Great Christian Diaries

2003-11-04 - 10.02pm  previous entry  next entry

Back again. Neil is out at Alpha and I am.... sitting at the computer - how obvious! :) Trying to stay awake a bit longer because it's not even 9pm yet - oh wait, yes it is now. But anyway, I will probably go to bed after I write this. Emails are totally escaping me at the moment, so please forgive me if you've emailed me and I haven't got back to you yet - even urgentish ones - I'm really sorry. I am just not managing to reply while I'm working. I can't use email or the internet at work and I have a short time before I fall into bed where I download from my brain to my diary in order to relieve the pressure, so I'm afraid the emails are getting a bit put aside for the moment. But I will try to reply later in the week!

I have been to work again today. It's so weird working a full day. Especially after I just did one yesterday! I know this sounds crazy but it really isn't the norm for me and it hasn't been for years.

Work was Dull with a capital D. I wrote a billion letters. I learned to write memos and I wrote a ton of those. I learned to fill in a works order. I learned to answer the phone but successfully managed to be conveniently "too busy under paperwork" to answer it whenever it rang! Tsk, how naughty of me. Pfthth. I really would rather be at home. I know I should be doing whatever I put my hand to with all my might like the Bible says, but I really really really don't want to be working there. Or anywhere really. But definitely not there. I am working hard though. I never slack off, and I only use the paperwork as an excuse not to answer the phone (bit more scary than paperwork) because I literally am swamped with it all the time, and no matter how fast I work or how much I crank up the speed a little, there's always new stuff to get through as I finish the old stuff. I worked my ass off till 5.29pm and then I switched my computer off and spent 60 seconds pushing things importantly round my desk like it was essential shutdown procedures (!!) because if I didn't I would just be in the middle of another project and I'd NEVER remember where I left off tomorrow morning. It is a busy job which is good, because I really NEED occupying. But it bores me solid and I am soooo not motivated to go and spend my precious daylight hours at a desk typing stuff that is utterly irrelevant to most people. Okay so it's relevant to somebody because otherwise I wouldn't be employed to do it, but it's not exactly inspiring or enticing.

Also today I managed to get more days work with this company :( I know I am being so bad moaning about this, and it's not that I am fed up with having to work - I realised how blessed I am to be ABLE yesterday. But this is not a fun way to spend time and it's only day 2 and I'm already hating what I'm doing. Happy that I can do it, but hating that I am, if you know what I mean.

Predecessor-lady came in to drop something off and was served her notice so she collected her things. She seemed quite relieved! I don't really blame her. Then a bloke from another office came in to my office where I was busy on a dozen different projects and Supervisor-lady and Other-office-lady were right there listening while he said he had spoken to my temp agency and agreed with them that I would work for them for a longer period. What?!!!! Say what if I don't want to?! It's very flattering and all, but..... Anyway so then I said I didn't want to work full-time. He said how about next Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Cornered into desperation I lied and said I couldn't do Friday. So straightaway he said fine, how about Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday? How do I keep saying, "Ummm.... nah, can't do that either" - that just reeeally doesn't look good. Plus I felt like I had to make excuses about why I didn't want to do full-time in the first place while they all listened and waited to hear what my reasons were, so I felt all caved in and agreed to Mon / Tue / Wed next week. Urgh. THEN I was just recovering from that ordeal (!!) a few minutes later, and Other-office-bloke came back in and said could I do the following Mon / Tue / Wed as well?! Completely reduced to pulp by this point, I said yes. So now I have two more weeks of working for this company doing this boring stuff and I am not thrilled about it, not one bit.

BUT I get paid and the money is good and will be very helpful. Plus I get out of the house on a regular basis. Plus I keep occupied like I have been needing for a while. And I don't have to work Thursdays or Fridays. But no WAY am I agreeing to any more work after that!

I had a better sleep last night though, which is good. Neil woke me up from that nice deep sleep which started at last (yet again) within an hour of the alarm going off. My sleep pattern needs serious improvement, but if I stick at full working days I will get there very quickly I'm sure! Neil woke me from another Cameron dream - that's two nights running now. This one was weird, and very vivid and real. And it was about his mum and how she's coping. I wrote it down in as much detail as I could when I got up.

