and I can’t be bothered to stress myself out telling the whole story, but basically they sold us a car that wasn’t what we asked for, and then told us we could take it back within an official 30 day return period and get our deposit back, nooo problems. But it turns out that the sales guy who told us that lied, and there’s no such thing as a 30 day return period, and we can’t get our money back, and what’s more we can’t return the car because we signed a thingy saying we’d pay for it in installments. And now he’s lying about having ever said that to us. Great. But in the meantime, based on the fact that they said we could take the car back, we bought a new Renault, which is obviously using all our money up in payments, so we can’t afford to keep the stupid Ford. So yeah, that sucks. The latest in the saga is that we are now taking legal action against Ford, a prospect that fills me with inexpressible joy 6 weeks before I give birth and co-incidentally at the same time as we suddenly plummet way into the red in our bank account for no apparent reason. Tsk. Of course that’s when the washer/dryer got the amusing idea to break down in such a way that it would cost us almost as much repairing it as to get a new one. And the phone started deafening all our callers (and us) with ratchy crackling and the general sound of ten thousand ball bearings rolling down a pile of scrap metal every time we tried to use it. So new phone too. Thank goodness those can be cheap! This morning Paypal just emailed me to say that I just made a payment of $287 (I never make payments in dollars) to someone I don’t know, and oh by the way, if this is not an authorized payment then please follow this link to our fraud department. But oh, we’re down for maintenance for the next few hours so you can’t, but just try not to stress about it in the meantime!!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!

I feel like we need some prayer for protection over us right now. Otherwise why else is all this stuff happening at once?

I can’t think what else has been happening really. It’s been hot. I’m sooooo happy that autumn is here!!! I just hate humidity. We need a new kitchen floor. Our crappy tiles are snapping and peeling and basically becoming trip-hazards and hurting our feet all the time. Plus it looks awful. Let’s hope we can find some cheap sheet vinyl somewhere, soon! I really wish the house was getting more organized as the time approaches for me to give birth in it!

I want to go to the cemetery. Maybe I will call Argos and see if they can tell me whereabouts I am on their delivery schedule? It’s worth a try, because if they say ohhh we’re probably not going to get to you until this afternoon, then I can go to the cemetery now and enjoy the beautiful weather and spend some time “with” my boy, remembering how special he was. I haven’t been to the cemetery in so long. I feel like I miss being there, and I need to go again. And I don’t want to go tomorrow. Ooh actually I can’t, because a close school friend of mine is getting married and we’re going to the wedding tomorrow, and the evening reception!!! I almost forgot (whoops!). I have nothing to wear. I am too huge and the only smart clothes I have are for the heat of summer. And obviously we are now in the chill of autumn! So hmmm. I will either have to look very cold, or very casual. Tsk. And very huge, either way! I am posting a photo of me in my belly gallery at my pregnancy journal this evening, so if you don’t normally read there but want to see my hugeness (!) then check there later on. It’s my 34 week belly picture.

Okay that’s it for now then. I might write again to say about the rest of today or about visiting the cemetery and stuff. And don’t worry if my diary starts to have weird changes to the way it looks – I might start trying a few things out (not permanently!) to see what I like in terms of a new layout here. And then I’ll be back! :)

Recent entries.....

Cameron's first anniversary - 2004-09-24
Update - 5th Anniversary and other stuff! - 2004-08-16
Church picnic and being happy and things :) - 2004-06-27
Barbeque at Cameron's house... - 2004-05-18
To Tara... - 2004-04-19