So I'm All Better Now,,,, Right?? No?? Well At Least My Hair Looks Good.

Today was our last appointment with our therapist and I'm left wondering,,, am I all better now?

My husband's company has a pretty great benefits scheme which includes grief counseling. They found and paid for a certain number of sessions with a psychologist who lives very close to us. It's not a benefit either of us knew about, but the fabulous folks at the HR department set it all up for us. All we had to do was show up.

Now I have my Bachelors degree in Psychology but up until now I've never actually done any kind of therapy. So even though I have knowledge of what psychologists do, I was still pretty unsure of what to expect during our sessions. I know my husband didn't know what to expect because after the first session he said he didn't think our therapist was any good because she didn't tell what to do, all she did was sit and listen to us talk. I got a pretty big giggle out of that one. You gotta appreciate how men just want to cut to the chase and get the answers fast. So I explained that therapy is a process where we work through our feelings with the guidance of the psychologist and then he got it.

I think that our sessions have really helped us. They allowed us a safe place to talk about our son and how much it hurts that he is not with us. Therapy has also facilitated a lot of talks at home. We have done a pretty good job of sharing our feelings with each other, both in and out of our sessions. I think we both have a better understanding of how each other is coping with our loss and what we can do to support each other. We have a long road ahead of us and we're taking each step together. And we're both open to future sessions if we think we need them at any point going forward.

After the appointment I went to the hair salon for much needed color and highlights. I'm not normally one who lets these kinds of things go as I've got a bit of a vain streak running through me. Roots and straggly ends are not my friends. But the holidays really took it out of me this year and for the first time in memory, I let myself slide on the grooming front. I'm still a bikini wax and a pedicure away from my usual self, but the hair was a great start to my transformation. I love the feeling of walking out of the salon with shiny bouncy hair. It's like being a kid on the first day of school with your new school shoes on. As I walked home I felt like a new woman. A happy one.

So am I all better now? Not even close. But at least my hair looks good!

Pedicures are like magic.

So today I looked down at my toes and realized that I just had to do something about them! We are on vacation so it's not like I can just pop down to my local day spa and get them done. But luckily for me, the resort town we are in has a fantastic place. I had a very relaxing pedicure which lasted for an hour. I could have sat there all day. Plus my toes look human again. Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference.

Blessings and white teeth.

Yesterday contained an interesting combination of events. I suppose in a way it quite fits in with my idea of having a new normal. In the morning I had an appointment to get my teeth whitened. This is something I do every couple of years when I'm visiting home. I know they have dentists in London who whiten teeth, but no one lightens them up quite like an American dentist. Since I'm obsessed with white teeth, this is a must for me!

Then in the afternoon we had an appointment with a priest to have our son's ashes blessed. As a pretty much non-practicing catholic, church is not a place I usually visit outside of Christmas and Easter (OK, being honest I don't always make it even then.). So driving up to the church I went to as a child and also where we got married felt a bit odd. I have to say, there was something so familiar and wonderful about the experience. Of course it was sad, but I also had this overwhelming feeling that we were doing the right thing. The church is on a cliff overlooking the ocean so the priest had us sit outside on a bench and watch the sun set while we were having our talk. It was both beautiful and sad and I'm really glad we did it.

So that was my strange day, a combination of ceremony and vanity. Oh, and in case you were wondering,,, my teeth look great!