Life moves pretty fast

This day has been a difficult one. It started in a very strange way really. I needn’t go into details but I found myself in a spiral of anxiety – incredible levels of adrenaline and an emotional overwhelm that I couldn’t control for a while.

The root cause is grief. The grief at the loss of my lovely wife and my dear Dad within the last 14 months. Cancer both. I am so fed up with that stuff. Those stupid cells who have no idea what they are doing. “Dopeys” as my Jen called them.

I told my boss I was struggling and he was kind and understanding. I went for a walk, booked a GPs appointment and then spoke to an amazing volunteer at CRUSE Bereavement. And then slept for about 4 hours.

So why write this? In one month’s time I begin a sabbatical for a whole year. I want to document this time. I am 42 years old. A widower. I have no one directly dependent on me. But I don’t want to be left behind in life. I want to understand where I find myself.

I just turned 42 last month in fact. In one of my favourite stories, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the ultimate answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. Now the chances that I will understand if this is the case for me within this year are remote. However, I do have one hope. That maybe at the end of it, I will feel just a bit better about where I am or maybe that what comes next won’t feel quite so alien as my life does at the moment.

And so I am going to take Ferris Bueller’s advice and look around for a while. My expectations are low in a strange way, I think life has had too many nasty surprises for me in recent years, but there is a bubbling undercurrent of excitement for my sabbatical. I will try to travel, to write and to watch an awful lot of football. And at the end, maybe anxiety might have just reduced a little and I can think – what next?