These old ghosts

Bruce will be on his way to catch his flight to Zambia, and as the bedroom grows incrementally dimmer, I have to consciously keep a rising sense of panic from taking over and making the evening far more unpleasant than it needs to be.

I enjoy my own company much more than I used to, but I have always struggled with being on my own for any real length of time (somewhat ironically, for many years this fear of being alone piggybacked a crippling agoraphobia, which made it nearly impossible to resolve). The familiar setting of home starts to take on a sinister quality and I begin to worry about security when I'm at my worst. At best I'm on autopilot, waiting out the isolation and not really able to concentrate on anything.

I keep having to remind myself that I'm the adult now, and that Hartley is relying on me not to fall into an obsessive stupor about it and lose control of the situation, so okay. Soon I will turn on some lights and the television, draw the curtains and double-check the locks and then it's business as usual until Bruce gets home on Sunday - Mother's Day in the UK.

I was going to take Hartley to the art cinema near East Finchley Station where they are holding a baby-friendly screening of Wendy and Lucy, and I still might do that, but he's been more difficult to settle today and lately all my little tricks have been failing miserably. I know there will likely be at least one other person there in an even worse predicament but I'm not sure that it's worth the effort of finding out.

I'm fairly certain I've got a friend coming to stay on Thursday, and Friday is my postnatal group which is set to spill over into lunch, but there are still some unsettling hours to get through tonight. Completely aside from my general dislike of incidental solitude, I really do hate to be apart from Bruce. I'm glad that Hartley loves (needs) to be held, in any case, as it's a comfort to me as well.