The color of infinity inside an empty glass

Tuesdays are always a busy day in our household, and today was no exception.

Jack goes to a 'men's group' called The Dusty Shed. It's a men's over 50's group and they do practical things like woodworking, metalworking, electronics, burning fingers with solder, model making. He's been going for a couple of months and I know he really enjoys connecting with other men his age.

Lucy goes to a schizophrenia group, it's not a therapy thing but a 'self-help' group - sometimes they talk, sometimes they do social activities like bowling... note to self, this is changing to a Monday in May at a later time and a different location, you need to update the calendar.

I go to a bereavement group - it's nice to be able to talk to other people going through the same thing as you, to realise that what you're feeling is perfectly normal. It also helps to not feel like I'm offloading everything on Jack or Lucy. A bit like Lucy's group - it's everything from coffee and cake and someone to talk to, and sometimes we go walking or bowling.

I tried to continue yesterdays theme of saying positive things to people, and one of the younger girls in the group had cut her hair very short and dyed it a beautiful emerald green colour. I told her how nice it looked, how the cut really framed her face and she lit up - she actually started crying and hugged me, and of course, that made me cry.

We talked a lot about strengths and weaknesses, and I found it interesting how we could all really easily identify what we thought were our weaknesses but struggled with our strengths. I don't know how much of this is bereavement/depression vs social conditioning that, especially as a woman, we're told that we shouldn't be strong and celebrate ourselves. Fuck that. I'm organised, I'm efficient, I'm an analytical thinker and a creative problem solver. Jack just looked over my shoulder, read what I'm writing and says I'm a damn good kisser. I'm passionate, caring and easily excited.

I then spent the afternoon helping Jack finally set up the tablet I got him for Christmas - playing around in the app store, finding new things for him to play with. He's also updated his dreamwidth (jackjanderson) for the first time this year and is slowly working his way through his long-abandoned email account. He's got it down from something like 1100 to under 500. I'm hoping he's going to get back into blogging - not for me to read (though I do) but because I know he was enjoying connecting with people online. Like I said earlier, he's a social creature, my husband.

We're now all curled up on the couch - cats included - and watched some Doctor Who on Netflix. I'm pretty exhausted, mentally and emotionally, so I'm thinking I'm going to head to an early bed.

A week without complaining
This is going well. I am so pleased that I have been able to pull my head in, and focus on just getting on with stuff... and not complaining. What does it achieve? So far, so good - and I'm more than halfway through.