Notes from normality

My imagination has served me well over this past year. 

I imagine to escape, to push my sadness to happy. Rarely this year until now have I imagined Keith is still alive but recently I am doing it more and more. Christmas, I suppose. I imagine he is here to put his arms around me and tell me it's ok, it's going to be ok, that I'm doing a really good job, that the kids will be ok. Will they be OK? Right now they're not ok. I imagine him telling me about what he feels about everything, Gary Neville, Syria, Labour, us getting stuck at the top of the big wheel on a cold Saturday night. I imagine how proud he is of my girls learning Christmas songs on the keyboard, Florence reading, Darcey singing in the choir. I imagine how worried he is about them both, about Darcey's terrible anger, about the effectiveness or not of their counselling. I imagine his opinion on my choice of wallpaper, my haircut, my therapy, telling me to not be so hard on myself every time I fuck up with the kids. It is endless.

People tell me I need to move on. 

Then when that becomes too painful I push myself the other way to save my heart from breaking even further, into the grand realm of fantasy. It is a wonderful wonderful place. Music helps get me there. What if this song were written for me, if the singer is singing to me, because I am the

 reason for the song? It would be nice to mean something again. Can I be the centre of attention, the value, the other half. Christmas. The weight of it hangs heavy like the scent of cinnamon and cloves. The most wonderful time of the year, yes of course. Kids are ferociously excited, embracing my love of tinsel and fairy lights, but: what do you want for Christmas? I want Daddy. 

The New Year approaches and with it the need to keep going, planning, coping. Constant self help, assessment, introspection, analysis. An awful lot of work in progress. 

The girls get older. I will find further reserves of energy to adapt to their changing needs. Mummy I know you care but I don't feel cared for. I would feel more cared for if you smiled more. Why are you angry all of the time? What's for dinner?

When I do see beauty it is sharper than ever. The equal and opposite reaction to experiencing deep pain. There is so much beauty in the whole sense of the word. Acceptance and perspective are the grand words I continue to hold onto and take into 2016. Also integrity: the only colour is transparency. Truth, however difficult that may be. Time and life are too precious to flail around in superficiality. Life can be beautiful without filters. Reality may be sharper and more brutally exposed, but that delivers that word perspective again. Perspective brings depth, depth acts as a prism, splitting life into colours, and then you can see beauty. Try it; when it becomes too painful just take a hit of music and imagination. Those are the best filters.

For the record he would love my wallpaper.