![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Coming to the end of a strange period
Nov. 6th, 2009 11:41 amThrough some strange combination of events, I find myself at the Friday before I return to work, which is a thought that is both terrifying and, somehow, ‘right’. Not right as in ‘correct, well done, you have successfully read the calendar’ but right as in ‘it is the correct and healthy thing to do’. I know that I cant stay at home indefinitely, and I also know that I don’t want to – but even so, the change still strikes me as an Armstrongian ‘giant leap’.
Needless to say, I’m flapping slightly, despite all the psychobabble involving ‘signs of a healing emotional balance’. The crux of the matter is that I’m really nervous about returning to work – even though my return is going to be limited to half days at a time – until sometime around mid December, whereupon I’m back to 100%. Intellectually, I know that its not going to be a problem as work have been really supportive over the last few days and weeks in giving me time off, but still. I don’t know how I’m going to react in a crowd of people who will either want to express their feelings to me about how they feel, or refuse to talk about it for whatever reason, and yet also wanting to make sure that I’m not completely loopy. I’m going to be nervous about leaving C alone for a few hours, and, I suspect, utterly, utterly exhausted by the end of it.
My personal suspicion is that the worst conversation I might have to have (though its pretty unlikely) is with the more distant colleagues who I recognise by sight and have to explain to them the enormity of what I’ve gone though. The worst of it is that when you drop this news on some unsuspecting person, they don’t really know how to react and this makes me feel unexpectedly guilty. Its almost as though you’ve deliberately ruined their day by telling them the unvarnished truth – and lets face it, to put a positive spin on this would take a fairly callous individual. ‘Yes, my daughter died from a heart defect, but on the plus side, we’re now going skiing in New Zealand this June, its apparently lovely there’ is hardly something that anyone could seriously say without being, deep down, some sort of monster.
Still, we will see how I cope – though, as C has taken pains to remind me – if the situation gets too fraught, I can just get up and come home, no questions asked. I don’t think that this will happen, but depending on how many stressful conversations I may find myself useless, or worse, at my desk.
Mind you, I have spent the last week & a bit preparing for this – albeit with mixed success. Indeed, my attempts to get up and read through a simple book on visual basic (my pre-return to work plan) is inordinately tiring. Whilst I never possessed the longest attention span before Katies death, I now find myself simply unable to concentrate for longer than 2 pages at a time before having to take a break and chimp off on the internet or listen to some music, or otherwise distract myself. I hope that my attention span returns sooner rather than later, and I also hope that my work appreciates just how difficult this all is.
Of course, what I really want is irrelevant; had my wishes been taken into account, I wouldn’t be here – but here I am. Just me, C & (occasionally) MS Visual Basic.
S
Needless to say, I’m flapping slightly, despite all the psychobabble involving ‘signs of a healing emotional balance’. The crux of the matter is that I’m really nervous about returning to work – even though my return is going to be limited to half days at a time – until sometime around mid December, whereupon I’m back to 100%. Intellectually, I know that its not going to be a problem as work have been really supportive over the last few days and weeks in giving me time off, but still. I don’t know how I’m going to react in a crowd of people who will either want to express their feelings to me about how they feel, or refuse to talk about it for whatever reason, and yet also wanting to make sure that I’m not completely loopy. I’m going to be nervous about leaving C alone for a few hours, and, I suspect, utterly, utterly exhausted by the end of it.
My personal suspicion is that the worst conversation I might have to have (though its pretty unlikely) is with the more distant colleagues who I recognise by sight and have to explain to them the enormity of what I’ve gone though. The worst of it is that when you drop this news on some unsuspecting person, they don’t really know how to react and this makes me feel unexpectedly guilty. Its almost as though you’ve deliberately ruined their day by telling them the unvarnished truth – and lets face it, to put a positive spin on this would take a fairly callous individual. ‘Yes, my daughter died from a heart defect, but on the plus side, we’re now going skiing in New Zealand this June, its apparently lovely there’ is hardly something that anyone could seriously say without being, deep down, some sort of monster.
Still, we will see how I cope – though, as C has taken pains to remind me – if the situation gets too fraught, I can just get up and come home, no questions asked. I don’t think that this will happen, but depending on how many stressful conversations I may find myself useless, or worse, at my desk.
Mind you, I have spent the last week & a bit preparing for this – albeit with mixed success. Indeed, my attempts to get up and read through a simple book on visual basic (my pre-return to work plan) is inordinately tiring. Whilst I never possessed the longest attention span before Katies death, I now find myself simply unable to concentrate for longer than 2 pages at a time before having to take a break and chimp off on the internet or listen to some music, or otherwise distract myself. I hope that my attention span returns sooner rather than later, and I also hope that my work appreciates just how difficult this all is.
Of course, what I really want is irrelevant; had my wishes been taken into account, I wouldn’t be here – but here I am. Just me, C & (occasionally) MS Visual Basic.
S