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The other day I made a video about moving through physical spaces and feeling the duality of what that space is like now and how it permanently exists on some level as a sort of sacred space, with little intersection between the two. What I’m also coming to realise from the last 14 hours or so at the hotel here in Anaheim is that memory works through experiential space as well as physical space. In a number of ways, walking through this hotel and seeing the hints of the fun that is to come reminds me of the experience of walking through the Hyatt last year, trying not to vomit, trying not to make eye contact, sticking to the shadows. That feeling has, to a large extent, resurfaced. Sadness is so dominating at times, seemingly refusing the possibility of creating new experiences and intruding at the least appropriate stages. Additionally, it’s slightly frustrating to be aware of how long the roadaway from all of this grief remains. Above all, it’s very isolating and to be surrounded by some of your best friends and feel horribly alone in this makes me feel tremendously ungrateful.

Basically, I’m sad, even though I’m going to Disneyland today. Not a sentence I ever thought I’d say.

Was terribly sad this evening, not really sure where it came from but I did have to take a picture of the death certificate to send to my sister for paperwork she must fill in and really I suppose everything’s been so intense that it’s a wonder I’ve been so happy and active until now.

Tonight though, I’ve felt heavy: solid and heavy and sad rather than the other sad I sometimes feel (a combination of numbness and the sensation of blocked ears that need to be popped by chewing gum). I tried to fix it by giving myself a break, talking to friends, watching bits of films and then eventually by eating shitty food but now I just feel ghastly in every way and I’m so tired and so frustrated and feeling very much like someone who tries to climb up a slide but keeps slipping back down.

It’s very difficult to explain but I suppose part of my struggle is that there’s an implication grief of a parent is very simple in the sense that it’s something new and it hurts on another level from anything else. In part this is true but that’s not what scares me. When it’s exceptional it’s actually comforting. It’s when this sadness feels like the sadness I’m used to that I get scared and feel horrendously powerless.

It’s odd to have sadness feel like sadness again, not exhaustion, not debilitation, not harm. Just aching sadness, luxurious in an unexpected way but certainly neither indulgent nor comfortable.

As though I have a secret store of energy that it can’t hurt but it will use up all of the other things.

Must be all that raw food ;)

I was going to start this, your almost-daily update on how sorry for myself I’m currently feeling, with a note on how I finally understand why when television programmes and novels write about how people deal with people dying it’s almost always from 2 months+ (my reasons were that the grief becomes more obvious, the adrenaline fades out, people aren’t as awkward around you, less boring crap to faithfully portray like paperwork, blah blah blah, they were shitty reasons). But then it occurred to me that I’m constantly trying to fit this all into a timeline I supposedly resist. Or not supposedly resist, I do resist it. It’s just that the pain feels as though it’s newer and bigger and harder to deal with, as though it’s coming in at an inconvenient time etc. every single damn day.

There’s no way to measure one week or month against the last because once I sleep, I forget just how bad it was. And then I wake up and it all is horrible again. This afternoon, fed up with people telling me I work too much, I gave myself a few hours off revision, justifying it by telling myself that it’s because today is an especially bad day, sadness wise. But it’s not, really. It’s another sad day but it’s not the saddest or the worst. All sad days are equal at the moment, I would say. All moments feel particularly painful and as is the nature of time and stuff, I can’t perfectly re-experience the pain of yesterday or two hours ago. So maybe it’s a good thing that there’s no exceptionally bad day, or that today isn’t the worst day in the world (because all the other days have been equally crap too?), but I wish my reasoning didn’t have to work like that.

I also can’t keep telling myself that every time I feel like crap it’s because of Dad. Like, I know when I’m lying to myself but I keep doing it anyway. But I like to ignore those other reasons, because at least when I tell people I’m sad about that they kind of nod and go on, rather than a. smothering me or b. giving me a puzzled look/saying things that piss me off.