Grief

Our lovely neighbour Mike told me that relocating was one of the hardest things to do, and that leaving a community was like a grief.  The lady at the school office gave me a sympathy look and made a sad noise when I told her we were leaving and that made me feel like crying.  I was pissed off about that because I'd had a good couple of days before that and she's never been my favourite person anyway because she's quite often grumpy and rude.  But in that moment she was kind to me and all the sadness came back again.

Yesterday was another hard day actually, I moved around my community really struggling, talking to my sons kind teachers, talking to all the lovely mums, arranging playdates and sleepovers, talking to my neighbours.

I think I'm always going to look back at this move and say 'that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do'.

I had my first ever drinking dream the other night, and have been regularly imagining drinking and feeling how nice it would be to be able to have wine in the evenings for fun and to help deal with these really strong negative emotions.  I'm just so deeply sad and really grumpy.  These next 5 weeks aren't going to be fun AT ALL.

Yes I know that no-one has died or gotten cancer and that we're so lucky to have each other in this family and I'm so lucky to have so many great friends here that I'll always know (in some form) and that we'll be totally fine in the new city and all of that.  I know all of that.  But this is not nice.  I'm just being honest, that's all.

I really am trying very hard to dig deep and really trying to think positively but I've also got no choice but to be real about these hard negative emotions because they are very powerful and I live sober now and am having to learn new coping strategies to deal with them.

Why is it good to feel and show these negative emotions?  What benefit is it going to have for me going ahead in life?  I suppose I'll be proud that I did this without drinking.  But will doing this sober make it easier to process the change in the months ahead?  I don't know. 

Would wine make these emotions easier to handle? Yes I think it would. I think I'd enjoy blurring my feelings in the evening and being slightly detached from them during the day if I was hungover.  And I think if I was drinking regularly (and probably quite heavily) now I'd be better able to be more cheery and flippant about the move, a bit more heartless perhaps about what I'm leaving behind.

But I don't drink alcohol any more, I never will again.  So here I am grumpy and sad, dreading the next 5 weeks but getting through one goddam sober day at a time.

Love, Mrs D xxx