Held together by love and tea.

So I'm looking for something this afternoon, and I open a box in the Small Room of Doom, and there is this.



Inside are so many things.

A list of phone numbers I took off of his phone, with ticks next to people I had told.  A yellow book that obligingly tells me how I am supposed to be feeling and what I should do about it when I do.  A list of things I should do, who I should contact, what I have to do.  I have no idea if I did them.

I found it.  I moved it.  I made a cup of tea.

Earlier this week, I had to phone a company who had been taking money out of my account.  I had had an membership with them, so I wasn't surprised, but didn't need their services. I couldn't cancel it - the chap didn't know who I was.

In the end he asked for 'the other card' on the account.

That's when it all became clear.

This wasn't my membership.  This was Rich's membership.

I struggled to explain, I gave all the details, the dates, the mothers maiden name, the address, the everything that makes a person who they were as far as the computer is concerned.  I sat on the floor in my front room, and I felt the knot come back into my stomach, and the panic flood my brain, and the world started to fold into the misty mess it used to be.

I carried on.  We talked it through.  I agreed to send a letter, a copy of the death certificate, a copy of my bank statement.  He agreed to tell the computer not to take any more money, I said I'd go to the bank and find out what the hell had happened.

We said our good byes, I put the phone down.

I made a cup of tea.

Before that, or not, I don't know, because I'm crap at days during holidays, we caught up on Corrie.  Dev's wife, Sunitta, was injured in a fire, and then she died.  He had to tell the children.  I couldn't watch it.  We were having tea and I'd just finished mine and I took the plates out.  J looked at me, he followed me out, and he held me whilst I cried so hard I almost threw up.  Cried so hard, and so silently, because the boys were still watching Corrie, and they don't need to know that I'm crying again.

I made more tea.

It comes and goes in waves that crash over me and sweep me under, before throwing me up onto a dry beach of exhaustion and anger and fear and numbness.

It's everywhere.

I know, I know, that this won't last forever.  It is different now than it was 3 years ago, two years ago, last year.  Next year it will be different again.

Right now though, I am held together by tea, and by the love of J and the AC.  If I didn't have that, I would shatter into a thousand pieces, like Mrs Dalloways mirror.