August - 01.08.14 in Your Face

It has been a difficult couple of days. I marked one year since my Ernie left for America, and tomorrow will be one year since M left. I remember bursting into tears at 5pm on Thursday, 1 August 2014, as I finished work for the day and faced the reality of my last night with M. I feel teary now, just writing that. How do you make the most of time, when you know it's limited? We spent that night finishing his packing, before collapsing into bed for a few hours' sleep.

The prospect of time lost or wasted panics me so badly, I have no idea how I will cope when it comes time to farewell someone who is terminally ill (which will happen at some point in my life). I guess all I can try is making sure that those I love, know that I love them. To aim for no regrets.

I had lunch with some friends from my old job today, and faced the barrage of questions from people in the office about why I hadn't left yet, oh, they thought I would have been long gone, what's the hold up? Answering the same questions 100 times, before finally working my way down to the back of the office to see my old boss.

He was weird, as is his way, and just grinned at me the whole time. I made a joke about how his office was a disaster, because I was always his saviour in that respect. When he got bogged down, and things started to pile up, I'd corner him (he'd usually yell at me that he didn't have time, but I was good at handling his moods) and we'd quickly run through the files getting pushed to the side, and work out what needed to be done with them. These were files that would be on his desk because I needed direction, or he needed to consider something, so it sort of worked out well for both of us. I'd usually end up with something new to work on, which I could learn from, and he'd feel a lot less stressed, knowing that the smaller files were still moving along.

Anyway. He made a comment about how the new me (I hate calling her that, because she'll never be me) wasn't working out. Then, over lunch, the office manager told me that she'd been doing a whole heap of work for the new me, which is terrible, because the office manager is severely over-worked as it is. And my closest friend from work, who happens to be the cousin of the new me, made the harshest comments about how the new me just sucks at her job and how she had basically let me do everything up until the day I left and never bothered to learn anything (which is what I had thought, but when the options are: a) leave her with the work and nothing ever gets done, only for it to land on my desk when everything is overdue and going up in flames, at which point I get to "fix it"; or b) offer help, and when she palms it off to me, I just run with it because my priority is giving professional service to clients (they have to pay enough money in fees) and because I knew it would catch up with her.

So, I guess I just felt like maybe I wasn't being such a bitch, when I would think about how crap she was. I thought maybe I was being unfair, because I have a real knack for this sort of work and thrive under pressure. Not everybody is the same, and I can tend to be pretty short tempered. I guess I was right.

None of it matters, though.

Lunch was good, but I was glad to see the end of it. I just want to hide in my cave these days.

Mother is in Sydney for one night, maybe two (surely I couldn't be that lucky). I have no money, so it was baked beans on toast for dinner, and a fried egg.

I need the next couple of days to pass, the one year anniversary of being away from my husband and dog is pretty fucking bleak.