Great Christian Diaries

2003-09-30 - 12.43am (1st October)  previous entry  next entry

Thank you so so much for guestbook entries and emails again. You're wonderful people :) And thank you Emily for the lovely card. I am so touched by it all. I don't know what else to say about that. I am just really grateful.

Weird day AGAIN. But I think weird is the way it will be for a while, so maybe I should stop saying things are weird, since that's becoming normal now? Hmmm. I look at photos of Cameron a lot and today is one of those days when that makes me cry because of how empty everything feels when there's only a photo left. Although this morning it made me smile to look at his photos. It's all very swings and roundabouts isn't it.

But I have been out today - twice! :) This afternoon I walked to the post office to post some letters and to pay 4p which I owed from the last time I was there! I know, 4p. It's not much, and it was a couple of weeks ago that I was there with not quite enough money for a book of stamps, but I'll be darned if I'm going to do what most other people would do and think I'd made myself a little saving there. I felt all proud marching in there with my two copper coins and telling the lady at the counter that I had brought the 4p I owed from last time. I love being honest and upright. It makes me feel proud of myself and good and wholesome. I like when people look all surprised that I bothered going back 2 weeks later with four pence - they probably think I'm stupid to bother, but hey, at least I stand out in a good way. I want to be different in good ways so that people wonder what's going on with me. God's going on with me, that's what. And I wouldn't mind people knowing about it :)

There's a postal strike starting tomorrow :( I think it is London only, because as far as I can tell it's about London postal workers wanting London weighting in their pay packets. Which sounds completely reasonable. But it does mean that I won't get any post for maybe daaays, which is sad because I have some things I bought online that should be arriving in the post soon. You know we are getting a PC? And that I wanted to buy some Sims games for it? Well you will not BELIEVE this bargain-happy girlie!! A mum online has sold me all 7 Sims games with 3 bonus discs of stuff downloaded from the Sims website, and she's posting them to me registered mail (whenever that will arrive!) with insurance for £82!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Each Sims game is like £30 or something new so I am reeeally pleased. I did not even plan to buy all the games, mainly because of the cost, but when I saw her ad I phoned Neil at work and he said GO FOR IT (!!), so I did. It's a lot of money to spend on games in one go, but I have saved like £150 by doing it this way. Go me! :) I probably would have wanted to play most of the games eventually, and would have either bought them bit by bit over the years or else asked for them for birthdays and Christmas or something. They are all in excellent condition with all instructions, etc. But of course this does mean that I will be thoroughly addicted for quite some time (!!), so hmmm! Anyway I am really pleased about that. I am the queen of bargain hunting lately. I am picking up a baby changing table (with plenty of storage room for my mounting pile of cloth nappies!) from a local-ish mum for FREE later in the week!!! It's painted wood and I'm gonna paint it to match the spare room when I get it. So we have a beautiful FREE swinging crib and now a free changing unit so far, which is fab!! I just keep my eyes peeled for bargains and somehow I keep on finding them, so it's very pleasing! :)

I did feel funny on my walk to the post office though. It's on the main road and just everything seems to remind me of Cameron these days, even things that have almost no connection to him whatsoever. The main road made me sad because I know he has travelled in a car on that a lot this year. It was the route to pick up his little brother from nursery school - his mum told me last time I was over at their house that they drive on the main road past where I live when they pick him up after Cameron is picked up from school. She said they often would say that's where Alice lives, but they didn't know where exactly so they were wondering. That's why she had mentioned it. Cameron hasn't visited me at this house. I nearly wrote 'yet' then :( Man it sucks that he's gone. We talked about them dropping by sometimes during this term-time. I was hoping Cam would like our house and get to see the photos I have of him again. When he was little he always LOVED looking at the photos I'd taken of him. He seemed fascinated with them for some reason. But it's been years since he saw them so I was looking forward to showing them to him again soon.

I have a letter from him, a few months after we moved into this house. It's all squiggly child's writing which is so cute, and he's tried hard to make it a proper grown-up letter :) I probably wrote about it here already, when I received it. Ah yes, I just checked. I wrote about it in this entry. I was gonna write some stuff he wrote in the letter, but I already did that in that older entry, so I won't repeat it since you can read it there. I just think it's so cute.

I had a flippie-outie moment today when I couldn't find his photo album. I was sure it was where I left it, but after hunting for only a few seconds I got quite panicky and frantic about finding it. It was under my dressing gown, and it only took me a minute to find it, but it's weird how on edge I am with things to do with Cam. I don't want to lose any more of him. I feel I'm sort of clutching at what I've got left, trying frantically to write my memories down so I don't lose them too, and everything that I can think of that's going on right now I write down, so that I don't lose the last memories of my "Cameron experience" either. My photos of him are like gold to me right now, as are his letters, the things he wrote and touched himself. I sometimes hug the photo album to my chest, open on a favourite page, and I can stay like that for ages, because it's almost like some sort of soothing balm applied to the area that physically hurts the most - right around my stomach and ribs, and my breastbone. It aches there all the time, and often feels like a crushing weight physically. How weird. I sometimes get worried that I'm getting a little obsessive about objects or things like that, because that isn't good, but I am trying to be a bit lenient towards myself because of how I'm trying to deal with something really hard right now. I hope it will ease off and not intensify as time goes by.

