This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
So New Year starts – not with a bang but more of a quiet whimper. Sadly BFF and I were due to go to dinner and dancing but that plan falls flat. I guiltily realise that she also has the flu and probably caught it from my germs when she came to cheer me up on Christmas Eve. But we call each other and compare symptoms and whine together! It is not the best start to 2015 as I am still exhausted 🙁 I drag myself out of bed to walk the poor dog which is a real effort. In fact some days it is just a case of putting on wellies and a thick coat over the top of my pyjamas, albeit with a thick scarf and a hat pulled firmly over my ears as I brave the cold. Of course it will be on one of these days I bump into George Clooney! Luckily I don’t but I come home dripping in sweat, have a bath and go to bed again.
The exhaustion is debilitating and after more than three weeks I am also feeling very low. My positive intentions for the new year have long since bitten the dust.
I have had toothache and earache all through this dreadful flu which I thought may be blocked sinuses but a check up at the dentist today reveals I need an extraction. A tooth has a cavity that extends beyond the gum line – root canal would be painful and probably futile. My spirits really do hit rock bottom.
It is bad enough that I have lost the husband I love, the home I love and my sons and and that they all now live happily ever after with another woman in my place. I live on my own, alone and being ill the loneliness is exaggerated a thousand times and I feel deeply despondent with a black cloud that will not lift. I kid myself that my social life will bounce back when my health improves, but I don’t get invitations to dinner or lunch or to pop around for a glass of wine 🙁 All our ‘couply’ friends are still his friends because he is still a couple! And although I do have a couple of single girlfriends, they still have kids at home and parents etc. I don’t have either. I feel alone and isolated.
I even deactivate myself from Facebook. I’m sick to death of photos of skiing trips and Caribbean jaunts, boasts about fabulous Christmases and amazing jobs/boyfriends/partners etc etc etc.
It has been nearly three years since I left my arse of a husband and my life doesn’t feel that great. I have a fabulous home (which currently feels like a prison) and I do love my job and yes, I normally have my health, but I am so excruciatingly crushingly lonely. When my sister in law was widowed 15 years ago it was dreadful, it was tragic, but she still had her children, her parents and an army of support shielding her and caring for her. I feel bereft. None of this was my choice.
Even the ridiculous “relationship” that never was with the man who clearly preferred men (how could I have been sooooo stupid) just reminds me how much I enjoyed doing things with a partner. Ultimately I guess I miss the fact that I lost my best best friend – my husband. I don’t know where to turn. So I hide under my duvet…