Life: I was in Liverpool this afternoon on, with the exception of Mowgli, what turned out to be a wasted trip. Then, this evening, I watched Call The Midwife and House on Netflix. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone but in one of the episodes of Call The Midwife that I watched, a Jewish lady gives a newly bereaved woman the following advice when her boyfriend dies: "you just keep living until you are alive again", which I thought summed up widowhood beautifully. I don't believe there is any 'getting over it' but life does go on and in my experience, if you can stick with it, happiness will begin to fill your days again. There is not a day I don't think about John or miss him but I also recognise that I am much happier than I used to be and I'm coping far better than I ever thought I would.
Career: I have to admit my impending "early retirement" does scare me a little bit. I read somewhere that if the path you've chosen makes you feel scared then you know it's the right path. I don't know how they figure that out! You'd hardly tell someone to walk past a tiger would you! However, there is a part of me that feels calm about it. It does feel right somehow to say 20 years (off and on) as a wage earner is long enough. I can only afford to do this because I collect John's pension of course but I don't believe that, if he could communicate to me, he'd be saying "you have to work". Rather, I believe he'd be somewhat approving and say "Well, I didn't get it. So you may as well make the most of it and enjoy your life". Actually, the other day I had another way of thinking about my situation: I was like a juggler trying to keep too many balls in the air and, eventually, I got worn out and found I couldn't cope with the pressure so I ended up dropping them all. But there is nothing stopping me picking each ball up again - or as many as I want to (and I might even swap some, or all, of the balls for batons!) - when I feel able to.
