My wonderful mother in law died a couple of months ago. The world seems a little duller without her. I miss texting her pretty much daily about stupid things I’d seen people do, and all of the stupid things her son and her granddaughter had done. She had a wonderful sense of fun and sometimes a positively girlish take on the world. We laughed often and at the most mundane of things. Most infamously at things that we couldn’t even remember by the time the laughter had stopped.

Telling my kid her Grandma had died is without doubt the most grown up thing I’ve ever participated in. A million and one emotions flashed across her five and a half year old face, and then she asked to go to the hotel pool.

Fast forward to the day of the funeral and my husband and I are begging her to have a poo. She hadn’t been for a week. She refused to go. If I’d had much hair, I’d have torn it out. Cut to fifteen minutes later… and she’s waddling towards me. Sporting ‘the look’. We queue jump everyone and a minute later, reader, is when I found myself scrubbing a shit print off of the disabled loo floor of a crematorium in Berkshire whilst wearing Celine espadrilles.

The funeral went off without a hitch, much laughter ensued and most importantly, it was a day she would have been throughly proud of. I was also very proud of my kid who behaved for once like the angel she looks like.

Going back to me, because it’s always about me, I have reverted to my usual type. Binge eating and hating myself. I’ve gained six or seven pounds. I’m restarting therapy and I think there will have to be a more holistic approach because I’m misusing the tool that I gave myself almost three years ago. It’s a scary time. And fucking confusing.

I know that tripping and stumbling is ok in life. I just need to make sure that I break my fall correctly, rather than falling flat on my face. Failure isn’t an option.

Big love x