Today I think is the real first day of grieving.  Grieving as though Richard has died and in a way, he has.  The companion of 33 years is slipping away.     It is very hard and I can't stop crying.  I'm sick with crying.  Saw the doc today.  He made me promise I would try and get Richard into respite care for a week to give me a break.  So I've rung but the woman I need to talk to is away.  Probably just as well as I can't talk with blubbering.  Crying now.  Sick of crying.  But suppose it's several years of not crying that is finally erupting, too much pressure over too long a time.  Has to be some release.

Hugged him this morning and his arms around me were those of a stranger uncomfortable with hugging a stranger.  Asked him if he still loved me and he said, "I don't  think so."  Of course, Richard, the Richard of old does love me, somewhere in those burnt out synapses, those well worn channels of comfortable reliable love now truncated.  But there is no going back.  The good old days with my best friend are gone.   I truly am his carer now. 

I'd forgotten how grief feels.  How all encompassing, how exhausting, yet at the same time, how trite.  A mantle of sorrow, a pain behind my eyes, a lethargy and this feeling of sinful self-indulgence, how dare I cry, how dare i conjure up tears with sad thoughts and images and poor me scenarios. 

Today I'll cry.  Tomorrow will be better.