TW: Grief in Each Day

My Godmother died October 1st, at about 9am. Her friend J was with her in the end, and J kept my sister informed as things happened.

I didn’t feel anything except vague relief. That’s not entirely true, but I don’t know how to put into words how it feels to mourn someone you haven’t had a consistent relationship with in over a decade. Occasional texts, FB comments, news through my sister, isn’t really enough to sustain a relationship. And for the last 5 or more years it’s been even less. I’d send texts on her birthday, on holidays, to no reply. It has been hard to not have feelings about her being my Godmother, and yet my sister is the one with the relationship with her. Granted, after AB died, my sister was it. It wasn’t a choice, and my Godmother relied heavily on her, and put pressure on her that my sister was not keen on. My sister gave A LOT to that relationship.

In the sadness that she’s gone, there’s also guilt, relief, and also something akin to jealousy? I have put a lot of my intrusive thought bullshit into my thoughts about my Godmother and her suffering and her not wanting to live, and that part of me imagines the relief of non-existence with envy.

It’s not that I want to die. I’m just not too hot on living.

M and I went on to have a normal day, just a little more subdued than usual.

Today was my last day of compassionate leave, or so I thought. My colleague called because my away message said I’d be back today (I had taken leave up to Tuesday, but that was before the whole compassionate leave thing started), and when I said so, he called me back to say my leave showed me back today.
What? The? Actual? Fuck?

When I left work on the 18th, I was told I had 14 days. Apparently the big boss took it upon himself to change it so that I was on compassionate until I was on leave and I’d return on the 1st.

EXCEPT NO ONE FUCKING TOLD ME THAT.

So I spent most of today stewing about this. And when I went to therapy I wanted to talk to Tina about the brick in my chest, my inability to cry, the dream I had where I don’t recall at all what was happening, but I woke up SOBBING, and my conscious mind acknowledged the sob (but not the dream itself) was about my Godmother, and then a wall fell inside me and cut me off from the sob, in a fraction of a second.

Instead I talked to her about the work BS, and she spent a not insignificant period trying to get me to admit I was “catastrophizing”, and it seemed really patronizing and I started to get defensive.

I said no matter how this plays out, I lose. Either I’m actually in shit for something no one fucking told me, and that will suck. And even if I get to work tomorrow and they’re like “oops my bad”, I have still spent not only a significant portion of my day RAGING, but now I’ve also wasted a therapy session talking about this bullshit. She seemed to get it at that point.

She told me to write down my feelings about this experience and come back with observations at our next session.

I saw Red for the first time in weeks. She’s been really busy with work, and while she’s loving it, she’s not getting to fill her cup the way she needs to.

I picked her up from work to take her to craft night and told her I was already wrung out. She knows I spent the week in my home province, but didn’t ask about my Godmother. I assumed she knew, since I posted some bullshit on FB. I just have nothing to give, everything feels like too much effort (fucking writing this is too much god damned effort), so I shared a post my sister made on her business FB page and said that I’m going to be quiet for a while. I just noticed that Red has not liked or commented.

This feels a little like the disconnect I felt back in 2019/2020 where I got fed up of her twisting my real-life stories for her own storytelling purposes. I’m getting the feeling, again, that there is not a balance of emotional give and take. Or at least, she is not able to give the kind of connection I need from a life wife/best friend. I hate that. I hate it because I feel like she’s losing me and I don’t know how to talk to her about it. And I hate it because it means this relationship is going to require more effort at a time when I really need to be giving less effort.

We got to craft night super early, ate, and shortly after craft night was supposed to start, I tapped out. I think it was 5:17 when I was like, “no one is here, I want to leave”. And then I drove her home.

I just can’t believe she didn’t even ask about my Godmother. I don’t even care if she couldn’t remember who it was I was home, seeing. How do you not ask?

I’m yawning so hard my jaw is cracking. I really don’t have the energy to continue.