In the dream, Neil and I were at a re-enactment of a child's death at a school. The child was a boy about Cameron's age, with similar looks and colouring. The boy had been found dead in some bushes on school grounds and the police were treating it with suspicion so they were doing a re-whatsit (can't think of the word). Anyway, we were there watching from rows of school benches that were set up for the audience (!!). Cameron's mum was sitting on one side of me and I suddenly realised she was there after I'd been sitting there with Neil for some time.

Oh there's loads of detail but some of it makes me not want to write it actually, and it would probably be a lonnnnng description of the dream so I think I will just cut a long story short(but be warned it will probably still be very long!).

Basically I asked Cam's mum how her two little boys were doing - Michael and the new baby, Nathan. She looked so tired and unhappy and physically hunched up with sadness. She told me both the boys were ill, that they had infections, just like when she used to tell me Cam had another infection. She said thy were both at home but things were hard because she kept having problems with their IV pumps. That shocked me so much, to think that she was going through all the pain of Cameron's lifelong health problems, all over again with children we always thought were so healthy, and at such a difficult time.

I put my arm around her shoulders and the bench kept rocking and rocking and rocking, sometimes so hard that I thought we'd tip right over. It was like a comfort rocking, and I couldn't tell who was making it rock. Sometimes I was sure it was me, and sometimes I thought it was Cameron's mum, and other times I couldn't work it out.

His mum kept talking to me. She told me how much she misses Cameron. She cried. I still remember specific sentences she said in the dream, word for word. She said, "Sometimes I wake up and he's not there, and I think, "Where's he gone?!"" It broke my heart to hear her say things like that. I wanted to envelop her in my arms completely and cry with her, but I felt she would be angry with me or that it would be insensitive of me. This was a strong recurring feeling throughout the dream as she spoke things that hurt to hear because they mirrored my feelings about losing Cam. But I longed to make it all better for her somehow.

Then we were in a little room and Cam's mum was crying. I wanted to say something to comfort her, and I said, "I know without a shadow of a doubt that you will see Cam again." She went really funny and shied away from me and wouldn't let me hug her. She was very doubtful about it and said she wasn't sure, and how could I be sure. I explained that it's just something I believe, that we will be with and see Cameron again some day. But something in me wished I hadn't said it because of how much it seemed to hurt her.

I said, "D'you know what else I think? I reckon heaven is an amazing place." I honestly remember word for word the conversation in this dream, it was so real, and the feelings were just as painfully real too. It was very weird. Anyway, I said I thought heaven wasn't just about what people traditionally think of - beauty, visual perfection, etc. I told her I reckon the air there must be like breathing pure love, like love is in a gaseous form there, like we don't even need oxygen in heaven so it's possible that the air CAN be pure love. I pointed out that I didn't just think Cameron was "in a nice place", I reckoned he was FEELING the most wonderful he ever felt, the most loved he ever felt, the most joy he ever felt, right now in heaven as we were speaking.

His mum hugged me so tight. She suddenly seemed so tiny in the dream, and I had to kneel down just to match her height so we could hug. She cried. She said, "Oh Alice, you've been like a brother or sister to me." I remember wondering why she said "brother or sister" instead of just saying "sister" - weird irrelevant random things like that! It was a weird, very moving dream. I cried too when she said that. I said she shouldn't worry about a thing because everything would come right and she would see Cam again. I said I loved him and missed him too, which was such a relief to say, and we both cried and hugged until Neil woke me up. I didn't want to leave the dream and tried to stay in it but you know how that doesn't really work after a few minutes :( I felt longing and sad and something else that I can't put my finger on, when I finally let the dream go and got up. I felt achy and like I missed Cameron so much I didn't know what to do with my feelings. All the feelings from the dream were still so real in my head.

So today I felt fretty and flappy about the fact that work would prevent me from visiting the cemetery and I felt that trapped feeling that I described a couple of weeks back - how I can't bear to know that I CAN'T go to visit Cameron's grave even if I desperately wanted to. I can't bear that feeling.

So this morning Neil dropped me off in town and I bought a sandwich and some crisps and a drink from Sainsbury's before the other shops were open. Then I did my speed-walk (!!) to work to get there on time. My legs are seriously complaining at me today for all the walking yesterday. By the time I got to work this morning, my foot-arches ached sooo much. And my hips. They're just not used to it.

