Albert Einstein once said that insanity was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So I try to make every day different but the result is a resounding sameness by the end except for a few bits in the middle.

When James died I went into some sort of cryogenically frozen coma when I awoke some months later I learned there had been a general election, an earthquake in Nepal and an insane pilot had purposefully flown a plane into a mountain killing everyone on board. I didn’t really give any of these things a second thought. I was numb and had been absent for so long. I felt like a bad mother, I’d left my ship. I was like an absentee landlord, needed but so wholly unavailable. I was just going through the motions, one Groundhog day at a time.

If I could offer any advice to anyone in the same position as me it is this:

Do something each day that doesn’t make you wretch with longing. Sometimes it’s reading the newspaper, sometimes it might even be a shower or a cup of coffee. Do these things but a word of warning, in the words of that great Oracle of Knowledge Kendric Lemar- Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes.

For Kelly