Change

For many years my life felt relatively fixed and stable: home, job, family, mortgage, housework, regular trips to visit extended family; sleep, get up, repeat. Every few years something big would change: we’d move house, I’d change jobs, my company was sold and suddenly we had more money, but in general the rhythm of life chugged on around home life, work and family. 

Since Fiddian died, almost everything in my life has changed substantially, and in the coming months it is going to change even more. Some of this is my choosing, some of it is not. I’m trying to accept it all and not fight it. My energy is limited and I need to save it for the things I have control over.

After almost 18 months working at the same company, it’s time to move on. Being in the same job has given me a lot of stability during a turbulent time, but startup world is tumultuous (part of why I like it) and the company and my role has changed completely since I joined. It’s time for me to move back into a role more suited to my capabilities. Not much more I can say about this at the moment, but hopefully soon.

Family was an important but somewhat sporadic focus of mine before Fidd died. Since last October I’ve become much closer to every member of my family and to many members of his family. We speak on the phone or text regularly, and many people visit me or I visit them. I’m sure some of this will change as time moves on and people start to worry about me less but right now having this network of close and extended family members to depend on is very reassurring. In the past I was not the greatest at staying in touch with people, and tended to rely on Fidd to initiate get togethers or messages. I’m still not great at initiating, but I am much better at staying in touch and responding to invitiations. On a recent weekend I had six family folks staying at the house, helping me to prepare for the next big change – me moving out of the old side of the house into the new side.

Things have really been moving over the past six weeks, both outside and inside the house. Early in the year, Dean took away eight (!) lorry loads of building rubble, and then Charlie and Simon, groundworkers, digger drivers, general local heroes, came and transformed the exterior of the property, carefully landscaping the ground, cutting down leggy or rotten trees, laying a bridge across the stream, repairing an ancient and broken fence and taking away piles and piles of rotten wood. This work not only transformed the property, but gave me a big boost. I detest mess, whereas Fiddian was quite ok with it, and having all of the rubbish gone so I could see the lay of the land really made me feel better in general, but also helped me to feel like I was taking charge of the project.

Since then I’ve done a huge amount internally, as well as preparing for the next phase of the project. This has involved working with Tash, my lovely decorator, to transform the inside of the house into a liveable and serene space. Sam has built and fitted the bespoke kitchen that Fiddian envisaged. It’s quite bold and modern looking, which fits the modern new extension interior. After two and a half years of a small, grimy IKEA kitchen, I cannot wait to start cooking in such a luxurious space.

Rob, my wizard electrician (and occasional dogfather to Monty and Dusty) has brought actual electric light and power into the dark side of the house, as well as upgrading me to three-phase throughout. I’ve had to develop actual opinions on light fittings, which I never previously dared to have because Fiddian was so passionate about lighting design. I’ve discovered that I quite enjoy researching light fittings and different lighting styles, but I couldn’t have done anything without Rob’s gentle and very pragmatic advice, which I think has ended up saving me a fortune.

Most recently, on advice from Tom, my builder, I’ve begun to think about and commission the landscaping around the edges of the house including choosing and buying paving slabs and commissioning a lot more tree surgery to bring more light into the new part of the house (in particular Adam and Ed have pollarded an avenue of lime trees that hadn’t been touched in decades and begun to create a flat area outside the extension). At the moment, when you step out of the house, you step into mud, and so having paving slabs and hard landscaping is going to be quite transformational. I might even be able to have a table and chairs outside soon!

Finally, James, my amazing carpenter, has fitted the front door that Fiddian designed. This beast was so big, complicated and expensive that I nearly threw up when I realised how much it was going to cost, but as it was the last thing Fiddian designed before he died, I knew it had to be made. Tim Palin Joinery worked hard to bring this in well below the quote, thank goodness but it is still (hopefully) the most expensive door I’ll ever buy. 

Reading back over this it almost sounds like I’m enjoying myself. At times I definitely am. Continuing on with this project was absolutely the right thing to do; not just because it’s what Fidd wanted, but because it has allowed me to discover that I’m more capable than I thought I was, and that in some ways I’m better at project managing the house build than Fidd. (For a start, I’ve actually done a full budget projection of the remaining works, and so I know what I can afford and what I can’t. We were literally working blind when Fidd was in charge, which used to give me nightmares.)

On the other hand, these past weeks have been my hardest yet. At times I’ve felt almost at the point of despair. I would give up everything in a second to get Fiddian back, and this realisation sometimes makes all this progress feel hollow. Each little achievement is one more thing that he doesn’t get to see or enjoy: a cruelty too vast to fully comprehend. In a few days it will be six months since he died. The pain seems to get stronger rather than ease. All I can do is hope that one day I will feel ok again, and until then all I can do is just keep going.