Today’s session spun off in an entirely different direction than I had expected. I told R about the benefit decision, and showed her the painting I had put into the exhibition. We talked for a while about the symbolism of it, due to my song.
‘I realised the other day, talking with a friend, how important it is for me to have a way of expressing myself that isn’t through words. Sometimes the words won’t come, and sometimes I am not happy with the ones that do.’

R laughed. ‘I have yet to book, but I will be going back.’

‘That’s brilliant.’
‘I said we would discuss something in particular this week.’

‘You brought it up, not me!’

‘The bathroom scene. The Critic has been chewing my ear off about needing to discuss that again.’

I mentioned that I could not believe it, and did not deserve to go through this.
‘Do you need me to move?’
‘Yes, that would be helpful.’ R sat in front of me and held my hands.
‘I promised myself that I would be done..have I ever mentioned the song?’
‘You have played me a song, but I don’t think you have mentioned a song.’

‘In July 2009, I wrote a song that I shared with a friend of Chris’, who presents a Beatles themed radio show on Mexican radio.’

‘I didn’t know that happened, but OK.’

‘He emailed me back a week later, and said it was the 25th anniversary of the programme soon. He asked whether he could play my song.’

‘Wow.’

‘I told him that I needed some time to get a professional recording done, and that was what I was due to do the day I received that email. I promised myself that when I had done that, I would be done. That goes to show how little I knew about grief.’

‘Promising yourself something at the end of a painful time?’

I explained that the January 2011 email ended a period of limbo. I had sent Kim a Happy New Year message and received no reply. When I checked again, she had sent one saying ‘Hope 2011 is a good year for you,’ which struck me as off.’

I talked about how I had received large amounts of information that I didn’t know what to do with. ‘I could have stopped it, but that wasn’t me.’
Somehow I ended up saying ‘I didn’t need to hear from her mother that she had a hospital appointment, but didn’t want to go, so X carried her down the stairs. A year later, I get an email, she’s gone and X is a pallbearer.’

‘I have a really strong sense of you receiving these ‘packages’ and not knowing what to do with them, so they just got put away. One outcome of all that stuff, all that trauma if you like, is the bathroom scene.’
‘I’ve just realised something.’

‘What have you just realised?’

‘Isolation.’

‘Isolation? Can you explain that a little more for me?’

‘There came a point after…’

‘It’s OK, you can say it.’

‘There came a point after Chris’ death where I moved away from the forum because there was no point being there without her. So, they were the only people I was dealing with.’

I said that the more I looked at the situation, the more I realised that I was trying to recreate what I had with Chris, and that wasn’t possible.

‘A year or so after Chris died, I returned to the adventure centre where I had spent the weekend after her death for a week long residential with friends. I did not want to go and told Kim about this via email. She wrote back and gave me a mouthful…lots of shouty caps, but I brushed it off.’

R and I talked more about how as the situation got more complex it became more difficult for me to reach out for support. ‘Then it became something else entirely.’

‘It’s almost like I am trying to deal with this without actually feeling it. That’s not possible.’

‘A lot of the time I hear you discount the work you are already doing. You are facing this at your own pace, in your own way, and I think you are being really brave.’

‘I don’t envisage this becoming like Chris’ death, but I would like to get to a point where I can sleep at night.’

‘Where it’s not all-consuming?’

‘I think we are going to have to come back to that isolation thing next week.’

‘Are you in a bit of shock?’

‘I don’t know what to do with that new information, and I don’t think it is safe for me to process it on my own. I feel like the deeper I go, the weirder it gets.’

‘As you process this, it is possible that new things will come up. We can work through them together.’

R commented again that she felt more connected with me today, and that I was able to explore deeper territory.
‘It’s taken me long enough to ask for this.’
‘Perhaps it took you a while to realise that was what you needed, and then it took you a while to actually ask for it. It’s a privilege.