It was a biggy for me - having been a carer for most of my life i had no idea how to care for myself - since the age of 16 there was always work, then some-one to look after from my gran, through bringing up my kids - nursing Mark then my mum who both died of cancer, then Keith after his first stroke.
Between Mark dying and Keith and i being together, and with the girls being teenagers i went back to college and did a degree but i was still being a carer and working as well.
When keith died the girls had left home - i had been doing the same job for 12 years so it wasnt exactly challenging - i had no idea how to occupy myself or even what was the point of my life at all because that lifetime role was gone.
I had to move - which made me busy for a while and i had a neglected garden to sort out - so a lot of hard physical work, but that actually helped a lot - i wanted to re-create our garden - for him in a way - the new one was half the size but i still wanted a pond and a wildlife area and it was that, being in nature, which made me smile again for the first time - i was occupied with something and suddenly realised i could feel the sun on my back and this robin was singing so loudly and persistantly i couldnt ignore him.
Then i decided to spend time marking keiths life there is no gravestone or anything - so i went round to our favourite places and planted native daffodills which took up time - getting the logistics worked out and overcoming or avoiding some of the situations that created the most anxiety for me while doing so. I still had our old campervan and had to learn pretty quick how to keep it on the road so a bit of mechanics and welding - but i went camping in it too, as a really good friend who was also in the same camping club as me pretty much made sure i kept going to the meets - and they were/still are a great bunch of people they were keithd friends too, they were couples and famillys and yet i never felt left out - as famillys their kids grew up and a lot have stopped doing it now but there is a few left.
I decided if i didnt know how to make a life for myself then i would live my life through Keith - so i did some of the things he would have liked to do -and i went back to dolphin watching - which was pretty much how we spent all our holidays - The first time was very difficult and yet even though its only once a year for me now i feel closest too him stood on that harbour wall its like getting a hug off him.
My eldest moved to south africa and i go there as well - and discovered again how much the natural world means to me but also how abject poverty affects the lives of so many people over there - i always knew that but seeing it first hand is very different.
Being on holiday is fine and being in the garden is too - but that left an awful lot of winter nights to fill and weekends - so i went back to the thing i knew could actually fill my mind - education - of course i wasnt going to do another degree that would be pointless and there arnt any evening classes near here - so i did online courses - the futurelearn site has loads of free ones - so i picked a few i thought were interesting - and that was great - because i wasnt trying to get a qualification i am too long in the tooth for a new "career" so i was free to chose what i wanted and i thought i was doing so randomly - until i did one - which was actually work related - in graphic design - and then the others seemed to drop into place - ecology /conservation/sub-sahran africa/ Soil study/food chains journalism even fiction writing - which doesnt have to be fiction - put it all with the graphic design and my love of gardening and i suddenly had a path -
I already knew about permaculture as both gardens were designed on a permaculture basis - basically its all about putting in but not taking out - so no pesticides chemical fertlisers etc but copying nature - which means working with not against it - planting the right things to help it work - so as i had a project to put together for the course. i contacted a charity building school gardens in africa - i cant go swaning off doing gap years until i retire but we live in a digital age which means i can design and write the stuff they need for fund raising, leaflets,web graphics etc also - i am wrting a kids book - with a story of a permaculture garden which they are going to sell on the basis of buy one and it pays for another to go free too a school - so the book is a story but it also descibes a little girl applying what she learned with the school garden too her home, so its like a set of instructions as well. and hopefully there will be a game to go with it - a book version and maybe an interactive digital version ( which i will need help with (lol) )
I plan to do a permaculture design certificate - so i can get involved more with that side of it when i retire, but also want to spend some time doing conservation research i already do that with the dolphin watching but want to extend it.
The campervan finally gave out last year and having thought i should replace it with a "sensible" car i then went and replaced it with the same - they guys who were going to take mine for parts also sell them - they even switched the driver and passenger seats from the old one for me -as i was pretty heartbrocken about losing it - so at the moment i am hand stitching curtains and trying my best to do some joinery to put together a conversion for the interior - so still busy.
I am 8 years into this journey now and it hasnt been easy i still talk too him not so much with a photo and at a dedicted time - but as things happen or i have ideas or even with the practical things - how do i do this or that - he is always in my mind and i feel like he has been taking it with me - in part because it started with me doing things and living my life for him.
We will all do this differently and find our own paths the grief path is the one we tread together -for some it might be new hobbys or going back too old ones,, new friendships, new relationships, new activities, but we will all do it.