Then this evening Neil and I went to our church's Alpha Course (a course designed for anyone who's interested to find out a bit more about Christianity). It's the first night of a ten-week course, and we are on the team running the course this year. I haven't been on an Alpha team since 1998. Wow that's a lot time ago now! And I went on the Alpha Course myself a few weeks after I became a Christian in 1995. I met Neil there :) Anyway, so it was good. It's being held at a local pub (a nice one) in a function room, and we have a meal there each week before the talk and discussion groups. There are loads more people there than I expected!! Last time on Alpha there were like 8 people who came along, and this time there's more than 30!!!! :) There are lots of non-Christians, but also lots who are Christians already. There's a girl there called Sarah who I know from years back in my past, but I don't know where from! She came up to me saying the same thing, and we are both completely confused as to how we know each other. It's still bugging me like mad. We've agreed to each tell the other one if we figure it out! It's so weird. Her face is more than just familiar, and she said the same about me. Her teeth and her nose, it's like I've looked at them a thousand times before. But we didn't go to the same school or live in the same town - nearish, but not the same one. I recognise her name as familiar, but I do not know who she is!!! Aaaargh!! It's really really bugging me!! We both feel it was a way back, maybe in our teens or something? I don't know. I hope it comes to me soon because it's so annoying not to remember!

Anyway, I was not comfy at Alpha tonight. I am really really uncomfortable in a social environment. I felt so pressed by it that I wanted to find an excuse to go out of the room all the time. I arranged and re-arranged the book table, I went down to the bar to chase up the jugs of water that hadn't arrived yet, and otherwise I just generally stood around probably looking really awkward and uncomfortable. I feel bad because I'm meant to be all welcoming and chatty, being on the team and all. It just feels horrible to "mingle" and chat when I don't know what to say and don't feel motivated to talk to anyone at all. I just wanted to go home. I'm sure this is much worse than I used to be, but I can't remember how long it's been this bad. Maybe it's just lack of practise?

To my relief the food was served, and I was so distracted by feeling uncomfortable about all the people I was meant to be socialising with, that I did not fuss or worry AT ALL about my food!!!! Not one little bit, not even for a second!!!! I am so thrilled, because I can't remember the last time I ate out and didn't worry in some way. It was nice food too. I put myself down for a burger next week. There was a list of options. I feel like a burger. It's been ages since I had a good (NOT MacDonalds type!) burger.

We ended up leaving a little bit early, because a girl in Neil's group unexpectedly needed to get home and Neil offered to give her a lift since she didn't live too locally. So I left my group too, just a few minutes before the end, and we took the girl home. She's really lovely, and isn't a Christian. When I'm not all overwhelmed with new people it's actually so nice to meet them! :) It was MUCH easier to chat to her in the car than be faced with loads of new people all at once in an unfamiliar room.

On the way home from taking her back to her house, at about 10.30pm, we passed the road with the church where Cameron's funeral will take place on Monday. It's been confirmed for 1.15pm on Monday 6th October. His mum left a message on the machine last night. I knew his body was also in a funeral parlour on that road right at that moment, and it was the weirdest most hollow empty horrible feeling to know those things and be so near to the reality of it. I wanted partly to shove it away from my mind and just focus on passing that road and getting home, and on the other hand I longed to get closer so much that I almost spoke out and asked Neil if he could turn right so we could drive past the church and the funeral parlour. But I couldn't. So Neil never knew and we drove straight ahead in silence till we had been going for a few more minutes. I don't know what purpose it would have served to drive past where Cam's body is being kept. I just felt at that moment that I wanted to somehow be physically closer to something of him. Like I was that close, just a road away, so why not go all the way and drive right past? Some huge longing kicked up inside me and I wanted more than ever to turn right and be nearer to something real about his death, about him. It would have been more "reality" than I've had so far, because so far it's just news that I've heard whilst still sitting in my own home, and that's pretty detached really. I still don't know whether I can face visiting him though. I am running out of time to decide, and I change my mind all the time, so I don't know what to do still.

Well, that's all I have to say tonight I think. I mostly stayed in today and did two coats of woodstain on the front of the new door. Each coat took a full hour to apply (!!) but I'm really pleased with how it looks. It's just taking ages to do it properly, that's all! I watched a TV movie that made me cry this afternoon. Lots makes me cry today so it's an emotions-near-the-surface day I guess. I think that's better than the numb days but I am getting a bit tired of crying lately. At first it felt all "right" and healthy and although it hurt I really did find some sort of release from it. But now instead of a releasing explosion, it's just a slow leak of pain that doesn't bring relief and is starting to get annoying with all the congestion it makes me have.

Tomorrow makes me sad. Today too, because today has been the last day of September, and tomorrow begins the first month that is entirely without Cameron. He was alive in September, and healthy enough for some of it. But tomorrow - well, now really, since it's after midnight - it is October, and Cameron never lived to see October 2003. It's the first time a month has begun without Cameron since he arrived to ring in a new month on July 1st 1992. That just seems so sad to me. And more sad too because this time last week he was still alive. On life support but still here. A week ago early tomorrow morning he died. This feels like it has been the longest week. And the loneliest too. I miss him so much, which must be slightly crazy since I don't normally see him so frequently that I'd miss him within a week or so of last seeing him. So normally I would not be missing him by now. But because I know he's never coming back, I do. Like crazy I do.

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