One of my friends passed away on Thursday. She was just thirty.

She leaves behind two young sons and a huge network of family and friends who are still grieving and still in shock.

With two deaths this year so far and one impending and constantly on my mind, it’s a struggle. This death hit me particularly hard even though it was someone I hadn’t spoken to for ages. But she was someone I’d looked up to and respected nearly all my life – was village carnival queen, always had the nicest hair and the biggest smile. Grew into a woman who ran her own successful business, happy, beautiful. Someone who lived her life in a totally reasonable, normal way; not someone who was ever intended to die from cancer in three months.

As usual I’d made plans and lists and all kind of things that I wanted to get done this weekend. What actually happened was that I answered some sales questions from customers and spent most of the rest of the time asleep or with a migraine. I’m definitely under the weather physically as well as mentally, but I’m not sure what’s wrong. I have little bursts of being able to hold it together and then I just want to sleep or the headaches kick in again. I’m exhausted. I need a break.

I’m not normally the kind of person who sleeps in or likes to stay in bed, but yesterday I didn’t get out of bed until 2pm, and then I managed to drag myself to the shop to get some Ibuprofen. I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it back home. I was so lightheaded and delirious I sturggled to cross the road. I had to take a break before I could make the five minute walk back.

Even as I’m typing this I’ve just noticed that there’s a bottle of milk on the living room windowsill. How? Why? I honestly can’t remember.

I’m taking deep breaths and trying to be kind to myself. If I do stupid little things, then I do stupid little things. It’s fine. What I’ve realised over the past week is the bigger picture and what matters in the long run is what’s important. It’s not about someone’s bad driving or the fact that it’s raining or that my fingers are icy cold typing this. We get so wound up about things that don’t matter because that’s what life is made up of, on a small scale. And we distract ourselves from the big things, because they’re the scary things.

Sometimes there’s nothing but storms. But you are still here. Surviving.