When things fall apart.
Or, stay together.
Or, the bolts and parts of us that keep the other parts together and going.
Perhaps falling apart is staying together in some way.
And, what it it to fall apart anyway?
Back to entropy.

Anyway ... whatever.
Today I rang the doc and was signed off.
I didn’t know how else to make it stop.
All just so relentless.
Which particular straw breaks the camel’s back?
Was it Teddy?
Was it trying to sort all the paperwork, the funeral, another loss, all the endless sorting, all the internecine conflict, the exhaustion, the body seizing up, all the returning home and realising all there is still here, after all these years, leading up to the anniversary of G tomorrow, sorting through all P’s writing and photos, not being allowed any requested unpaid leave, the final clearance and letting go of the house, the loss of sense of place and connection, the straight back into it, the expectation of yet another course to show a box ticked off, the stacking up of the diary, the sudden albeit limited return to face to face, the crying before starting work, the crying in between, the relief when it stopped, the remembering when I started out all those years ago that I thought the only way I could take this on was knowing there was the solidity of P and then 2 months later he had his diagnosis, keeping going through his illness and death, keeping going after, keeping going with mum and dad’s long decline, keeping going after, and then all the sorting, the endless, interminable sorting, stuff, so much stuff, constant and unending, saturating, weighing heavily, ever more heavily, body seizing and exhausted, the person on Monday who said they felt they could trust, after a lifetime of guilt and shame, the feeling of fraud, misplaced, panic of such limited session time. The concertinaed slow motion car crash.
I spoke to the doc, rang the last appointment to re-arrange, finished a referral, notified the central sick line and line manager, and stopped and walked out into the last light of the day and breathed in air.