But they are going to complain all the more tomorrow (as they are already!) because I following the longing in my heart at lunchtime and WALKED to the cemetery and back, which took the whole of my lunch break. I looked at the map in the office and by trying to use the scale when nobody was looking (ie not too accurately!) I reckon I walked at least 2 miles. Which I am DEFINITELY not used to! But I went. The absolute joy as I got close to the cemetery, as I saw the first gravestones through the hedge, was worth the sore legs. I felt like I just won a marathon as I walked through the gates. I wanted to grin and laugh for joy. It was the weirdest feeling as I walked into the cemetery. I couldn't help but crane my neck to try and catch that first glimpse of Cam's grave, and when I saw it I could barely restrain myself from running to him. Because that's how it felt, like I was running to him, coming "home" to his now familiar resting place. Weird. But of course he wasn't there, just his grave looking very soggy after the recent torrential rain, and his flowers do not look good anymore. They are brown and soggy and some of them have mould on them. As I crossed the last path to his grave, I started to cry because of the feeling of exertion at trying to physically reach him, all that way from work, and that feeling of wanting to run to him only he's not there, and then when I saw the flowers as dead as Cameron himself..... Everything hurt so much. I stood there absolutely disbelieving his death, which is crazy because how contradictory is that? - to stand at a grave having chosen to go there, and not believe that person could really be dead, all the while still standing at their GRAVE. Too many feelings.

But I didn't have much time to dwell on them or cry much, which is probably good since I had to turn around and walk back to work pretty soon after getting there, because this lady drove up, and parked RIGHT in front of Cameron's grave. Like almost on top of it. I had to step out of the way even. That made me cross. Like she burst my bubble, whatever the bubble even was. I felt like she intruded, and there were practically acres of spaces she could have parked along that path - hers was the only vehicle in the whole cemetery and I was the only person there standing at a grave, and yet she comes along and parks under my feet. Grrr. But then she got out and talked to me. Her husband is buried across the way from Cameron. She wanted to talk about Cam, and to know how he died. She said she never saw anyone visiting Cam's grave before. I told her I was sure the family came at the weekend. I felt hurt for some reason, like I didn't like to have to "stand up" for Cameron in that way. He DOES have visitors. He has me, even if nobody else, and I KNOW his family comes. I said his mum has a new baby and things must be terribly hard for her right now. The lady didn't mean any harm, I know that, but I was just feeling prickly and painful at the time. I wanted some moments of peace at Cam's grave after hauling my butt all that way there.

The lady went to her husband's grave for a little while, but I never felt I could relax and just be me with Cameron (if you know what I mean by "with Cameron"). I felt like she was watching me, though she never was when I sneaked a glance across at her. She was just too close for comfort is all. Anyway, I stood and looked at the poor dead flowers and felt like a tidal wave of tears was crushing my throat and eye sockets, but I didn't want to let them go while I felt like someone was watching, and anyway poxy work was in the back of my head. I feel so angry and cheated that things (ie work) are making stuff with Cameron even harder. I want to just be angry and do angry things and defy authority and never go in to work again. Just because I am so angry that I can't have my time with Cameron when I need to. I NEED to when I need to, doesn't anybody understand? It's like when you need to eat you need to eat. When you have to go to the loo you HAVE to go. You can wait for a short while but the need only gets more pressing and more physically uncomfortable. Well I need to be with my boy.

I need to be with my boy. Writing those seven words has just all of a sudden made me ache like nothing else and now I am crying. Because I feel like I HAVE to be with him like when I HAVE to eat or I'll start feeling weak and dizzy and crampy and sick. I can't satisfy the craving and that hurts so much all of a sudden. I need Cameron. Before the lady arrived, at the grave, I was saying how much I missed him, and then from nowhere I started saying, "Please come back" which I haven't even considered saying before, nor have I even thought it, because that's one thing that's pointless thinking or saying. But how I wish he would. I felt so painfully aware and so sorry that I hadn't put as much effort into getting to see Cam when he was alive as I have today, walking and striving to see him. On the walk back to work I tried to think in work-mode so that it wouldn't hurt when I had no choice but to carry on working, but all I could think of over and over and over again was, "He's in the ground. He's in the ground. He's in the ground." I am a crazy woman sometimes. But I know it must still be normal. I hope. I think it must be anyway. Grief is weird, and since I know that's what I'm going through, I can expect some of it to be weird, and for things to go around and around in circles and even when I think it's stopped, it can come around again.

I miss Cameron. I love him so so so much. I HATE that he's dead. I HATE with so much feeling. But I love with so much feeling too. Doesn't mixing two volatile opposites cause explosion?

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