Waiting for My Brain to Catch Up

What am I doing, I ask myself - lying here under this blanket, sleeping the afternoon away, missing life?

Waiting, comes the answer.
Waiting for my brain to catch up.
Waiting to understand.

It’s January in New Zealand - a new year ahead, stripped of its usual promise. But our calendar no longer begins in January. A new rhythm has been imposed on our lives, one that pivots around a single day: the last day of May. The day Abi, Ella, and Sally’s precious lives ended. So, it’s January - but we’re only halfway through our year.

Are those milestone days - Christmas, New Year’s Eve, my birthday this week - really any different now? People message kindly, lovingly. But the truth is, every day is a day we didn’t choose. There was a before - chaotic, loving, bubbly, fan, mad, loving family life - and there is an after.

And now, all we’re doing is waiting.
Waiting to adjust.
Waiting to understand.
Waiting for this “new normal” to feel less alien.

I tell myself not to question why. Not to waste time or energy on the agonising calculus of fate - why our girls, in that exact place, at that exact second. A thousand other seconds might have changed everything. But I resist that path. Most of the time. Don’t question why, I tell myself - just know that this is it, and we must somehow learn to live with it.

Acceptance is key. Sometimes, I think I’m getting there. I remind myself: they’re gone. That was it. It was beautiful. And now they’re gone. I can’t afford to ravage and rail against this reality. Doing so will only cost me more.

Except, all I feel is numb. I watch myself go through the motions - only truly at ease when I’m with Trevor, Ed or Paddy. At a time when the boys are needing me less, the irony of my amplified need for them doesn’t escape me.

And so I let them go.
Another loss.
Another step forward into this unfamiliar terrain.
A stranger in my own life.