Packing up a house easily rates as one of my least favourite past times.

I have been able to get out of it for the last 4 – 5 moves. I pretty much outsourced all packing and unpacking and went with the philosophy that I did not matter where something was unpacked as long as that I was not that someone doing the unpacking.

Unfortunately this time around it needed a lot of sorting and then packing.

The sorting became where all the time was spent.  I had little flashes of “Hoarders” as I rummaged through boxes with old diaries and paperwork, and tried to make the choice of whether to keep or to toss.

I did get a bit more brutal as the hours ticked by.

I spent a lot of time sorting out the garage – the garage had become the storage place of “all the shit we did not know what do do with” and there was quite a lot of stuff to sort through.

There were a lot of boxes that I had not opened since I had moved into this house.

A large part of the interior of the house was painted early last year and I had packed up all the pictures, books and ornaments .  I had to open each box and go through them to see what to keep, and what to toss – the packing was done to get the items out of the way of the painters, and there was no thinking in terms of what would go where and to which type of storage.

Here is the part I did not expect to find.

The life that Kennith and I had.

I found photographs, cards, letters and various other remnants of our life together.

I found the memories of our life in boxes.  In the garage.

Much of it I had forgotten – as you do.  I am not sure if it is just me, but the problem with Divorce – other than it sucking maggot dick, is that it focuses all your attention on the end part.

The part where he says “I want a divorce” and where you do not hear him and carry on talking about the dog.  Until he has to repeat himself and then you start realising that we are not talking about the dog.

My entire being has been trapped in that moment.  From that moment until this moment. That is where I have lived for the last two years or so.

I have existed in THIS space.

I saw photographs in the boxes that reminded me that we had a rich and gorgeous life.

We were happy people, with a lot of interests and things that drove us.  We did stuff, we went away for weekends, we spoke about all sort of things – we did things together, we showed dogs and we loved our dogs.

We had a life.

We had a happy life.

We had a life that was packed with memories.  And stuff.  And things.

I had forgotten it all, because I have been trapped in THIS.

This that is happening RIGHT NOW.

I won’t lie to you.  Moving out of my home, so that Kennith can move in and live with the children is my equivalent of bobbing.

I am not drowning. I am not furiously trying to kick my legs to stay afloat. I am just bobbing.

On the surface.  Face up, the rest of me under the water.

My ability to swim, to try to get anywhere has just evaporated.

I just bob and remain afloat.

Every now and then I get a mouthful of sea water and need to really cough up a lung to breath.  For the most part my eyes are red, and I am weary to the bone.  Tired and cold.

I desperately want people to circle around me and give me support.

I desperately want everyone to go away and just leave me alone.

I want to be with people so I do not feel so alone, so worried, so scared and such a desperate mess.

I want to not see anyone so that I can feel alone, worried and scared without having to give the impression of a “stiff upper lip.”  I want to be my desperate mess without people asking me why my makeup is smudged and my eyes are so red.

Hayfever.  I say. {I don’t suffer from hayfever, but if you give a half way plausible response, most people are happy to leave it at that}

I cannot describe how painful this packing is.  This move is.

I daily question my decision making.  I daily wake up feeling like shit before the day has even started. I heave myself out of bed.

Get vertical.  All you have to do is get vertical, everything else will follow.

I promise you — just get vertical.

I try and fill the hole with marshmallow easter eggs – 20 does not fill the hole, but it does make you feel violently ill a bit later.

I daily feel a panic attack coming on, which I manage to divert by going to lie on my bed and fall into a deep coma like sleep – or just sit and stare into space.

I find car parks are the best for this – no one bothers you and no one comes to ask you anything, you can sit in your car and just zone out.

I know what depression feels like – for me depression has always been a chemical issue.

It would not matter what is happening in my life, when depression came along, I could have just discovered the only true living unicorn who farted glitter and it would still make me feel flat …. absolutely flat.

This is a bit like depression …. but this is more despair, this is more brutal sadness, confusion and worry.

Nothing makes sense, everything feels like it is a right old fcuk up.

I am going through the motions of packing and getting my life ready to move out – to move away from my children.

There is nothing good happening here.

The problem is I am upset.  I take out my being upset and my confusion on the children, which is not exactly the image I wanted to leave with them.

But when they are asleep, I go and tell them how sorry I am and stroke their foreheads a bit.

Tell me again who said being an adult was going to be fun?