Today started good. I ran my fastest 5k yet (24:02 if you’re interested, whoever you may be), which felt like good progress fitness wise for the marathon. I then went for a really nice coffee with a friend, and had a really good long chat, covering normal life as well as grief. It was great.
Then I drove to Cardiff to go shopping and various things came together to make me sad, after a really good start to the day. I drove to Cardiff full of happiness, singing along to the radio and feeling good. In Cardiff I shopped alone and could have done with someone getting me some different sizes or my mum telling me whether I needed a size down in a pair of jeans. Then I could have done with her telling me whether 5% wool but 95% elastane/polyester is too plastic for a £70 jumper, and whether it would go bobbly after 1 wash. Suddenly every young woman in Cardiff seemed to be shopping with their mum. It made me very sad which was a shame after such a great start to the day.
I met my dad a bit later, at our place near Cardiff. I attempted some work (not very well) while he met a friend and then this evening we went for a meal. I feel lucky to be so close to my dad, we haven’t had to suddenly adjust to being close and I hope that for him it’s not constantly daunting being left parenting his two daughters. He really is the most amazing dad ever. I remember pretty early on after my mum died, my dad and I went for a coffee and i got really upset as there was a mum and daughter having a mother-daughter coffee and I cried at the idea of never having that again. Then I pulled myself together and remembered that I get to go for really nice father-daughter coffees. Today, when I went for coffee with my friend this morning, there were (what I assumed to be) two mums and two daughters breakfasting a couple of tables along from us and I didn’t mind at all. That feels like progress.
Tomorrow I’m running a 7 mile marathon training run, along one of my mum’s training routes. I hope that will be peaceful.