Saturday 18th December 2021
We left the beautiful island of Kuredu one week ago, although it feels like longer.
The only thing that alleviated an onset of depression, was knowing that I had my ball of fluff, Toby, to go home to.
On the Thursday, we had dinner in the O resort restaurant, which is on the other side of the island, we sat by the waters edge, watching the sharks swim past, whilst listening to live music.
We had our PCR tests on Friday morning, I managed not to gag and we went back to our villa and sat on the front deck, watching the waves crash onto the beach. If only little Tobes could come with us!
On our last night, we went to one of the al a carte restaurants, the beach shack, which serves vegan and seafood dishes. It was absolutely delicious, one of the best meals we had all holiday, we ate on the beach, drank Sancerre and took in our last evening.
Saturday, we had most of the day still as our seaplane wasn’t until 3pm, but we didn’t want to sit around with sun cream on so we took ourselves to the Akiri bar at checkout time to use the Wi-Fi to complete the paperwork to go home. We needed passenger forms for both Male & the UK and quite frankly, they are a pain in the arse.
I ordered my niece her Christmas present of a ride on horse and am so excited to see her little face open it on Christmas Day.
3pm comes and our seaplane is delayed due to bad weather in Male, I silently pray this is not an indication of how the rest of our journey will be. We end up departing 90 minutes late which actually works out better for us as it gives us less time hanging around male airport.
We board and depart Male on time, phew.
We have a couple of hours layover in Qatar, we shop, have a couple of glasses of wine and then I settle on to the final leg of the journey and manage to sleep for a few hours. The journey home way better than the journey there.
Finally home just before 9am on Sunday morning. I pop a couple of ibuprofen as I have been really suffering with neck and shoulder pain the past few days. I don’t generally like taking tablets but the pain was too much. Not only to I have bad neck ache, it is also covered in acne. This seems to have happened since I went on the pill and this is also quite painful, I feel like I just want to remove my neck!
Being at home without Toby is just plain weird and I find myself longing for Monday morning just so I can get him.
We pick him up at 9am on Monday and he is so pleased to see us. I want to spend more time cuddling him but it’s back to work, thankfully from home.
Before I went away, I found out my friends funeral was to be held on the 23rd December, so even though I was off I messaged my two bosses to let them know, I thought it was the courteous thing to do, given it was over the festive period.
Imagine my surprise when going through my emails, I had one telling me I had to take the funeral as annual leave as policy is it is only for immediate family. I know for a fact that managers can and have given compassionate leave at their discretion, so I was unsure why I was not being given this. If I am honest, it really really upset me.
I didn’t sleep well at all that night and in the end I got up around 5am. I sat and went through my work emails as we have to send an email each morning to say we’re online and an end of day email saying what work has been completed that day (you wouldn’t think we were adults working in the financial industry would you) I had worked 60 extra hours since the beginning of September. 60! And they can’t give me 7 to go to a funeral? I was livid.
I had a catch up with my immediate boss, who I know has not made this decision, but he is the one I vent to.
I spend the rest of the week pretty fucking angry, on Thursday I’m feeling like crap so at midday I log off sick and I do the same Friday.
I speak with my counsellor and after about 10 minutes she says to me “you are so angry aren’t you.” I agree and then burst into tears. I really really am.
I am angry that my beautiful friend has died and has been taken away from me, I am angry that my flight was delayed and caused me stress before I had even got on holiday, I am angry that sat in paradise feeling sad when I had wanted a second chance at a honeymoon, I am angry that the husband cannot read my mind and know how much I am struggling to keep it all together, I am angry that my work are not being supportive or considerate and just keep piling on the workload and most of all I am scared, scared that this is all going to push me back into a place of deep dark depression which is where I do not want to go back to.
She gently reminds me that grieving is not the same as depression, even though it can feel like it and that there is no timeframe on how long it can affect people. She tells me that I should explain to the husband how I am feeling and what I need from him, something I find difficult as I do not like asking for help. I am also going to speak to my work and explain to them how I am feeling, which again isn’t going to be easy.
I have even found writing this post quite difficult but I do feel a bit better for writing it down. I am always conscious that I don’t want to bring other people down, but as I have been recently reminded, there are some people that need to read these things to realise they are not alone.
