At first, I didn’t understand what happened to my best friend. We spoke on a Tuesday and then he was dead on a Thursday.
His death changed me for the worse and the better. In the first few days and weeks, I had to learn how to survive. I now had this word “grieving” that people would understand and respect. I used it in emails and to leave conversations. When you are a functioning depressive, you are able to get by, but only just. And there is always this worry that maybe people won’t believe that you are struggling and need help, because your life isn’t falling apart. All that changed after his death.
I paused my never-ending projects of self-improvement . I couldn’t improve in any way or be productive. I could just survive. When getting out of bed was difficult, I broke things down into threes, to make them manageable: 1) push duvet off; 2) put feet on floor; 3) stand. This was the most I had ever done for my emotional wellbeing and I have my friend to thank for that. When you are the one hurting yourself, you are never safe. It was nice to start to feel safe in my own company again.
Later that day, in Sainsbury’s, a woman with red eyes stretched her whole arm towards the back of a shelf to find the milk with the longest sell-by-date. As shoppers pushed squeaking trolleys past me, squinting in the artificial light, I wondered how anyone gets out of bed in the morning. My friend’s pain began to make sense.